AMD has not only started announcing quite a few future processors, but has also gone a bit crazy with all of the code names for said products. Admittedly, when the news broke that Trinity APU specifications were revealed, I had to do a bit of digging to figure out just what the Trinity APU was (exactly). In the end, the APU (accelerated processing unit) is similar in composition to Llano except with a bulldozer based CPU core and upgraded GPU. The bulldozer core aspect is what threw me for a bit of a loop in that I had a difficult time figuring out how the CPU core could be based on bulldozer when bulldozer hasn’t even been released ;). Hopefully that long introduction helps somewhat in clearing up what Trinity is.
Specifically, the new Trinity APU will debut with AMD’s new “Piledriver” (more code names!) architecture, and include a Radeon HD 7000 series GPU and Bulldozer based CPU core. Futher, the Trinity APU will come in both notebook and desktop flavors titled “Comal” and “Virgo” respectively. AMD notes that the improvements in the CPU and GPU cores will result in up to a 50% performance increase over the current Llano A Series APUs. While the 50% number is measuring pure gigaflop performance, even if the real world speed increase is not as noticeable in everyday usage, it is still a nice bump in performance.
On the availability front, AMD has slated the processor for release in 2012; however, Semi Accurate believes that the APU may well debut much sooner than expected. The site further quoted sources who stated that “CES is a distinct possibility for a soft launch, and maybe more.” More tidbits of information can be had here.