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AMD launches Fusion for Gaming utility

by Scott Bicheno on 18 September 2008, 05:15

Tags: AMD (NYSE:AMD), ATi Technologies (NYSE:AMD)

Quick Link: HEXUS.net/qapec

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Danger of confusion

Fusion for Gaming was demonstrated to journalists over the web by the awesomely named AMD boffins Brent Barry and Casey Gotcher. HEXUS.channel asked Barry why they had chosen the name. "This is just one small piece of an overall AMD discussion about Fusion," he said. "We want people to understand that Fusion means bringing all the pieces together to improve the overall PC experience."

We then asked Gotcher what the commercial implication of this product launch is to AMD. "The benefit to us is in making the overall gaming experience better and making the overall solution better. We want the AMD Game brand to have meaning." On a more pragmatic level: Fusion for Gaming will only run on PCs with AMD CPUs and graphics.

On a corporate level, it looks like AMD has decided that Fusion is the word it wants consumers to associate with it and will be making as much noise as its marketing budget allows to bring that about in the coming months.

The challenge AMD faces is that Fusion now stands for the APU concept, a piece of software and an overall corporate identity. There's a danger that attempting to juggle all three balls at once will just end in confusion.

 



HEXUS Forums :: 7 Comments

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My 6 year old son and I got the chance to test this “bad boy” gaming utility out last weekend on a newly built gaming desktop and Puma notebook and was surprised in a few areas and met expectations in other areas.
Go on, elaborate! ;)
I'm almost tempted to buy an AMD system now.
They've hooked me in with the graphics, now if only they could just pump out a chip that comes close to i7, and I'd be happy to go full AMD on my next upgrade.
Will101
Go on, elaborate! ;)
Net-net, I got the expected experience and performance bump on the desktop side because it initiated AMD and ATI Overdrive. I got an unexpectedly high bump on the notebook side which doesn't use Overdrive which I am primarily attributing primarily to all the foreground and background tasks being shut down. Your mileage will vary :>.

Desktop:
  • 3DMark: 3D Mark: 15% overall score improvement in 3DMarks
  • World In Conflict: Based on the setting, improvements in frame rates were 55% for the “average” setting, 157% for the “minimum” setting and 116% for the “maximum” setting
  • Lost Planet: 5.8% “Snow” and 24% “Cave” scene frame rate improvement
  • Call of Duty 4 and Crysis, saw about a 23-29% improvement in frame rates


Notebook:
  • 3D Mark:8.9% improvement in 3DMark
  • World In Conflict: Based on the setting, improvements in frame rates were 140% for the “average” setting, 600% for the “minimum” setting and 53% for the “maximum” setting
  • Lost Planet: No improvement in frame rates

Desktop configuration: AMD Phenom X4 9850 processor, ATI Radeon HD 4870 graphics, Foxconn A7DA-S motherboard (BIOS 81BF1P03) with 790GX chipset and SB 750, 1GB Seagate hard drive (7200 RPM), 2GB Corsair XMS2 RAM, ATI Catalyst Control Center 8.8, AMD OverDrive 2.1.4.

Notebook configuration: Toshiba L305D-S5873, AMD Turion X2 RM-70 processor, ATI Radeon 3100 graphics, 2GB RAM, 160GB (5400RPM) hard drive, ATI Catalyst Control Center 8.8.

Again, all the details on my blog. blogs.amd.com/patmoorhead
The theory was that the CPU and GPU would be fused into one super processing unit and that only AMD would be able to do it thanks to the ATI acquisition

Not like nVidia have been doing the same for ages with their nTune utility if you had a nVidia motherboard and graphics card.

Only difference with this is, the ATI one will close non-needed processes for you………Wowzers

So, basically, its a glorified overclocking utility with process manager. I see nothing at all that would justify calling it a “fusion of CPU of GPU”. Talk about marketing BS.