On Tuesday AMD officially announced a refresh of its A-Series of APUs for notebooks and desktops. The updated APUs not only bring speed and performance improvements over the previous generation, but allows desktop users to tune both x86 and graphics settings in a single processor for boosted performance. The new chips also offer AMD Dual Graphics for an up to 144-percent visual performance boost when a select APU is paired with a select AMD Radeon HD 6500 Series graphics card.
"The new AMD A-Series family of APUs improves the first generation of highly successful and revolutionary desktop and notebook processors, providing an outstanding experience for consumers seeking more responsive multitasking, long battery-life, vivid graphics, lifelike games, lag-free videos and the ultimate multimedia performance," the company said.
According to AMD, the updated A-Series APUs combine up to four x86 CPU cores with up to 400 Radeon cores, delivering DirectX 11-capable, discrete-level graphics and dedicated HD video processing on a single chip. Also included is AMD's Steady Video which is designed to stabilize videos during playback, making unsteady, jumpy content look steady and smooth as you watch. Select systems using AMD A-Series APUs will also receive an AMD Steady Video plugin for Internet Explorer 9, unlocking one-click control "to simplify access to the premium AMD Steady Video feature for video stabilization."
AMD said that the new desktop A-Series APUs in the component channel as well as systems based on the new APUs will hit the retail market over the next several weeks. In the meantime, here is an official list of the new A-Series APUs, broken into desktop and notebooks categories:
AMD A-Series Desktop APUs
* A8-3870K: Four CPU cores, 3.0 GHz CPU base (unlocked), 100W TDP, 400 Radeon cores, 600 MHz GPU base (unlocked), 4 MB L2 cache
* A8-3820: Four CPU cores, 2.5 GHz CPU base (2.8 GHz Turbo Core), 65W TDP, 400 Radeon cores, 4 MB L2 cache
* A6-3670K: Four CPU cores, 2.7 GHz CPU base (unlocked), 100W TDP, 320 Radeon cores, 600 MHz GPU base (unlocked), 4 MB L2 cache
* A6-3620: Four CPU cores, 2.2 GHz CPU base (2.5 GHz Turbo Core), 65W TDP, 320 Radeon cores, 4 MB L2 cache
* A4-3420: Two CPU cores, 2.8 GHz CPU base, 65W TDP, 160 Radeon cores, 1 MB L2 cache
AMD A-Series Notebook APUs
* A8-3550MX: Four CPU cores, 2.0 GHz CPU base (2.7 GHz Turbo Core), 45W TDP, 400 Radeon Cores, 4 MB L2 cache
* A8-3520M: Four CPU cores, 1.6 GHz CPU base (2.5 GHz Turbo Core), 35W TDP, 400 Radeon Cores, 4 MB L2 cache
* A6-3430MX: Four CPU cores, 1.7 GHz CPU base (2.4 GHz Turbo Core), 45W TDP, 320 Radeon Cores, 4 MB L2 cache
* A6-3420M: Four CPU cores, 1.5 GHz CPU base (2.4 GHz Turbo Core), 35W TDP, 320 Radeon Cores, 4 MB L2 cache
* A4-3330MX: Two CPU cores, 2.2 GHz CPU base (2.6 GHz Turbo Core), 45W TDP, 240 Radeon Cores, 2 MB L2 cache
* A4-3320M:Two CPU cores, 2.0 GHz CPU base (2.6 GHz Turbo Core), 35W TDP, 240 Radeon Cores, 2 MB L2 cache
* A4-3305M:Two CPU cores, 1.9 GHz CPU base (2.5 GHz Turbo Core), 35W TDP, 160 Radeon Cores, 1 MB L2 cache
* E2-3000M: Two CPU cores, 1.8 GHz CPU base (2.4 GHz Turbo Core), 35W TDP, 160 Radeon Cores, 1 MB L2 Cache
