Final thoughts and rating
AMD's latest-and-greatest APU technology, dubbed Trinity, is to provide the foundation for the company's 2012 thrust with respect to mainstream laptops. Underscoring just how imperative it is for AMD to have increased visibility in the laptop world, Trinity launches first as a mobile APU, to be followed months later by the desktop offerings.
Updating incumbent Llano APUs by moving the CPU architecture over to enhanced Bulldozer core and the graphics to Radeon HD 7000 6000, this new generation of all-in-one AMD chips is something of a mixed bag. As it stands right now, the CPU architecture is, at best, a side-step, hamstrung by the performance inadequacies all too visible in the module-based x86 cores. The strong heritage of Radeon graphics ameliorates the CPU shortcomings to a large degree, and the test HD 7660G IGP offers best-in-class performance and enough grunt to play modern games at reasonable image-quality settings.
Our gut feeling is that AMD needs to reinvigorate focus on the sub-£500 market with Trinity APU-based laptops from a wide range of partners.
The myopic focus needs to be on extolling the multimedia features and benefits that are derived from the APU's GPU. Trouble is, competitor Intel has significant momentum with its mobile Sandy Bridge chips, which is to be further augmented by incoming Ivy Bridge processors. Whatever the case, AMD is at least still in the laptop fight, and, pragmatically, that's all it can ask for in mid-2012.
The Good
IGP offers real gaming potential
The Bad
CPU not the quickest
HEXUS Rating
AMD 'Trinity' APU
HEXUS Awards
AMD 'Trinity' APU
HEXUS Where2Buy
TBC.
HEXUS Right2Reply
At HEXUS, we invite the companies whose products we test to comment on our articles. If any company representatives for the products reviewed choose to respond, we'll publish their commentary here verbatim.
