amd News - Page 10 of 14 - CNX Software

August 12, 2015August 12, 2015 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 2 Comments

Intel Skylake-U Processors Run as Low as 7.5W TDP. A Closer Look at Configurable TDP

I try to mostly cover low power systems on this blog, so when it comes to x86 processors I have a cut off TDP of 10 Watts. The next generation of Intel Skylake processors have a TDP of 15 Watts, but when I read Skylake-U lineup post on FanlessTech, I discovered Intel processors also have a configurable TDP option, and in the case of Skylake-U processor their configurable TDP (cTDP) can be as low as 7.5W or 10W depending on models. U-Processor family has Pentium and Celeron processors, but also Core i3, Core i5 and even Core i7 processors such as i7-6600U and i7-6500U clocked up to 3.4 GHz and all with a 15W TDP, but you’ll also notice a column called “cTDP Down” showing 7.5W and 10W values, which shows the great progress made by Intel with regards to low power design. So I decided to look into configurable […]

June 28, 2015June 28, 2015 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 19 Comments

AMD Announces 96Boards Enterprise Edition Server Board Powered by Opteron A1100 Processor

When Linaro announced the 96Boards initiative, they started by launching “Consumer Edition” boards with a target price of around $100, but they also had plans to launch more powerful and feature-packed “Enterprise Edition” board in the $300 to $400 range. The first Enterprise Edition is based on AMD Opteron A1100 quad core Cortex A57 processor. The company has not released the full specs yet, but the press release mentions the board features a 4-core AMD Opteron A1100 Series processor with two SO-DIMM memory slots, PCIe, USB, SATA (3x), and Gigabit Ethernet capabilities. It measures 160×120 mm. CentOS, Fedora, and Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server for ARM Development Preview are the main operating systems planned for the board but additional software and operating systems will be available later on. The board is should become available in H2 2015, and will be supported through the Linaro Enterprise Group’s 96Boards.org site. Exact price […]

May 1, 2015 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 10 Comments

AMD to Launch ARM Cortex A57 “Amur” Mobile SoCs in 2015, ARM “K12” Mobile SoCs in 2016

AMD started using ARM Cortex A5 to add TrustZone security to their x86 processor, they followed with their ARM based Opteron A1100 processor for server last year, recently they announced Hierofalcon embedded processors powered by up to eight Cortex A57 processor, and starting this year and beyond, the company will launch “ultra-low power’ mobile SoCs using ARM cores, at least according to a leaked roadmap. Two ARM families are planned: “Amur” APU planned for 2015 with: Up to 4 ARM Cortex A57 cores GCN Graphics Compute Units AMD Secure Processor (Trustzone?) ~2W TDP 20nm process, FT4 BGA package “Styx” APU planned for 2016 with: Up to two “K12” CPU cores. These should be high performance custom-designed ARM cores. Next-gen GCN Graphics Compute Units Full HSA 1.0 support (Heterogeneous System Architecture) AMD Secure Processor ~2W TDP 14 nm process, FT4 BGA package With this kind of thermal dissipation, AMD Android and […]

March 26, 2015 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 12 Comments

AMD “Hierofalcon” Octa-core ARM Cortex A57 Embedded Processors to Ship in H1 2015

AMD started using the ARM license(s) by embedding ARM Cortex A5 cores into some of their x86 processors to add TrustZone security, followed up with Opteron A1100 ARM Cortex A57 processors for servers, and now they’ll soon ship AMD Embedded R-Series SoCs featuring up to 8 Cortex A57 processors. The processors, codenamed “Hierofalcon”, target embedded data center applications, communications infrastructure, and industrial solutions. AMD Embedded R-Series SoC will have the following key features: Up to 8 ARM Cortex A57 cores with 4MB L2 cache (total) Cache Coherent Network with 8MB L3 cache Memory – 2x 64-bit DD3/4 channels with ECC up to 1866MHz; up to 128GB per CPU I/Os: Two 10GbE KR 8x SATA 3 (6Gb/s) ports 8 lanes PCIe Gen 3 (1×8, 2×4 or 1×4+2×2 configurations) SPI, UART, I2C interfaces System Control Processor – ARM Cortex A5 for TrustZone technology and 1Gb Ethernet port for system management Crypto co-processor […]

March 23, 2015March 23, 2015 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 3 Comments

How to Install Ubuntu 14.04 on Acer Aspire E5 Laptop

I’ve been owning an Acer Aspire One D255E netbook with a 10″ display, an Intel Atom N455 processor and 1GB RAM that served me well during my travels, but as I’ve become older and less patient, I felt I needed to upgrade it. I planned to spend around 10,000 Baht (~$300), wanted a 14″ display, one of the low power CPU such as Intel Bay Trail-M or AMD Mullins / Beema processors, at least 500GB storage, 4GB RAM, and the ability to install Ubuntu. Finally, after going through several products at my local shop, I had to chose between Acer Aspire E5-411-P3CL with a 7.5W TDP Intel Atom N3540 and Acer Aspire E5-421G-45L0 with a 15W TDP AMD A4-6210 processor that both sell for 11,900 Baht ($365). Despite my preference for processor with lower TDP, I still went with the AMD system, since the performance is a little better, the […]

March 22, 2015March 23, 2015 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 6 Comments

Acer Shamelessly Sells Aspire E5 Laptops with a Crippled UEFI Setup Utility

Yesterday, I bought an Acer Aspire E5-421G-45L0 laptop powered by AMD A4-6210 “Beema” processor and after some effort I managed to install Ubuntu 14.04 and make it mostly work, but more on that later. I also planned to copy a 64-bit OS VirtualBox virtual machine from another PC to this PC, but I quickly realized I could only select 32-bit operating systems, so my 64-bit image could not boot. Virtualization extension are required for 64-bit support in VirtualBox, and I had not checked whether AMD A4-6210 supported these before purchase. Amazingly, I could not find that information on AMD’s very own website, but CPU Boss reports A4-6210 does indeed support AMD-V virtualization. All good, so I must be just a question of enabling it in the “BIOS”. So I rebooted the laptop, and pressed F2 to enter InsydeH20 Setup Utility. There are few options with only Information, Main, Security, Boot, […]

January 14, 2015January 14, 2015 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 10 Comments

AMD Mullins Powered Compulab Fitlet mini PCs Run Linux Mint or Windows

Finally an alternative to the recent wave of Intel Bay Trail-T mini PCs and sticks thanks to Compulab Fitlet mini PCs powered by AMD Mullins APUs, namely AMD A4 Micro-6400T and E1 Micro-6200T, with Radeon graphics, supporting up to 8GB RAM, mSATA, up to two HDMI port, up to four Gigabit Ethernet ports, and more. There are three Fitlet models: Fitlet-i, Fitlet-X with four Gigabit Ethernet port, and Fitlet-B, the entry-level option. In Q2 2015, a MintBox mini model running Linux Mint will also be released. Fitlet-i specifications: SoC – AMD A4 Micro-6400T 64 bit quad-core processor up to 1.6 GHz with Radeon R3 Graphics (4.5W TDP) System Memory – Up to 8 GB DDR3-1333 (1x SODIMM) Storage – mSATA up to 1 TB (SATA 3.0), power eSATA (5V), and micro-SD slot (SDXC support, rate 25 MB/s) Video Output – Dual HDMI 1.4a up to 1920×1200@60Hz Audio I/O – HDMI, S/PDIF […]

November 11, 2014November 11, 2014 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 4 Comments

$199 Gizmo 2 Development Board Powered by AMD G-Series GX210HA SoC

There are only a few Intel / AMD x86 embedded development boards on the market, at least for the hobbyist market, namely MinnowBoard MAX based on Intel E3815 or E3825 processors, and Gizmophere Explorer Kit powered by AMD G-Series GT-40E dual core APU + A55E hub controller. Gizmosphere, a non-profit organization, had now released a new version of their embedded board called Gizmo 2 powered by AMD G-Series GX210HA SoC combining a dual core x86 processor, a Radeon GPU, and peripherals. Gizmo 2 development board specifications: SoC – AMD Embedded G-Series GX210HA SOC with a dual core “Jaguar” processor @ 1.0 GHz and a Radeon 8210E GPU @ 300 MHz with support for DirectX 11.1, OpenGL 4.2x and OpenCL 1.2. 153 GFLOPS of performance. 9W TDP. System Memory – 1GB DDR3-1600 SDRAM Storage – mSATA/mini PCIe Connector + micro SD card slot Video Output – HDMI Audio I/O – HDMI and […]