Asus has AMD Fusion mini-ITX in development
AMD's upcoming Ontario APU will be integrated into a desktop mini-ITX board made by Asus. Image used is our artists interpretation only.
We previously reported on leaked data that the upcoming AMD APU's performance equates to roughly that of an Athlon II X2 250U, but with a DirectX 11 graphics chip built in and all in just ~18W TDP. When we asked Asus about performance, the team refused to provide any details on the subject.
If Ontario does provide a low-power CPU that offers decent performance and actual graphics horsepower, we'll finally have an Intel Atom and Nvidia Ion alternative in the mini-ITX market. This could make SFF PC market exceptionally interesting, and open up a whole new opportunity for home-theatre machines – depending, of course, on the price. We asked Asus about the possibility of Eee PC HTPCs, and the company explained that it was still early days and it was evaluating all opportunities.
Are you interested in an AMD Fusion mini-ITX board? What features would you like to see on it? Let us know your thoughts in the forums!
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Discuss in the forums ReplyYes, finally a decent alternative to Atom, which is utter pants, and mostly a waste of money.
Yeah can't wait for the review, I'll be espcially interested in the capabilities of the GPU.
How many SATA ports will this bad boy have. One think lacking from the Atom breed of boards is the capability of an all-in-one fileserver, 4 ports, or 6 would be better.
Heres hoping.
Can't wait for the review.
http://www.semiaccurate.com/2010/06/01/asus-shows-new-mini-itx-boards-computex/
Hopefully the Fusion variant will have a little more.
Atom is ok for consuming media (and only just ok), but it is truly terrible at any productivity of content creation tasks. This lack of performance is compounded by typical netbook screen resolution which is insufficient for mainstream apps and games, e.g. minimum of 768 vertical resolution.
Atom will do fine in the embedded arena, in cash registers and digital Tv boxes, but something better is needed if you want to do some computing with your computer.
Fusion might be it.
At a TDP of 18W I doubt that's going to be an issue. Looks boss this
As a side note, for those who want something better than Atom but staying with Intel, I think Zotac are planning an ITX ION board running dual-core CULV SU2300 (http://twitpic.com/1t5jme).
Awwwwww. That Heatsink looks really good ;-)
Tho with 18W dissipation as stated above, it wouldn't have to be thaat big.
Thats the ION/Atom combo then, that makes way more than 18W...
http://www.expreview.com/10861.html
http://www.xpmediacentre.com.au/community/motherboards-cpus-windows-7/43129-asus-at5iont-i-deluxe.html
That it is - I picked up one today for review :)
Anyhow if this is aimed for the HTPC market then I pray it has better onboard audio then standard boards.
Small sub 100 Watt PSU are very hard to find and expensive, and it really isn't working with an ITX board and an ATX PSU.
AMD's first quad core wasn't two dual core glued together under one IHS, it was a native quad, which means AMD tend to think more about the product than just releasing a half baked idea.
Intel got bloody lucky with the Q6600, but AMD's AM3 chips seem to really show there potential and this is why i think fusion will be worth while.
should surely kick intels ass back to the stone age or wait, the good old HD 3200 is STILL faster than latest intel crapstics and is old now, mind you HD 3200 was the first igp to decode upto 1080p of all blu-ray video codecs since 2008 ;)
AMD even demoed a fusion chip some time ago that they payed Aliens vs Predator
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eg5mKP5R8B8
AMD basicly puts all the shaders and stuff in Radeon HD 5550 Graphics card into a Athlon II or Phenom II CPU :p
the problem with current HTPC all in one motherboard solutions is next to no attention is made for the audio side of the equation, ya they got the video down but the audio leaves a lot to be desired. I wish they would do a shielded on-board setup with say the highend oxygen chips, or better still although from the same company if ASUS would take and put their AV100 or AV200 (pretty much the same chip just hand picked) onto a motherboard solution would be great.
Please do an article on game mods(counter strike, Dota, etc)! I've never seen one here and It wou;d be interesting!
Sorry for the off-topic comment.
that is not a pic of the board, Bindi put it there as a filler, its an Intel ION board shown there, anyhow audio over HDMI sure but its not as gooda s it could be, not by a long shot, thats why it would be nice to see clean audio like offered in their Xonar highend line.
And I'm slapping it with something, that's for sure :D
How is it Atom's fault that you want it to do something it's not been designed for? :?
It's a couchsurfer with 7-8 hours runtime.
You wanna run crysis or write a thesis, buy a computer :D
i know its an Ion board, see one of my posts further up. I was just saying, if the Ion board has it, theres no reason not to do it for a fusion board.
(sorry for off-topicness)
I was under the impression that Audio over HDMI is digital, quite like the Optical out.
i use optical out on the Integrated Soundmax audio of my Asus Maximus Formula (X38) and it is audibly very very good.
i do have a good Denon 7x100W amp, and very good Klipsch 5.0 speakers.
I noticed a very big difference using Optical, instead of Analogue outs on my Audigy 2 ZS, even with effectively an integrated Audio solution.
So for me optical out should be near perfect, and from what i've heard DTSHD and TrueHD are awesome.
I just wish i had an HDMI capable amp to try it out.
The integrated audio core in the ATi card is based on a Realtek design, but digital is digital, so the sound should be bit perfect every time.
that is what i have understood anyhow.
Who knows, but I damned excited about this type of MB!!
BT
PS: Of course it looks like the Asus Ion MB, Why wouldn't they use the same heatsink instead of having another one fabbed up? Geez!
LOL for the last time, that picture is 100% NOT the AMD/ATI ITX board being discussed, there is ZERO pictures of that board as its in DEVELOPMENT. That is a picture of an ION ITX board that Bindi grabbed, slapped a fussion logo on it and called it the ATI/AMD ITX board. So how it will look and what it will have no one knows at this point.
Anyhow all Im saying is it would be nice if they upped the audio quality across the board from Digital to Analog as well.
Although, something a lot of people dont seem to be aware of, the perfect Mini-ITX motherboard already exists! A little known gem of a motherboard maker J&W technology makes 3 AMD based Mini-ITX board, the first being based on the AMD 780G, the second is based on 785G and the most recent entry is based on the 890GX, its got USB3.0 sata 6.0, pcie 16x, 4 sata ports and mini pcie port for wireless... I think this board is possibly the perfect HTPC / portable gaming board...
At last a true HTPC board that will be OK to leave on 24/7 without upping the power bill too much
I do, and it says that DTSHD and TrueHD only works over HDMI as Toslink is limited in bandwidth...
That said, I don't hear any difference between "normal" digital surround and DTSHD :D
But you're right, to actually hear the difference you'll need more.