AMD challenges Intel's monopoly in notebook and netbook segment

AMD recently showcased  Zacate which is first of the AMD Fusion APU (Accelerated Processing Unit) combines two Bobcat cores and a graphic core on a single chip. With a power rating of 18W, it is targeted towards mainstream notebooks and desktop computers with small form factor.

AMD is expected to soon follow up with Ontario which is a 9W APU aimed at netbook segment, providing battery life of 10+ hours while still capable of rendering gaming performance.

Both Zacate and Ontario have a DirectX 11 capable graphics processor that performs at the level of a discrete GPU, but integrated on a single piece of silicon. Combining the CPU and GPU on the same die gives mainstream performance in half of the die size and lower power consumption..

In a recent demonstration, Zacate outperformed Intel's flagship Core i5 520M and HD graphics by running 40 frames per second (fps) running City of Heroes game which is nearly twice what the Core i5 managed.  Performance difference was more noticeable on Internet Explorer 9 (IE9) Platform Preview test, displaying the HTML 5 acceleration rendered by the GPU in Zacate. The Amazon Shelf test on the IE9 indicated performance was faster on the Zacate system, with almost twice the frame rate.

Score on the Psychedelic Browsing IE9 test, was significantly high for the Zacate system similar to a desktop PC with a discrete graphics card, almost 10 times more than the integrated graphics of the Core i5 notebook.

Zacate is targetted towards mainstream notebook segment which is dominated by Intel's Core i3 and Core i5 processors coupled with Intel HD graphics. Ontario is supposed to take on Intel Atom in netbook segment.