AMD has released some news in the run up to MWC 2013 showing it is serious in meeting higher performance expectations for its upcoming tablet and hybrid PC designs. A video showing AMD Turbo Dock technology has been uploaded to YouTube. It shows a powerful tablet which boosted further when its keyboard / dock is attached. AMD plans to show off designed based upon this Turbo Dock concept at MWC next week, as well as stand-alone performance tablets.
The idea is that when the AMD tablet is undocked its processor performance is adjusted for content consumption and when the keyboard dock is attached performance is stepped up for content creation. Thinking about that idea, I hope the whole system is usefully configurable; sometimes playing a game or watching an HD video on the tablet could require a lot more CPU grunt than typing an email, for instance, with the dock attached.
Steve Belt, vice president of AMD Ultra-low Power Products, suggests that the power throttling isn’t quite as simplistic as the marketing blurb headline writers indicate “With our latest APUs, AMD aims to deliver a more complete, full-featured experience on tablet and hybrid PCs than has been available to date,” he said. “AMD Turbo Dock technology delivers on that promise by dynamically adjusting to what the user is doing to provide the optimal experience and battery life whether they are watching a video, playing a DirectX® 11-supported game or building a PowerPoint presentation for work.”
While we will see some AMD Turbo Dock systems at MWC it will be only later in the year, when AMD’s Temash is released, that these tablets and hybrids will become available. Systems on show at MWC will include both dual-core and quad-core Temash powered machines built using the 28nm manufacturing process.
AMD quoted IDC’s tablets research director Tom Mainelli as saying “Balancing performance on high pixel density screens with user demands around battery life is essential to a great tablet experience. Technologies like AMD’s newest generation APU ‘Temash’ aim to meet those needs.”
AMD reminds us that its upcoming tablets and hybrids won’t just have this new Turbo Dock technology but other “premium features” compared to the competition including; access to the AMD AppZone, AMD "Start Now" fast booting and resuming, AMD Radeon DirectX 11 graphics with support for full 1080p HDMI output and also Windows 7 / Windows 8 support.
I hope that AMD can get some competitive Windows 8 enhanced, touch-friendly designs out to market soon. Also as yet we still don’t know what hardware partners will be working on this new range of computing devices.
