AMD Releases New Athlon FX CPU SKUs, Wraith Coolers Join The Party

AMD’s Zen CPUs are still a ways off, but the company has a few new products based on its current processor technology for users to get excited about. AMD announced that there will be three new processors released for its socket FM2+, as well as three new CPU coolers that will be bundled with its existing products.

A10-7860K, Athlon X4 845 and A6-7470K

AMD’s new high-end energy efficient APU is the A10-7860K. Compared to the A10-7850K, the A10-7860K actually has a slightly lower 3.6 GHz base clock speed compared to the A10-7850K’s 3.7 GHz. The boost clock speed is the same on both processors at 4 GHz. Where the A10-7860K really pulls ahead of the A10-7850K is with its GPU clock speed and TDP. The iGPU in the A10-7860K is clocked five percent (37 MHz) higher than the A10-7850K, giving it a slight edge in gaming.

The A10-7860K also reduces the TDP to 65 W, a full 30 W lower than the A10-7850K (90 W). As this is a newer and more efficient component, we would expect AMD to sell the A10-7860K at a higher price than the A10-7850K, but instead, AMD’s suggested price for the A10-7860K is $117.99, roughly $12 less than the current going price for an A10-7850K on Newegg.

AMD’s other new SKU is the Athlon X4 845, which slides in just below the Athlon X4 860K. Although it has a similar name to the Athlon X4 860K, the Athlon X4 845 is actually considerably different, as it uses AMD’s Excavator architecture instead of Steamroller. According to AMD, Excavator features slightly increased IPC of around five percent, and 40 percent less power consumption than Steamroller cores.

The Athlon X4 845 features a reduced 65 W TDP similar to the A10-7860K, but AMD said that this was a rather high TDP rating, and the processor should stay well below that thermal ceiling even when under heavy load.  The Athlon X4 845 ($69.99) is priced just $10 less than the Athlon X4 860K ($79.99). It is also clocked lower than the Athlon X4 860K and doesn’t support overclocking, but because of the change in architecture, it is difficult to say what effect this will have.

AMD also announced a new low-end Steamroller-based SKU, the A6-7470K. This CPU is just a slight step up from the company’s A6-7400K, featuring higher clock speeds.

The Wraith And Friends

AMD is also pushing out three new CPU coolers across its existing product lines. We have already discussed AMD’s new high-end air cooler, the Wraith, in some detail. Although we don’t have any new details on the cooler, we now know that it will ship with AMD FX 8370 processors.

For lower-end SKUs, AMD also created two smaller air coolers. Both of these coolers are 95 W thermal solutions and generate significantly less noise than the older AMD stock coolers they replace. The older stock coolers supplied by AMD could generate up to 52 dBA of noise, but the new coolers top out at 36 dBA, and are overall more than ten times quieter.

CPUs With New 95 W Thermal SolutionAMD A10-7860KAMD A8-7670KAMD A8-7650KAMD Athlon X4 845

These new SKUs and coolers should be available from retailers now.

Follow Michael Justin Allen Sexton @EmperorSunLao. Follow us on Facebook, Google+, RSS, Twitter and YouTube.