The Fusion line of “processor meets graphics card” chips, dubbed APU (accelerated processing unit) were quite the catwalk star of the mobile CPU market these last couple of months. The chips have dual core processors, as well as integrated HD graphics, which are compatible with DirectX 11 and can easily decode HD content. This is something most netbooks and notebook processors can’t do, as they usually choke at 720p without the help of a video card.
Plus, Fusion chips are pretty smart when it comes to power consumption, beating even Atom chips, which used to have an excuse for being slow the fact that they need very little energy to keep going. Until now, there are four APUs out there, namely the C-50, the C-30, the E-240 and E-350. Excepting the C-30, all the APUs have dual core processors, while the C-30 has to settle for just one core. Most of the time, we get the Zacate E-350 on high performance netbooks and notebooks, while the C-50 is more of a mainstream solution for mini laptops.
But now it seems like the C-50 will get a face lift and will be called the C-60, and the new APU will have better graphics and core speed thanks to the TurboCore technology. The C-50 is a dual core processor, with a speed of of 1 GHZ, and also has ATI Radeon HD 6250 graphics. It’s the minimum setup you get from a AMD chip, but it’s still good enough for a good experience, especially on Windows 7 Starter.
The C-60, however, will have slightly better graphics, namely the 6290, which assure smoother HD decoding and has increased speed, from 276 MHZ to 400 MHZ. The dual core processor was also enhanced, as the speed can reach up to 1.33 GHZ, meaning 33% better than the one on the C-50. When you’re running applications that need only one core to run, the active core can be temporarily overclocked. Overall, the system takes in the same amount of power, as the idle core can be left to starve for a little while.
The C-60 will have better graphics and speed than the C-50, but will have the same size and power requierments
This technology is useful if you want to enjoy a game or movie without any problems. It would be great if AMD would do this with other processors as well, especially the E-350, which has a speed of 1.5 GHZ and overclocking that would get some very decent performance for a netbook or notebook processor.
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