AMD has been throwing the term Fusion around since the early days of the AM2 CPU. We heard rumors of AMD “fusing” the GPU and the CPU together, integrating the MCP (media control processor) into the CPU and a bunch of other stuff. Each of these rumors was dismissed by AMD one at a time. AMD continued to state that Fusion was not a single thing but a platform (of course the media was not going to let that happen). It was only last year when we finally found out what AMD was talking about. It was a CPU with and APU (auxiliary processing unit) that is there to assist in complex tasks that the core CPU was not able to deal with. Interestingly enough this was not a new idea but was actually a return to some of AMD’s roots. AMD began their CPU debut with the purchase of a company called Nexgen. Nexgen CPU did not include a math co-processor (at least the original ones). If you wanted one you could buy one and attach it as an… you guessed it APU. Well many years have passed since that time and we are sure the APU is a little more than a simple math co-processor. Fortunately for you, we have an AMD A6 3650 and a Gigabyte A75-UD4H motherboard to play with. So let’s take a look at this new motherboard from Gigabyte and while we are at it the AMD Llano A6 3650 CPU…
The Box and Goodies -The box the A75-UD4H comes in harkens (yes I used harkens) back to Gigabyte’s older box designs. These were on the gaudy side and could be chaotic. The front of the box has an image of a red sports car that is supposed to indicate speed. In place of the old Ultra Durable logo or the 333 logo we find a new “Super 4” logo. The Super 4 stands for; Safe, Speed, Savings, and Sound. We will cover what these mean in a little bit in the features section. One thing that really stands out on the front of the box is the DX11 logo. This little innocuous item is important as right now there are no DX11 built in GPUs from Intel.
The back of the box has a more detailed listing of what the Super 4 stands for along with some other marketing material. Inside the box you will find the basics; four SATA cables, two manuals, a Driver DVD, and an I/O shield.
The box, while gaudy does pique our curiosity about what the A75-UD4H can do. Well now that we have everything out the box, let’s take a look at the layout and some of the design features included.
