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Accelerated Processing Unit (APU)

fiveub

fiveub

fiveub

OcUK Staff
Joined
12 Apr 2008
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What are your thoughts on these? I was personally looking into them for a small HTPC build with the odd games on which I can use with an Xbox controller which I could play in my living room.

Looking at the Hexus page here about APUs they look quite cool http://hexus.net/static/apu/

What are your thoughts on APUs?

Would be ace to play Dungeon Defenders in my living room on the big screen. :D
 
If you have an Andriod phone use unified remotw to interface with your htpc.

I think there fine for htpc use but a lot of us have 1080p tv's so if you want to play anything demanding like f1, Dirt etc on it your still going to need a decent video card.
 
APUs are a great product for laptops. Relatively low power consumption with a 'fast enough' processor and usable graphics.
The CPU doesn't compete with Ivy Bridge at all, but the entire package delivers.

Saying that, not having proper VRAM really hurts the graphics performance.

Unless you have no other option, get a dedicated graphics card in your HTPC.
 
Additional circuitry on an x86 chip to let it work out gpu friendly tasks better is a good thing, if software doesn't need to be compiled with it in mind. Otherwise it would be something that sits idle.

I don't think that's what the APU is though. After reading through the links, I'm fairly sure this is a standard gpu & cpu on one die effort, possibly with slightly better integration between the two. That is, I think the APU is primarily there to draw pictures.

As such, my thoughts are that AMD have done some clever marketing here. Talking about their GPU expertise is certainly a better idea than talking about their lack of expertise in processor design. This sounds like a new, clever thing that Intel don't have- pretty sure it's not though.

Sorry :(
 
were allowed to link to hexus now?
in the past links have been removed because virtually every review has links to competitors , even that page does if you scroll down
 
My wifes laptop is a A4-xxxx (cant remember the actual speed)
It plays Skyrim on med settings more that adequately and i'd happily use it should my desktop ever die! Not bad for a laptop that cost £220!


Its impressed me enough to question why anyone would buy an Intel system unless it has a dedicated GPU!
i5's and i7's are just wasted if all you can run is Office and Facebook.
And now more and more apps are making use of gpu's it makes them all the more desirable.


Wasn't the banning of Hexus a personal one to Spie? i guess now he's gone there is no reason to ban a review site??
 
I have a APU laptop and I am glad. I actually found it so good I sold my i3 laptop. I 'feel' like I can do more with the APU, games on the i3 with integrated graphics where a massive struggle, even something like World of Warcraft but with the APU I managed to get much higher FPS and the whole laptop cost like £150 less than what I paid for the i3...

In general day to day stuff such as word processing I notice no difference at all.
 
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