Arctic Unveils the MC101 Series Trinity-Powered HTPCs

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Quite a sleek design:

http://www.techpowerup.com/159794/Ar...red-HTPCs.html

http://hexus.net/ce/items/audio-visu...inment-always/

It seems the Trinity A8 has the HD7640G IGP and the Trinity A10 has the HD7660G IGP.

Considering the HD7670 is meant to be a rebadged HD6670,it indicates that the fastest Trinity IGP is between an HD6570 and HD6670 in speed. If it is around HD5670 GDDR5 level it would be tremendous performance for an IGP. The HD6550D IGP in the Llano A8 series is around HD5550 GDDR5 or HD4650 GDDR3 level performance.

[Biscuit]

Looks fantastic and the GPU power is going to be massive, but how about the CPU? if the PD core is anything like BD i dont see it being a great deal of use in a HTPC.

[UseItNow]

Looks great, if all setup boxes were like this!

[DanceswithUnix]

Looks fantastic and the GPU power is going to be massive, but how about the CPU? if the PD core is anything like BD i dont see it being a great deal of use in a HTPC.

AMD have been talking up how good their PD performance is on the 17W version. Specially if they allow the BIOS programmable TDP from the server bulldozers, this could be a perfect HTPC device.

Unless you expect to do heavy transcoding workloads?

[badass]

Looks fantastic and the GPU power is going to be massive, but how about the CPU? if the PD core is anything like BD i dont see it being a great deal of use in a HTPC.

The PD core is an improved BD core. In all likelihood, that means increased IPC and/or increased clockspeeds withing the same power envelope.

I really would be very surprised if PD was as crap as BD.
I'm thinking the improvement will be like Phenom-Phenom II, despite being on the same process. It's just a hunch.

[Ulti]

Wow, this looks great. I wonder what the UK pricing for this will be, may just end up scrapping my build if this comes out soon enough and within budget.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

AMD have been talking up how good their PD performance is on the 17W version. Specially if they allow the BIOS programmable TDP from the server bulldozers, this could be a perfect HTPC device.

Unless you expect to do heavy transcoding workloads?

Trinity also has a Video Transcode Engine like Quicksync although more flexible.

[Biscuit]

The PD core is an improved BD core. In all likelihood, that means increased IPC and/or increased clockspeeds withing the same power envelope.

I really would be very surprised if PD was as crap as BD.
I'm thinking the improvement will be like Phenom-Phenom II, despite being on the same process. It's just a hunch.

I hope so, although for HTPC use the increased IPC is sort of irrelevant. Its just the improved power usage which matters. In all fairness the same thing goes for bulldozer pretty much, even at its current distinctly average performance, it would have been ok in my eyes if the power usage wasnt sky high.

[shaithis]

For a HTPC, you could almost certainly undervolt and underclock a significant amount.

[DanceswithUnix]

Trinity also has a Video Transcode Engine like Quicksync although more flexible.

That's very interesting if true.

Is that an admission that all those video shaders aren't up to the job?

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

That's very interesting if true.

Is that an admission that all those video shaders aren't up to the job?

It uses both fixed function hardware and the shaders:

http://www.anandtech.com/show/5261/a...-7970-review/9

[badass]

Trinity also has a Video Transcode Engine like Quicksync although more flexible.

I'm currently assuming that I'll be getting an Ivy Bridge system when it comes out.
That news makes me less sure.

I hope so, although for HTPC use the increased IPC is sort of irrelevant. Its just the improved power usage which matters. In all fairness the same thing goes for bulldozer pretty much, even at its current distinctly average performance, it would have been ok in my eyes if the power usage wasnt sky high.

Very true. With the increased IPC within the same power envelope, hopefully it will use less power for the same amount of work thus making it quieter.

It really is sounding like Trinity is Bulldozer "done properly"
Much like the GTX-580 is a GTX-480 "done properly".
Here's hoping for similar power/performance improvements.

As you say, with Bulldozer, the IPC is irrelevant but the power usage is. Bulldozer burns too much energy doing too little work. And its performance is rubbish. That is the only reason why it's so cheap. They are more expensive for AMD to make than a much faster Sandy Bridge is to Intel.

[Terbinator]

What is the A10 core then?

[DanceswithUnix]

What is the A10 core then?

The Antec piece is the first time I have seen it mentioned, but as all A8 processors have 400 gpu shaders I guess A10 will have more.

Edit to add: A quick look on Wikipedia under "AMD Fusion" just mentions A10 as being the next high end integrated part.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Trinity uses VLIW4 shaders. It looks like it will have 384 shaders in total, but the die has a larger uncore area than Llano.