AMD Radeon HD 6000M Series Laptop GPUs Launched

[Berek]

New laptops revealed by a few manufacturers with the AMD HD 6000M GPU series ahead of CES:
http://laptoping.com/amd-radeon-hd-6000m-series.html

Official listings have been posted on AMD's website:
http://www.amd.com/us/products/note...md-radeon-6500m/Pages/amd-radeon-6500m.aspx#2

They mention the 6500M and 6300M series. With all of the name changes, I'd going to let everyone else guess as to the performance for these and how they compare to current mobile offerings... I do know the Sandy Bridge CPU they mention is at the lower-end of the "Performance" segment for CPUs, and judging upon the specs of the 6500M, this is a mid-range offering at best.

 

[LordEC911]

Looks like mobile Cedar and Redwood.

 

[Alexko]

Yay! Renamings!… :s

 

[CRoland]

UVD 2, so they do indeed look like renamings.

 

[Alexko]

Yes. I'm tired of this crap, so I've decided to do something about it, starting here (see end of post if it's too long for you). I don't mean to be that annoying guy who keeps linking to his blog every chance he gets, and I usually avoid doing it, but this is entirely pointless if I'm the only one on this crusade.

I know that there are quite a few reviewers and tech journalists who read this forum, so I'm posting it here. I hope it doesn't fall into deaf ears.

 

[Dave Baumann]

These support hardware accellerated MVC (Blu-Ray 3D) playback where Mobility Radeon HD 5000 didn't. And across the board HDMI 1.4a support.

 

[Erinyes]

These support hardware accellerated MVC (Blu-Ray 3D) playback where Mobility Radeon HD 5000 didn't. And across the board HDMI 1.4a support.

Given that they are physically the same chips, wouldn't a driver update for 5000M series do the same? Or is AMD intentionally not doing it?

 

[Dave Baumann]

UVD2 has to be driven in a different way in order to get MVC decode and this requires a VBIOS update (or an SBIOS update in the cases of most notebooks) and additionally requires qualification by us and the vendor. HDMI 1.4a can be achieved by a driver upate (as it was on desktop Radeon HD 5000) but some notebook vendors still re-qual the software updates.

 

[GZ007]

Yes. I'm tired of this crap, so I've decided to do something about it, starting here (see end of post if it's too long for you). I don't mean to be that annoying guy who keeps linking to his blog every chance he gets, and I usually avoid doing it, but this is entirely pointless if I'm the only one on this crusade.

I know that there are quite a few reviewers and tech journalists who read this forum, so I'm posting it here. I hope it doesn't fall into deaf ears.

Its not hard to understand. On 40nm it seems the only 6k cards will be Barts and Cayman. The rest will be rebranded until 28nm and named 7xxx.
It would be insane to waste dolars on a completly new lineup when they have already one.

 

[Alexko]

Its not hard to understand. On 40nm it seems the only 6k cards will be Barts and Cayman. The rest will be rebranded until 28nm and named 7xxx.
It would be insane to waste dolars on a completly new lineup when they have already one.

I'm pretty sure Turks and Caicos are new dies:



Whistler and Seymour feature "2nd generation DX11" so those must be the mobile versions of Turks and Caicos, respectively.

 

[GZ007]

I'm pretty sure Turks and Caicos are new dies:



Whistler and Seymour feature "2nd generation DX11" so those must be the mobile versions of Turks and Caicos, respectively.

They seem to be almost as "new" as Barts was . Except that near and under 100$ the lineup is much tighter and dont have holes.
I would wonder if they release those cards actualy and what would they gain from them. Maybe to steal market from fusion chips :smile:.

 

[fbomber]

Its not hard to understand. On 40nm it seems the only 6k cards will be Barts and Cayman. The rest will be rebranded until 28nm and named 7xxx.
It would be insane to waste dolars on a completly new lineup when they have already one.

If you don´t have anything new, don´t launch. Simple!

They are trying to fool customers.

If I had a 5000M radeon and wanted to do the bios update (I am perfectly able to do so, as many others), would it be possible? Will AMD release the bios? Or I would be forced to buy a new notebook, with the SAME game performance, just for these "software features"?

 

[GZ007]

If you don´t have anything new, don´t launch. Simple!

They are trying to fool customers.

If I had a 5000M radeon and wanted to do the bios update (I am perfectly able to do so, as many others), would it be possible? Will AMD release the bios? Or I would be forced to buy a new notebook, with the SAME game performance, just for these "software features"?

With new chips getting bigger and hotter this will be the future of mobile chips. Renaming and rebranding. The extreme and endthusiast mobile chips have around 60W TDP. So dont expect wonders from mobile chips.

I think the name change from 5600M to 6600M is not actualy that bad. They are quite close to the desktop cards. The 6800M and 6700M will be much more misleading.

 

[CRoland]

They seem to be almost as "new" as Barts was

I get why people don't like a mobile 5xxx to 6xxx rebrand, but Barts was as new as could be expected from another 40nm part.

Incidentally, I don't like the rebrand either, but anything mobile is basically a rebrand anyway, so it doesn't change the fact that mobile names tell little about the GPU.

 

[Erinyes]

I dont really see the point of the Radeon 6300M. Sandy Bridge's graphics will be on par to it, so what would be the point of using it given that its a lot more power hungry? And with Llano releasing in Q2 2010, its gonna have a very short life

I'm pretty sure Turks and Caicos are new dies:

Whistler and Seymour feature "2nd generation DX11" so those must be the mobile versions of Turks and Caicos, respectively.

Probably the launch of Turks and Caicos was too late in the design cycle of Sandy Bridge laptops so they had to go for Cedar and Redwood instead.

Im predicting GF108 dominance in the Sandy Bridge cycle(though AMD can cut the price of Redwood to compete)

I get why people don't like a mobile 5xxx to 6xxx rebrand, but Barts was as new as could be expected from another 40nm part.

Incidentally, I don't like the rebrand either, but anything mobile is basically a rebrand anyway, so it doesn't change the fact that mobile names tell little about the GPU.

Well Barts was still a new chip with new features. Its not like they renamed Juniper to Radeon 6800

 

[mczak]

I get why people don't like a mobile 5xxx to 6xxx rebrand, but Barts was as new as could be expected from another 40nm part.

Well not really Cayman clearly is a lot more different.

Incidentally, I don't like the rebrand either, but anything mobile is basically a rebrand anyway, so it doesn't change the fact that mobile names tell little about the GPU.

Just wait for the desktop rebrands...
That said, personally I don't think it's too much of an issue (just don't rebrand it again later please...), Barts hardly deserves the HD6xxx name neither. I still think selling vastly different products with the same name is the much bigger issue (some chips with 30% higher clock and more than twice the memory bandwidth can still have the same name), as that can be hard to figure out.

 

[Alexko]

I dont really see the point of the Radeon 6300M. Sandy Bridge's graphics will be on par to it, so what would be the point of using it given that its a lot more power hungry? And with Llano releasing in Q2 2010, its gonna have a very short life

Don't forget DX11. It doesn't really matter for such a slow card, but it's a nice checkbox.

Probably the launch of Turks and Caicos was too late in the design cycle of Sandy Bridge laptops so they had to go for Cedar and Redwood instead.

AMD might be having trouble with their production ramp-up, perhaps because some OEMs haven't moved to NI yet, so they need to keep making Evergreen stuff anyway. Add Ontario on top of that, and wafer supply may be a little tight.

Im predicting GF108 dominance in the Sandy Bridge cycle(though AMD can cut the price of Redwood to compete)

AMD can indeed: Redwood is smaller, likely cheaper to make.

 

[DarthShader]

I dont really see the point of the Radeon 6300M. Sandy Bridge's graphics will be on par to it, so what would be the point of using it given that its a lot more power hungry? And with Llano releasing in Q2 2010, its gonna have a very short life

That's the point, a quick rebrand is cheap to do and not all sold laptops will have SB's on board.

Im predicting GF108 dominance in the Sandy Bridge cycle(though AMD can cut the price of Redwood to compete)

104mm^2 vs. 130mm^2? With the HD5570 @ 39W being faster than a GT430 @49W? At least it idles 3W or so lower...

 

[Mintmaster]

Im predicting GF108 dominance in the Sandy Bridge cycle(though AMD can cut the price of Redwood to compete)

What indication is there that GF108 can hang with Redwood?

 

[Alexko]

104mm^2 vs. 130mm^2? With the HD5570 @ 39W being faster than a GT430 @49W? At least it idles 3W or so lower...

With Optimus, it idles at pretty much 0 W.