14 DAY TRIAL // Even though it previously believed otherwise, AMD has recently stated that the introduction of faster accelerated processing units with integrated graphics cores will cannibalize the sales of low-end discrete graphics cards.
“In the long run, parts of [the graphics cards] business will be cannibalized and the low-end discrete GPUs will be replaced with Fusion-type products,” said Thomas Seifert, interim chief executive officer of AMD, who was cited by Xbit Labs.
“This is all goodness for us because it replaces low-cost margin revenue with high-gross margin revenue,” concluded AMD's CEO, during the company's latest conference call with financial analysts.
AMD has released its first accelerated processing units based on the Llano architecture on June 30, and its initial lineup consisted of seven mobile processors that feature two or four computing cores with base frequencies ranging between 1.4GHz and 2.1GHz.
However, all of these chips pack integrated Radeon HD 6000 graphics cores, which include between 400 and 240 shader processors clocked at either 400MHz or 444Mhz.
On the desktop front, AMD's Llano lineup so far comprises the A8-3850 and the A6-3650 APUs, which feature a quad-core design.
Both of these get Radeon HD 6000 integrated graphics, but the A8-3850 includes 400 stream processors clocked at 600Mhz, while its smaller brother includes 320 shaders that work at 443Mhz.
Previously, AMD believed that low-end discrete graphics cards will survive despite the introduction of even faster APU designs.
According to estimates provided by sources familiar with AMD's plans, the company expects FM1 APUs to account for around 45% to 50% of the company's total processor shipments in the third quarter of this year.
In 2012, AMD is expected to introduce an even faster APU design, code named Trinity, which will pair together up to four Bulldozer-based processing cores with an integrated GPU that uses the VLIW4 graphics architecture.