AMD Hybrid Graphics technology, is a collective brand from

AMD Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (AMD) is an American multinational semiconductor company based in Santa Clara, California, that develops computer processors and related technologies for business and consumer markets. While it initially manufactur ...

for its Radeon line of discrete and integrated

GPU A graphics processing unit (GPU) is a specialized electronic circuit designed to manipulate and alter memory to accelerate the creation of images in a frame buffer intended for output to a display device. GPUs are used in embedded systems, mobi ...

, promoting higher performance and productivity while saving energy consumption in GPUs. The technology previously applied to selected chipsets of the AMD 700 chipset series and

AMD 800 chipset series The AMD 800 chipset series is a set of chipsets developed by AMD, released in 2009. The chipset series was revealed in its presentation slides during the AMD Financial Analyst Day 2007 held on December 13, 2007. This chipset series also marks th ...

only. The ATI Hybrid Graphics technology was announced on January 23, 2008 with Radeon HD 2400 series and Radeon HD 3400 series video cards supporting hybrid graphics functionality. Originally, ATI announced this feature would only be supported in Vista, but in August 2008 they included support in their Windows XP drivers as well. The architecture has been patented by ATI. The previous generation of Hybrid Crossfire paired 890GX or 880G (with Radeon HD4290 and HD 4250 respectively) motherboards from the AMD 800 chipset series with an HD 5450, 5550, 5570 or 5670 Radeon video card from the

Radeon HD 5000 series The Evergreen series is a family of GPUs developed by Advanced Micro Devices for its Radeon line under the ATI brand name. It was employed in Radeon HD 5000 graphics card series and competed directly with Nvidia's GeForce 400 Series. Release T ...

. Newer information suggests that A6-series and A8-series AMD APUs can be used in Hybrid Crossfire (Subsequently, called "Dual Graphics") with HD 6570 and HD 6670 video cards. Dual-graphic-capable second-generation

Trinity The Christian doctrine of the Trinity (, from 'threefold') is the central dogma concerning the nature of God in most Christian churches, which defines one God existing in three coequal, coeternal, consubstantial divine persons: God th ...

A-series APUs like the A8-5500 and A10-5700, with HD 7500 / 7600 series GPUs, and based on Socket FM2, are expected in June 2012.

Technologies

Hybrid CrossFire / Hybrid CrossFireX / Dual Graphics

The Hybrid CrossFireX is a technology allowing the IGP, or Integrated Graphics Processor, and the discrete

, or Graphics Processing Unit, to form a CrossFire setup to enhance the system capability to render 3D scenes, while the Hybrid CrossFire X technology is present on the 790GX and 890G chipsets, with two supplied physical PCI-E x16 slots at x8 bandwidth,HKEPC review
, retrieved January 29, 2008 can form a Hybrid CrossFire X setup with two video cards and the IGP, enhancing the 3D rendering capabilities.HKEPC report
: AMD touts Hybrid Crossfire X technology, combining IGP and GPU, available in Q2 2008. Retrieved December 12, 2007 Initial performance results paired with a Radeon HD 2400 video card leads to a 50% performance increase over standalone Radeon HD 2400 performance,
, retrieved October 31, 2007 notebook products will also be available. Three operation modes were spotted as follows: One notable issue is that when the IGP paired with a DirectX 10.1 video card, the whole hybrid CrossFire setup will support up to DirectX 10.0 only, and the UVD in IGP will be shut down. The new 785G chipset has solved this issue however and supports DirectX 10.1. As of 2012, it seems that this "Hybrid CrossFireX" is called "Dual Graphics". AMD claims that – for an A8-3850 APU paired with an HD 6670 video card – dual graphics more than doubles performance (the benchmark increased by 123%) compared with the APU alone. But the performance of a standalone HD 6670 video card does not appear to be stated or compared. However, the Japanese computer magazine ASCII has published charts showing worthwhile improvements for the combination of A8-3850 with HD 6450, HD 6570 and HD 6670, as have Tom's Hardware and Hardware Canucks. Furthermore, on this issue, there are certain APU+GPU combinations that only work in Directx 10 or above with the APU graphics being the default rendering GPU, notably A6/A8-3000 series and HD 6490/7400.

SurroundView

SurroundView is a brand/marketing term for the capability to drive

multiple monitors Multi-monitor, also called multi-display and multi-head, is the use of multiple physical display devices, such as monitors, televisions, and projectors, in order to increase the area available for computer programs running on a single computer sy ...

as available in the ATI RS480 chipset. At most four monitors with a discrete graphics card can be connected onto the supported video output ports (one through

LVDS Low-voltage differential signaling (LVDS), also known as TIA/EIA-644, is a technical standard that specifies electrical characteristics of a differential, serial signaling standard. LVDS operates at low power and can run at very high speeds ...

, that is either

HDMI High-Definition Multimedia Interface (HDMI) is a proprietary audio/video interface for transmitting uncompressed video data and compressed or uncompressed digital audio data from an HDMI-compliant source device, such as a display controlle ...

or DVI-D port and one

D-Sub The D-subminiature or D-sub is a common type of electrical connector. They are named for their characteristic D-shaped metal shield. When they were introduced, D-subs were among the smallest connectors used on computer systems. Description, no ...

port), in "extended desktop mode" or "clone/mirror/duplicate mode". The integrated graphics processor and the discrete graphics processor work in parallel to drive multiple displays. Therefore, SurroundView is different from Hybrid CrossFireX. The successor of SurroundView is

AMD Eyefinity AMD Eyefinity is a brand name for AMD video card products that support multi-monitor setups by integrating multiple (up to six) display controllers on one GPU. AMD Eyefinity was introduced with the Radeon HD 5000 Series "Evergreen" in Septemb ...

PowerXpress

Available on mainstream mobile IGP chipsets (AMD M780G and M690), the PowerXpress technology allows seamless switching from integrated graphics (IGP) to discrete graphics on notebooks when the notebook is connected to the AC power supply for better 3D rendering capabilities, and ''vice versa'' when disconnected from the power supply to increase battery life. The process does not require a system reboot as in the past and some current notebook implementations, and it features a UI within the driver which can profile applications to run on specified GPUs. In addition to that, later GPU models feature an Ultra Low Power Saving (ULPS) state that completely disables the discrete GPU when not in use, thus further saving power. However this feature proved to be buggy when inappropriate drivers are installed. Current Linux support of this feature may be complete since Catalyst 11.4 (fglrx driver 8.840 or newer) according to a ''Phoronix'' article. X.org currently does not support seamless graphic cards hot-switching without restarting the X server. The internal AMD technology name is PowerXpress * PowerXpress v1 – v3.0, were branded by the same name, "PowerXpress" * PowerXpress v4.0, the external name is rebranded as "Dynamic Switchable Graphics" (DSG). * PowerXpress v5.0 - present, DSG is rebranded as "Enduro".

References

External links