AMD has introduced a series of embedded chips based on the new Jaguar core and Radeon 8000 graphics.
The new G-series SoCs will be available in five distinct flavours, ranging from a 2GHz quad-core to frugal dual-cores clocked at 1GHz. Pricing range from $49 to $72 and AMD claims they will be powerful enough to beat any Atom and get away with its lunch money.
There is a twist. The chips also feature an “X” moniker on the logo, which denotes x86 chips, but AMD plans to introduce embedded chips based on ARM cores as well. The x86 G-series parts will cater to power envelopes ranging from 9W to 25W, while upcoming ARM chips should bring much lower power consumption, less than 3W.
Now that AMD is committed to ARM in server and embedded parts, it seems more than likely that it will eventually come up with consumer oriented ARM application processors. AMD is unsurprisingly still mum and it’s not talking about any consumer ARM plans just yet.
As for the current crop of Jag based embedded parts, AMD claims they are capable of delivering top notch performance, particularly in the GPU department. With DirectX 11, UVD 3 and the usual HD 8000 feature set, AMD believes the chips could end up in smart TVs, gaming systems, set-top boxes as well as a wide range of more tedious, industrial applications.
“With a 33 percent smaller footprint, low power consumption and exceptional performance, the new AMD Embedded G-Series SOC sets the bar for content-rich multimedia and traditional workload processing that is ideal for a broad variety of embedded applications,” said Arun Iyengar, vice president and general manager, AMD Embedded Solutions.
AMD clearly has high hopes for Jaguar and by the looks of it the new core will be the best thing coming out of the embattled chipmaker this year. With console design wins under its belt, embedded SoCs and upcoming low-end APUs, Jaguar is already looking like a winner.
