AMD recently reported that its first Fusion APUs has been selling like crazy. Reports are now coming on the next generation Fusion platform for the mid-range. According to reliable sources motherboards for the Fusion A series (Llano) will be on the way to the press in the coming weeks and bring support for USB 3.0 and Hybrid CrossFireX.
The Llano architecture builds on AMD’s classic K10.5 CPU cores, but brings lots of news. The biggest difference from current Phenom processors is the integrated graphics processor. With up to 400 stream processors and DirectX 11 support AMD has focused hard on graphics performance with the new mid-range chips. Also the CPU cores have been optimized and will support Turbo Core 2.0 for automatic overclocking of the cores.
The Fusion A series of APUs will launch this Summer and with these we will also see two dedicated chipsets, AMD A75 and AMD A55. The former is the performance chip bringing SuperSpeed USB 3.0. Motherboards with the A75 chipset will bring no less than four USB 3.0 connectors and six SATA 6.0 Gbps ports, connected directly to the chipset without the need for discrete controllers.
The AMD A55 chipset will be a toned down model that has to settle for USB 2.0 and SATA 3.0 Gbps, something which of course can be improved by motherboard makers, but through discrete controllers.
We can also confirm that AMD’s new chipsets supports Hybrid CrossFireX. A technology that has been in the news for some time and that AMD has hinted will come with Llano. Exactly how Hybrid CrossFireX acts with Llano isn’t entirely clear, but the technology allows the integrated GPU to cooperate with discrete graphics cards for better performance.
The first test platforms for the press should arrive in the coming weeks, but the launch of AMD Fusion A looks to happen in July at first, or as late as August. The final date will not be set until a later date.
