AMD’s low-power Mero APU may be destined for Mixed Reality devices

AMD Mero APUs are not particularly popular, but their use cases sure are interesting. Aimed at low-power mobile devices, the Mero chips were first mentioned over two years ago, but we are only now seeing them being used on an actual device.

As discovered by _rogame in the BaseMark database, the first AMD Mero APU found online shows it running on an Android-based AR headset, the Magic Leap Demophon. As per the listing, the system runs Android 10 and has a 1440×920 resolution when summing up both displays. The tests were run using both OpenGL ES 3.1 and Vulkan APIs.

AMD Mero

Magic Leap Demophon

Likely for their AR headset pic.twitter.com/VHgbIBx1VF

— _rogame (@_rogame) April 30, 2022

AMD's Mero APU was first mentioned by leakers back in 2019, but back then, it was believed to be the same as the Van Gogh APU, which eventually went on to power the Steam Deck. However, Locuza (via VideoCardz), spotted some key differences, including additional PCIe lanes and Compute Vision hardware, which aren't present with the Steam Deck chip.

The benchmark listing has since been removed, but evidence of it is still floating around. Looking at the numbers, the Mero chip performs similarly to the Mali-G78 mobile GPU.

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KitGuru says: Given the similarities to Van Gogh, there are clearly some potential use cases for AMD's Mero APUs. Whether or not we'll see the chip in new products this year or next year is anyone's guess. 

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