AMD Llano APU to Get Dual-GPU Technology Like Hybrid CrossFire

After a well-received launch of the Fusion “Zacate” accelerated processing unit (APU) for nettops and entry-level PCs, AMD’s higher-performance APU, codenamed “Llano“, is just around the corner.

AMD’s upcoming Llano processor family is intended for use on mainstream desktops, business PCs, and all-in-one PCs, it is better geared for higher-resolution, visually-intensive computing.

The Fusion Llano APU, the company’s second Fusion chip, will feature a technology similar to Hybrid CrossFire, that enables the processor’s on-die graphics to be used together with a discrete GPU in order to improve the systems performance.

When the two are paired together, the system is able to take advantage of the processing power available in both GPUs, games as well as GPGPU applications getting an important speed boost.

The Llano APU embeds two x86-64 processing cores that feature the latest SIMD extensions, a DirectX 11 compliant GPU, a dual-channel DDR3 memory controller, a PCI-Express 2.0 hub, and an interconnect to the Hudson M1 chipset.

The Fusion Llano APU will be part of AMD’s Lynx mainstream desktop platform and is expected to launch a little later this year.