IT-Code-News: IT News Head Lines (AnandTech) 11/15/2013

AMD 2014 Mobile APU Update: Beema and Mullins

Today AMD is taking the wraps off their upcoming mobile APUs, joining the already discussed desktop Kaveri. While Kaveri will also be coming to laptops at some point in the first half of 2014, the focus during the mobile APU briefing was squarely on the replacements for the current Temash and Kabini APUs, codenamed Mullins and Beema.
We looked at Kabini earlier this year, but while sales of laptops and tablets with the Kabini/Temash APUs have reportedly been quite good, we haven’t had the chance to test any retail laptops. With Intel’s Bay Trail set to give Atom a much-needed kick in the pants as far as performance is concerned, AMD hasn’t been standing still and their next generation of “small core” APUs looks ready to give Silvermont some stiff competition. Here’s what we know right now.
First and foremost, these are actually new cores as opposed to mere tweaks of existing designs. Temash and Kabini used “Jaguar” cores, built on a 28nm process node; Mullins and Beema will also use 28nm technology, with “Puma” cores, but along with improvements to the design to reduce the power use, AMD is also incorporating an ARM Cortex-A5 core with TrustZone technology to help with security. Here’s the quick overview of the current and roadmap:

AMD hasn’t disclosed how much the underlying architecture has changed, and I would guess the Puma cores are actually quite similar to Jaguar cores, but the net result is a 2X improvement in performance per Watt according to AMD. They arrive at that number by dividing the performance in a few common benchmarks by the rated TDP of the APUs. Now that’s a bit contrived, as a 25W TDP APU may not actually be drawing 25W during the tests, but we’ll just ignore the marketing for now and focus on the important metrics. Update: It sounds like most of the performance gains come from frequency increases, while power improvements happen at the SoC level.
First, we have Beema replacing Kabini, and with the change we get the AMD Security Processor (ARM Cortex-A5) and a reduction in TDP on some parts, with 10W being the minimum. Mullins does the same for Temash, only AMD uses SDP (Scenario Design Power) rather than TDP (Thermal Design Power), and the new APUs are ~2W compared to 3-4W for Temash. Apparently the TDP for Temash is 8W and the TDP for Mullins is 4.5W, and that’s what AMD uses for their performance per watt calculations.
While a “2X increase” sounds good, there are many ways to get there. Simply dropping the power use by half but maintaining performance would be one way, or doubling performance at the same power use would yield the same 2X increase. Thankfully, AMD provided details of their performance testing for the old and new APUs as well, which I’ve summarized in the table below, and we can see that performance has increased quite a bit along with the drop in TDP.

AMD APU Performance Results
	Temash A6-1450 (8W)	Mullins (4.5W)	%Increase	Kabini A6-5200 (25W)	Beema (15W)	%Increase
PCMark 8 Home	1343	1809	35%	1861	2312	24%
3DMark 11	468	570	22%	685	823	20%

Even if we completely ignore the TDP aspect, the performance improvements coming with the new Mullins and Beema APUs look to be quite good. The iGPU performance is up around 20% for both the low-power Beema and the ultra-low-power Mullins APUs, while the CPU/overall performance is a more substantial 35% increase with Mullins and 24% with Beema.
AMD hasn’t disclosed clock speeds or anything else for the upcoming APUs, but given A6-1450 is clocked at 1000-1400MHz with the GPU core running at 300-400MHz, it is possible AMD was able to arrive at the above performance increases simply with higher clock speeds. Also possible is that similar to the Bobcat to Jaguar transition, AMD tweaked other elements of the Puma core (e.g. the scheduler could have more entries).
Core counts on the CPU side have remained the same: 2-4 cores. With the lower SDP of Mullins, AMD also notes that fanless quad-core tablets and laptops will now be possible, which definitely opens some additional doors. When we looked at Kabini performance (granted in a 15W TDP), we found the CPU performance was typically well ahead of Atom at the time, and even Silvermont/Bay Trail are only moderately ahead (and in some cases still slower). How things shake out with Mullins in the 2W market will be something to watch.
While we don’t know if the iGPU has added any additional cores, it remains GCN based and very likely uses the same cores as before, only with higher clocks. Consider that AMD’s GCN architecture breaks things down into Compute Units (CUs) with 64-cores per CU. The existing Kabini/Temash APUs have two CUs and 128 cores, while Hawaii as an example includes a staggering 44 active CUs in the R9 290X; Kaveri goes for the middle ground with up to 8 CUs (512 cores). In order to increase the number of cores in Beema/Mullins, AMD would have to make the jump from 2 to 3 CUs, a 50% increase; given the ~20% performance increases above, it’s far more likely these come from the same number of cores/CUs running at higher clocks than more cores running at lower clocks.
Wrapping things up, there are a few other items we wanted to quickly touch on. First is Kaveri for notebooks, which as noted above will be shipping in H1’14. Kaveri is a GCN 1.1 part, similar to Hawaii only with fewer cores, and it also supports HSA features and AMD’s new TrueAudio. Again, notice that neither of those elements are listed for Mullins/Beema, indicating they’re using the same basic GCN 1.0 GPU design as Temash/Kabini. Kaveri will also be making the transition to 28nm from Trinity/Richland’s 32nm, and we could see a fairly decent bump in performance – but AMD isn’t saying much on the subject of mobile Kaveri performance just yet.
The other items we wanted to quickly discuss (and you can see these and a few other pieces of information in the slide gallery below) are some of the other additions AMD is making with Mullins/Beema. There are three points to discuss: AMD DockPort, Microsoft InstantGo, and the Platform Security Processor.

While DockPort sounds interesting (a non-Intel alternative to Thunderbolt that basically combines DisplayPort 1.2 with USB 3 into a single cable), AMD said precious little about DockPort in their presentation. Someone asked about it, and AMD said it was “up to laptop manufacturers” and that was about it. There’s the above slide as well, showing how a single cable could drive three external displays along with a variety of peripheral devices, but we’ll have to wait and see how many companies are willing to jump on the DockPort bandwagon.

Microsoft InstantGo is another feature that AMD supports. Formerly called Connected Standby, InstantGo allows your laptop to wake up from sleep mode periodically to pull down network updates – email, live tiles, etc. It also allows devices to go from deep sleep to “on” in under 500 milliseconds, basically matching what we get with tablets and smartphones. Much of the implementation of InstantGo will again be left to the device manufacturers (i.e. the “up to 14 days in standby mode” will depend on the battery capacity and other power optimizations made by the OEMs).

Last up is the Security Processor, which consists of an ARM Cortex-A5 core with support for the ARM TrustZone. We discussed this in more detail previously, but the short summary is that the technology is designed to provide a Trusted Execution Environment to help protect against malware and viruses, as well as providing new ways to deal with user authentication, payment processing, etc. How much use the Security Processor will see in the short term is difficult to say, but if ARM can get some traction with it in the smartphone/tablet space, it’s inclusion in AMD’s Mullins/Beema APUs could prove beneficial.
Wrapping things up, Mullins and Beema will be coming out in 2014, but AMD hasn’t given a precise time frame. We have a date for desktop Kaveri (January 14, 2014), but everything else is “first half of 2014”. Given the added pressure AMD is facing from Intel’s Bay Trail, hopefully the Mullins/Beema APUs will arrive sooner rather than later, but that may simply be wishful thinking on my part. As usual, the real challenge is in getting the APUs into a compelling product – one that offers the right features at the right price point. With tablets and Chromebooks taking over the sub-$300 market, creating something that clearly stands out from the crowd is becoming difficult.

Gallery: AMD 2014 Mobile APU Update: Beema and Mullins

PS4 Spec Update: Audio DSP Is Based On AMD’s TrueAudio
Continuing our coverage of AMD’s APU13 conference, one of this morning’s keynotes has been from Sony’s VP of Research & Development in North America, Dominic Mallinson. Most of Dominic’s presentation was a recap of the PS4 thus far – including some detail in why Sony went with an AMD APU for the console – but Dominic did throw in one more piece of information on the PS4’s specifications that we haven’t heard before. Specifically, the PS4’s audio DSP is based on AMD’s TrueAudio technology.

Briefly, from a console-centric view this isn’t of great surprise. We’ve had every reason to believe that the PS4’s audio DSP would have similar capabilities to TrueAudio given the features and low die space cost of today’s audio DSPs, coupled with Sony’s previous comments on the matter. So from that perspective this isn’t a significant revelation as far as the PS4’s audio capabilities are concerned, but we do finally have a bit more detail on the underlying hardware powering it.
But from a PC perspective however, this is going to be more important and unexpected news. At this time we don’t know what the underlying API is like – AMD hasn’t even released the TrueAudio PC API yet – but the shared hardware is going to be a big deal for both AMD’s CPUs and APUs. One of the challenges we discussed as facing TrueAudio is developer adoption; AMD has to convince developers to take the time to program for TrueAudio along with more traditional CPU sound engines. AMD has been working with audio middleware developers to help bootstrap TrueAudio adoption, but today’s announcement would take that one step further.

PS4 utilizing TrueAudio means there will be at least some level of audio engine portability between the PS4 and current generation AMD products. To that end if developers can write high quality audio engines on the PS4 thanks to the presence of the dedicated audio DSP, and then take that audio engine and bring it to the PC to run on GPU/APU TrueAudio DSPs, then that provides a further avenue for bootstrapping TrueAudio usage in games. So much like Mantle in the graphics space, a shared console connection for TrueAudio in the audio space would allow for AMD to leverage their console connection to both allow better/easier porting from consoles, and to achieve the critical mass necessary to make tapping these low-level hardware features viable and worthwhile for a wider pool of developers.
That said, AMD isn’t promoting TrueAudio as a console porting solution right now like they have been Mantle, but the potential is there if AMD and developers seek to exploit it. Which if nothing else makes TrueAudio all the more worth keeping an eye on over the next year, as solving the bootstrap/adoption issue will be a critical factor in the technology’s success. On that note, according to AMD’s latest schedule Thief is still expected to be the PC TrueAudio launch title, so we should be getting to see the first fruits of AMD’s labor here in February.

Gallery: AMD TrueAudio Presentation

Motorola's Affordable Moto G: $179 Off-Contract

Earlier this morning Motorola announced the Moto G, the second member of its new smartphone lineup and a far more affordable alternative to the Moto X we reviewed back in August. The Moto G is available this week in Brazil and parts of Europe. Canada, Latin America, more of Europe and parts of Asia will get the device in the coming weeks. In the US we'll see the Moto G in early January. India, the Middle East and more of Asia will also get the Moto G in January. The big news here is the price: the Moto G will be available at $179 for an 8GB model or $199 for the 16GB model, unlocked and off-contract. The largest growth market for smartphones over the coming years is going to be at lower price points, so it makes complete sense that the Moto G would be the next release in the new Moto family.
To hit significantly lower price points than the Moto X, we see a number of changes. First and foremost is the adoption of Qualcomm's MSM8x26 SoC, branded as Snapdragon 400. The S400 implementation in the Moto G features four ARM Cortex A7 cores running at up to 1.2GHz and Qualcomm's Adreno 305 GPU. As Brian quickly pointed out after the announcement, Motorola is now in the unique position of shipping a quad-core SoC in its lower end phone and a dual-core SoC in its flagship. Obviously the other members of Motorola's X8 system (NLP & Contextual processors) are absent from the Moto G as well. In practice this means features like Motorola's active display and always on voice commands aren't present on the Moto G.
On the connectivity side, Moto G is listed as supporting GSM/GRPS/EDGE/UMTS/HSPA+ (21Mbps) or CDMA/EVDO Rev.A. There's no LTE support, at least on the version being launched today. Brian suspects that the US delay may be to move to Qualcomm's MSM8926 with integrated category 4 LTE modem, but we'll have to wait until January to find out.
With the Moto G we see a reduction in memory size from 2GB down to 1GB compared to the Moto X, as well as less NAND on-board (8/16GB vs. 16/32GB). Motorola also drops 802.11ac and 5GHz WiFi support. The front and rear facing cameras also see a downgrade compared to the Moto X, but that's to be expected as Motorola's 10MP clear pixel camera was quite costly to implement. The Moto G features a 4.5-inch 720p display, likely LCD based as there's no AMOLED requirement thanks to the absence of Motorola's Active Display.

The Moto G's chassis is clearly Moto X inspired, although slightly taller/wider and thicker. Customization is still a theme of the Moto lineup, but with the Moto G that customization comes through removable back covers. Motorola offers a total of 19 customization options: Motorola Shells that replace the back cover, Grip Shells that have a thicker, rubberized frame for better protection and Flip Shells that include a magnetic flip cover for the display.

	Moto G	Moto X
SoC	Qualcomm Snapdragon 400 (MSM8x26) 1.2GHz Quad-Core Cortex A7 + Adreno 305	Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 Pro (MSM8960Pro) 1.7 GHz Motorola X8 System (SoC+NLP Processor+Contextual Processor)
Display	4.5-inch 1280x720	4.7-inch AMOLED (RGB) 1280x720
RAM	1GB	2GB LPDDR2
WiFi	802.11b/g/n, BT 4.0	802.11a/b/g/n/ac, BT 4.0
Storage	8 GB/16 GB, 2 years 50 GB Google Drive	16 GB standard, 32 GB online, 2 years 50 GB Google Drive
I/O	microUSB 2.0, 3.5mm headphone	microUSB 2.0, 3.5mm headphone, NFC, Miracast
OS at Launch	Android 4.3	Android 4.2.2
Battery	2070 mAh	2200 mAh, 3.8V, 8.36 Whr
Size / Mass	65.9 x 129.9 x 6.0-11.6 mm, 143 grams	65.3 x 129.3 x 5.6-10.4 mm, 130 grams
Camera	5 MP Rear Facing 1.3 MP Front Facing	10 MP Clear Pixel (RGBC) with 1.4µm pixels Rear Facing 2 MP 1080p Front Facing
Price	$179 (8 GB), $199 (16 GB) off-contract	$199 (16 GB), $249 (32 GB) on 2 year contract

The Moto G will ship with a mostly stock version of Android 4.3, and Motorola is committing to an upgrade to KitKat in January 2014.

Gallery: Motorola Moto G

The AMD Radeon R9 270X & R9 270 Review: Feat. Asus & HIS
Launching today is the latest member of AMD's Radeon 200 series family, the R9 270. Today we'll be looking at it alongside AMD's first 270 series card, the R9 270X.

AMD Announces New Game Bundles For Radeon R7 260X & Above

Coinciding with today’s launch of the Radeon R9 270, AMD is announcing that they are putting up new video game bundles for their 200 series cards, the first such bundle on these cards since they started launching a bit over a month ago.
First and foremost, the R7 260X will be joining AMD’s Never Settle Forever Silver tier. This means the 260X gets 2 games from that tier (from a selection of 9 games), just as the 7800 series does today. Furthermore the tier itself is also being updated to coincide with today’s bundle launches; Eidos’s upcoming Thief game will be joining the Silver tier, giving 260X buyers (and all other Silver tier holders) the option of grabbing that game if they don’t mind a wait until February of 2014.

Meanwhile for the R9 270 and above, all 290 series, 280 series, and 270 series SKUs will be getting a Battlefield 4 bundle. This bundle is separate from Never Settle Forever – BF4 isn’t joining NSF – with all applicable cards receiving just BF4 and nothing from NSF. This is the same bundle that was previously being offered at a price premium on some 290X launch SKUs, so those premium 290X SKUs will be going way in favor of $549 BF4 bundles for everyone.
Battlefield 4 of course needs no introduction, being the latest game in EA’s popular line of military shooters. For AMD this means they’ve snagged one of the highest profile PC games of the year, and it means the pump will be primed for December when the BF4 becomes the first game to be Mantle enabled.
Unfortunately there does look to be one bit of bad news here, and that is that this bundle will not be retroactive in any way. Normally we wouldn’t expect this anyhow, but with the bundle coming just a week after the launch of the Radeon R9 290, the timing is unfortunate on AMD’s part since it means the 290 was on sale bundle-less for all of 8 days. But with that said, BF4 is something of an odd title to work with anyhow from a co-branding/marketing perspective. It’s not at all clear if EA would even allow their cash cow to be given away for “free” any closer to its launch, seeing as how it only launched a few weeks ago.

Ultimately this does at least settle the matter of if and when the 200 series would get a bundle. AMD initially left it bundle-less to take advantage of the early adopter window, while leaving a bundle on the 7000 series to help close out those cards. The inclusion of a bundle at this point would indicate that AMD is apparently satisfied with the progress on clearing out those old GCN cards, and/or sales of the 200 series have tapered off to a point where they need a bit more of an incentive. Regardless this means that we’ll have an interesting holiday bundle battle between AMD and NVIDIA, with AMD’s BF4 bundle going up against NVIDIA’s holiday GeForce game bundle. Considering both bundles apply to sub-$200 cards, this will make for one of the richer holiday bundles that price point has seen in quite some time.

Big City Blues: Verizon Owns up to LTE Service Issues in NYC, Chicago, San Fran
Numerous users are congesting Verizon's overworked network and bumping some down to turtle-slow 3G

Microsoft May Use Fuel Cells at Rack Level for Greener, Cheaper Data Centers
Microsoft is in the early stages of researching this concept

Quick Note: LG "G Flex" Curved Smartphone Self-Heals
The phone can also be flattened without damage

Owner of Lavabit Faces $10K Fine For Protecting His Users From Federal Spying
Protecting your customers may lead to big penalties in today's police state

Motorola Introduces $179 Moto G; Cuts Moto X Price from $200 to $100
The Moto X has had disappointing sales

Acer Travelmate X313 Convertible 11.6-Inch Ultrabook Debuts
X313 has an Intel Ivy Bridge CPU

"Google Play for Education" Launches for Android Tablets, Targets K-12
Google looks to take on Apple in the education sector

GM Will Offer Internet Access in Most 2015 Year Model Vehicles
Pricing not yet announced for the service which is provided by AT&T

Tesla CEO Elon Musk on Model S Fires: There Won't be a Recall
Musk added that a lot of the media has delivered "inaccurate" and "unreasonable" reports in regards to the Model S fires

Available Tags:AMD , APU , PS4 , Radeon , Asus , HIS , Microsoft , LG , Smartphone , Motorola , Acer , Android , GM , CEO ,

Thursday, November 14, 2013

IT News Head Lines (AnandTech) 11/15/2013

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