14 DAY TRIAL // AMD's Phil Hester has commented a lot regarding the Fusion project in the last days. On one occasion we found out that first working prototypes of Fusion may hit the retailers in the end of 2009 so it's safe to assume that mass release will happen no sooner than 2010.
"The first fusion CPUs will be available in prototype in late 2008 and in production in late 2009," said Hester. Fusion processors "are expected in late 2008/early 2009. We've already, through discussions with our customers, reached agreement that the best place to initially focus this is the notebook space. That is where you get the most benefit of the efficiencies from a power standpoint and also from a physical area standpoint".
There is no need for Fusion now (or so everyone thinks). It's just that GPUs are in the same position as FPUs were two decades ago when they were integrated into the CPU for the first time.
"If you went back to the early PC platforms in the mid-1980s with the 286 generation, you had an open socket next to it for the 287 math coprocessor, and at that time, a very small fraction of the population ever bought that math coprocessor because the applications didn't demand it. The same thing happened with the 386 processor, although you had 20% of people using it. And then the 486 integrated that as a standard part of every microprocessor, driven by the fact that the operating system and the applications demanded it," Mr. Hester said.
He also claimed: "Essentially every client you see now is going to have a decent level of 3D graphics capability? If you look at the things driving that, whether it's business information rendering or entertainment, by the 2009 time frame, just about every PC is going to have to have some level of 3D graphics. Not just the top end of the enthusiast market, but it is going to be a standard PC experience without having to incur the cost and efficiency hit of using a separate graphics card."