Intel Tripped Itself Trying to Imitate AMD Fusion

Over the past decade, Intel did nothing but try to imitate AMD. Several years ago, AMD had the bright idea of Fusion -- combing the CPU and GPGPU to create an APU. To do that, AMD acquired ATI at great cost. Not to be left in the dust, Intel's engineers struggled hard, they spent more sleepless nights digesting the voluminous AMD PDF files, some thousand pages long, laden with cryptic technological talk. They rushed against time. And they shipped the SB chip on time. As AMD's Dx11 enabled Fusion winning praises even from the usual Intel fanbois, with the release of the DX10 capable SB chip, though one generation behind, Intel's troops seem have hit the landmark their emperor demanded.

Now, it's the time to fall from that imperial grace, like those unfortunate Roman emperors who pushed their legions a bridge too far. The chipset supporting the SB infrastructure is plagued with a defective SATA controller, which will result in faulty hard drive operations. For anyone who can spell the word computer, he knows what that means to his crucial business and personal data.

Intel claims that it found a "silicon fix" and the problem will go away in April, hopefully. Meanwhile, Fusion, with its DX11 prowess, is winning the hearts and minds of the unforgiving populace.

Fusion Extinguishes Atom

HP's Fusion Notebook Has Up to 9.5 Hours Battery Life

AMD Dual-Core Processor E-350 (1.6GHz, 1MB L2 Cache)+AMD Radeon(TM) HD 6310M Discrete-Class Graphics

• Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit
• AMD Dual-Core Processor E-350 (1.6GHz, 1MB L2 Cache)+AMD Radeon(TM) HD 6310M Discrete-Class Graphics
• FREE Upgrade to 3GB DDR3 System Memory (2 Dimm)
• FREE Upgrade to 320GB 7200RPM Hard Drive with HP ProtectSmart Hard Drive Protection
• No Additional Office Software
• No additional security software
• 6-Cell Lithium-Ion Battery (standard) - Up to 9.5 hours of battery life +++
• 11.6" diagonal High Definition HP BrightView LED Display (1366 x 768)
• Webcam with Integrated Digital Microphone
• 802.11b/g/n WLAN and Bluetooth(R)
• Standard Keyboard

Price at $449.

Sandy Bridge Graphics Slower than ATI 5450 ($30) In Most Tests

See for yourself. Why do you want to spend $$$ for the crappy GPU incapable of DX11?

http://www.anandtech.com/show/4083/the-sandy-bridge-review-intel-core-i5-2600k-i5-2500k-and-core-i3-2100-tested/11

Sandy Bridge Notably Slower Than Phenom II In Some Benchmarks

Intel hyped Sandy Bridge a lot. People were expecting massive performance gains. Now, they are disappointed. It seems the performance gain Intel promised depended on the GPU part, which is ancient DX10 technology which nobody cares. The following benchmark from BenchmarkReviews.com shows that Sandy Bridge is even slower than Phenom II X4 840 in some situations.