AMD has been shown to be working on tablet models ever since last year

Feb 28, 2014 07:59 GMT  ·  By

Like most self-respecting companies out there, AMD has also started to work on a tablet project on its own. And at MWC 2014, the chip-company showed a pretty interesting reference model that, among other things, ran Windows 8.1 64-bit.

First word of an AMD tablet surfaced back in November, when it was uncovered that the company had a secret slate project which had been dubbed “Project Discovery.” It was also said the prototype had already won a CES 2014 innovation award and since then we managed to take a glimpse at the slate in the wild.

Most importantly “Project Discovery” bundles AMD‘s next-gen Mullins processor, which is supposed to be a low-power chip that consumes as little as 2 watts of energy while the device is at full speed.

“Project Discovery” is a Windows 8 tablet that was shown to be running the 64-bit OS version on the grounds of the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. The tablet can be bundled with a game controller, that AMD hopes it will help provide competition for professionals gaming equipment markets like Razer.

AMD’s is the not the first company to come up with a gaming tablet that boasts an integrated game controller, but it’s still among the first products in the field (think of the WikiPad and Razer Edge).

It was previously stated in the press that AMD’s “Project Discovery” might go as far as to become the downfall of gaming consoles.

Back in December it was announced that the chip maker has purchased 3D gaming specialist Geometrics, a company specialized in delivering photo-realistic graphics for games like Battlefield 4, Medal of Honor: Warfight, Eve Online, Inquisition and Primal Carnage.

Geometrics is the inventor of a technology, called the Enlighten system supposedly capable of rendering lighting and shadows in a very competent way. Basically that’s possible, because Enlighten will use a mathematically correct pattern to automatically cast shadows.

The tablet could be "Project Discovery"
The tablet could be "Project Discovery"
Anyway, the “Project Discovery” might end up to be a fierce competitor to the tablet NVIDIA is cooking up, which runs on the Tegra K1 processor (a 192-core super chip bundled with NVIDIA Kepler architecture).

Going back to what was put on display at MWC 2014, the slate AMD showcased (we’re not sure if it’s “Project Discovery” or something completely new) ran on a 1.2GHz quad-core AMD processor (based on the 28nm Mullins chip) combined with 2GB of RAM and backed up by a 60GB of mSATA SSD (via Fudzilla).

The slate is actually a 10-incher coming with an HD resolution (1920 x 1080 pixels) and it supports USB 3.0 and mini Display port via Lighting Bolt.

This particular reference design was produced by Quanta. AMD also stated more tablets running on the 28nm AMD APU will be coming soon and MSI’s W30 (with AMD A4 1200 processor) is one of the first to grace the market.

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Quanta-made AMD tablet shows up in Barcelona
The tablet could be "Project Discovery"
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