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  • codedivine - Saturday, May 4, 2013 - link

    The AMD APUs might very well be Kabini instead of Richland? Wouldn't that make more sense in a netbook-ish form factor?
  • Dustin Sklavos - Saturday, May 4, 2013 - link

    I'd bet cash money those AMD APUs are Kabini.
  • JarredWalton - Saturday, May 4, 2013 - link

    You're probably right. I forget that AMD is releasing an updated lower power APU sometimes. Honestly, I hope it's not Kabini and instead is a low power Richland -- at least, that's my feeling unless Kabini ends up being far more impressive than I'm expecting. Doubling of Brazos performance would still be "too slow" in my book, though I suppose it can't possibly be worse than the Clovertrail tablets. :-p
  • Dustin Sklavos - Saturday, May 4, 2013 - link

    I'd almost rather see Kabini than a low-power Richland. It's my understanding the low-power Trinity is so hamstrung that it pretty much fails at both of its jobs. Kabini is designed for this kind of work and might fare better.
  • Cow86 - Saturday, May 4, 2013 - link

    From what I read elsewhere Acer is actually going silly on this, and putting in Temash instead of Kabini...the A6-1450 to be exact. http://www.tomshardware.com/news/Acer-Aspire-Temas... for example listed it before. No idea why, I think Kabini would be a far better fit, but there ya go.
  • frogger4 - Saturday, May 4, 2013 - link

    Well, it's a netbook - just a very fancy looking and better-than-clovertrail netbook then!
  • kirilmatt - Saturday, May 4, 2013 - link

    Temash is better then most people think, at the same clock speed early benchmarks show it has the same power as an i3 ULV when both of them are at 1.4Ghz. Kabini and Temash both have "jaguar" cores. Personally I hope its kavari but I doubt it. Id prefer Temash over Kabini because of much better power efficiency. It only has a TDP of 5.9W vs 17W for Intel's ULV CPUs
  • MadMan007 - Saturday, May 4, 2013 - link

    The way to think of Temash is as the replacement for the lower-end C series Ontario processors. They aren't *bad*, especially not for the time they came out, but that was a while ago now. The possible Intel versions might be Clovertrail, which wouldn't be very compelling, but I think BayTrail will outperform Temash in every way.
  • kirilmatt - Sunday, May 5, 2013 - link

    Temash doesn't replace the C series. Temash replaces the Z series tablet chips. Kabini replaces the C series. The Hondo Z-60 competes very well with clover trail with about equal CPU performance even when clover trail is clocked 80% higher and about 5x better iGPU performance. Temash should compete well with baytrail and will be released well before it. Temash will certainly beat it when it comes to graphics. Also Brazos is extremely successful for AMD, its their best selling CPUs ever. While they aren't powerful they are still very competitive in the low end market
  • kirilmatt - Saturday, May 4, 2013 - link

    Why richland? Kavari would be so awesome but I don't think that's happening. Temash, which another article says is what this notebook will use is just as powerful CPU performance as a ULV i3, not too shabby! I'm hoping that AMD gets out ULV Kavari asap, that should be awesome!
  • Wolfpup - Wednesday, May 8, 2013 - link

    I've actually got a c50 that's about as slow as Brazos got, and it's...well, it runs full Windows 7 faster than these ARM chips run iOS or Android (and the drivers seem to work well). Considering the dirt cheap price, it's actually kind of impressive from a certain perspective (and I'd take it over Atom).

    Surprised something like that hasn't been showing up in tablets (save for that one that I guess hasn't shipped yet).
  • kirilmatt - Saturday, May 4, 2013 - link

    I'm pretty sure it's temash, which will be a tablet chip. It has a TDP of 5.9W, has CPU performance of an Intel i3 ULV and GPU performance much better then Intel.
  • Bob Todd - Saturday, May 4, 2013 - link

    That would be great, but I'll believe it when I see it. I've suffered with Brazos personally, and if this thing is closer to a regular generational improvement it won't be anywhere near ULV i3 performance. Hell a 1.4GHz ULV Sandy Bridge Celeron is a good ~50% faster than a 1.6GHz Bobcat (both dual core). Unless they have HUGE IPC improvements in the bag it's still going to be too slow even for a general computer use.
  • MadMan007 - Saturday, May 4, 2013 - link

    I'll believe it when I see it too, limited and very specific situations aside. By AMDs own statements, Kabini will only be about 20-25% faster than Zacate counting IPC and clockspeed gains. I have a hard time figuring out how that will be better than an i3, let alone how Temash will be better.
  • kirilmatt - Sunday, May 5, 2013 - link

    http://www.planet3dnow.de/cgi-bin/newspub/viewnews...
    The link isn't in English but it shows cinebench scores for temash and all that. While I don't believe it will beat an i3 or anything like that it has a TDP more then 3x lower, its a full SOC and will have better GPU performance then an i3. 20-25% CPU performance increase is nothing small, Intel is only offering 5-10% for Haswell. In any case Kaveri will be competing with Intel's "Core" processors. AMD is not sitting still and I think that they will become very competitive again this year.
  • MrSpadge - Sunday, May 5, 2013 - link

    Large percentage increases in performance are nothing if you start from a very slow basis. And Cinebench is perfectly multithreaded, which is the best-case scenario for Kabini/Temash quad cores. In single threaded performance it will probably still be a dog (although a slightly larger one), so the systems still won't feel fast.
  • MadMan007 - Sunday, May 5, 2013 - link

    25% looks like it's spot-on from the results in Cinebench single-thread and accounting for core count in multi-thread. Maybe AMD's estimate was 'per core' although I'd be a little surprised if the marketing people didn't use an opportunity to skew things because of more cores ;) (Also, I think it's fair to look only at the 1.0GHz results because C-60 and C-70 have clockspeed boosting too...C-50 wasn't used in very many products.)

    The power draw, more integrated SoC, and additional instructions are nice bonuses and if Temash actually shows up in tablets that would be great. As for 25% being 'good'...it is, but it should also be expected given how long ago Bobcat came out. Haswell might only be 5-10% over Ivy Bridge, but it's at least 20% over what Intel had at the time Bobcat came out.
  • kirilmatt - Monday, May 6, 2013 - link

    But bobcat never competed against IB or SB. Really Intel still doesn't have anything that competes with brazos. Atom comes close but in laptops at a low price point Brazos is king. Temash is going to be put in tablets. AMD has already said stuff about having OEMs on board unlike Hondo. It's also getting released well before BayTrail. MrSpadge brazos is very competitive single core performance with atom. Hondo has a much higher IPC then clovertrail. It's only bulldozer/piledriver that have lower IPC then Intel
  • madmilk - Saturday, May 4, 2013 - link

    4GB of DDR3 on a GT 750M... that's just idiotic. A 512MB GDDR5 version would probably be faster.
  • SetiroN - Saturday, May 4, 2013 - link

    Indeed. I'd rather have all that memory dedicated to the CPU; midrange+ notebooks with 4 if not even 2GB of system RAM need to die.
  • Meaker10 - Saturday, May 4, 2013 - link

    Acer NEVER uses gddr5.
  • Anonymous Blowhard - Tuesday, May 7, 2013 - link

    Incorrect, the TimelineU M5 had a GT640M LE with 1GB of GDDR5.
  • frogger4 - Saturday, May 4, 2013 - link

    Seriously - that's more than half the size of RAM of a GTX Titan, but slow as a turtle.

    I have the 2GB DDR3 version of the 650M, which is disappointing - I would much prefer to have had the 1GB GDDR5 version. I suspect it may be marketing at work - 2GB something or other sells better than 1GB something or other.
  • MrSpadge - Sunday, May 5, 2013 - link

    Yeah, it's really just "to have the bigger GBs".
  • MrSpadge - Sunday, May 5, 2013 - link

    Agreed - a GT740M with 1 GB GDDR5 would run circles around this.
  • TINMANAT - Saturday, May 4, 2013 - link

    so what's the value proposition? how much will they cost?
  • SetiroN - Saturday, May 4, 2013 - link

    Read the last sentence.
  • lukarak - Saturday, May 4, 2013 - link

    Look at the keyboard, especially the keys around the Enter key and the left shift. Compare the top two pictures which are international, and lower pictures, which have US layouts. Why can't they just produce two different chassis for the US and international versions so they don't have to pile up the keys like that.
  • SetiroN - Saturday, May 4, 2013 - link

    Who knew 14-15" touchscreens could add 150g? Is that sarcastic? :P
  • JarredWalton - Sunday, May 5, 2013 - link

    No I'm serious. I would have thought the "touch" layer might add 50g or less, but I suppose it's far more than a thin layer -- maybe additional glass even?
  • Tams80 - Saturday, May 4, 2013 - link

    These look very interesting. I'm holding out for Kaveri, but it's nice to see some AMD options. The Intel/Nvidia options aren't half bad either and the design while nothing to write home about isn't too bad. 1080p IPS is always welcome as well.

    I suppose I could complain about the 16:9 aspect ratio and a lack of media keys, but I can't see either of those coming back (1920x1200 would make me buy one in an instant though).

    Now, 14" or 15.6"? Hummm...
  • kirilmatt - Saturday, May 4, 2013 - link

    The AMD ones will be much more power efficient from another article it will use temash. 5.9W TDP for temash and 17W for intel ULV
  • MrSpadge - Sunday, May 5, 2013 - link

    Don't mix up "power efficiency" and "power draw". Just comparing TDPs neglects the performance difference.
  • kirilmatt - Monday, May 6, 2013 - link

    I understand that, however Temash is only slightly slower then an intel i3 but is 3 times more power efficient. I'm pretty sure that's much better performance per watt as well as much lower power draw
  • kirilmatt - Saturday, May 4, 2013 - link

    I'm waiting for Kaveri too
  • MadMan007 - Saturday, May 4, 2013 - link

    I'd take a 14" Kabini with a 1080p screen and without a crippled DDR3 GPU (so 'APU' only) for ~$450. I'd also be willing to pay more for an i3 assuming Intel's graphics are competitive with the APUs, which I expect they will be.
  • kyuu - Sunday, May 5, 2013 - link

    At the low-end, I'm pretty sure Intel absolutely won't be competitive with AMD's APU as far as graphics are concerned. The only arena I expect Haswell to compete with AMD's APUs in graphically is with the full-power chips.
  • Alexvrb - Monday, May 6, 2013 - link

    Yeah especially the desktop GT3e models soldered to a board. Too bad you can't upgrade it without chucking the mainboard down the road.

    Not that I am ready to move my desktop to integrated graphics any time soon, but I've upgraded my CPU once on just about every board I've owned. Except for a crappy socket 478 board with a non-HT Northwood in it. There was practically no upgrade path for that piece of garbage, certainly none that were cost effective even for a DIYer.
  • kirilmatt - Monday, May 6, 2013 - link

    It might be somewhat competitive with Richland APUs but it most certainly will not be with Kaveri APUs.
  • HisDivineOrder - Saturday, May 4, 2013 - link

    Typical Acer. DDR3 instead of GDDR5 even when it makes no sense to penny-pinch THAT much. Honestly, maybe Intel Iris really will be better for us all since (at least at first) it'll just be Iris Pro or it won't, no jerking people around.

    Then again, I'm sure the OEM's will whine to Intel and eventually they took will get their own way to "trick" consumers.
  • piroroadkill - Tuesday, May 7, 2013 - link

    I'd love a goldilocks size - 13", 1600x900. I have a Sony Vaio Z, and the only laptops I can find that come close to replacing it like for like are Sony Vaio S.

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