AMD has just launched its second Fusion APU family, codename Llano, and with a focus on the mid-range the AMD A series has turned the integrated graphics market upside down, which has forced AMD to admit that APUs is killing the market for discrete budget graphics cards.
During a Q&A with analysts at the latest conference call interim VP Thomas Seifert explained the company views on its products. Seifert then brought up its discrete budget graphics cards as an example of how the market will change in the future, which will benefit AMD.
“But we also said that in the long run, parts of this business will be cannibalized and the low-end discrete GPUs will be replaced with Fusion-type products. And this is all goodness for us because it replaces low-cost margin revenue with high-gross margin revenue,” commented Thomas Seifiert.
AMD has major plans for its APU venture and already the first APUs are starting to steal shares from the traditional graphics cards, which became extra clear when we tested the entry model of the A series. AMD A6-3650 is a quad-core APU with an integrated Radeon HD 6530D GPU and with a price tag around 90€ this “processor” packs enough graphical punch to compete with Radeon HD 6450 at a retail price of 40€.
AMD’s budget graphics will soon be overshadowed by the Fusion APUs
When AMD rolls out the second generation APUs we should see a clear change in its entry models on the graphics card market.
