AMD today announced the first availability of the AMD Elite A-Series Accelerated Processing Units (APUs), codenamed "Richland," which support facial log-in and gesture recognition, improved graphics and compute performance over the previous generation, and enhanced power management capabilities on a single chip.
"The high performance AMD A-Series APU continues to impress with its ability to deliver stunning graphics and immersive experiences with even more battery life. Our engineers have done a superb job of increasing processor performance while decreasing power consumption," said Bernd Lienhard, corporate vice president and general manager of AMD's Client Business Unit. "With the capabilities built into our 2013 AMD Elite A-Series APUs, including new software for gesture control, facial recognition, rich entertainment and more lifelike gaming, we are delivering an ever richer experience to end users and our customers."
The new APU are designed to power notebooks and offer faster performance and improved power management in the same platform architecture as its predecessor, coupled with AMD Radeon HD 8000 Series graphics. The Richland x86 processors deliver between 20 percent and 40 percent more performance than Trinity chips, AMD has said.
The new AMD Elite A-Series APUs will accelerate a suite of software, which will come pre-loaded on select AMD Elite A-Series APU-based notebooks later this year and will be downloadable from www.amd.com next month.
Through engineering optimizations on the previous generation of theAMD A-Series APU platform architecture (formerly codenamed "Trinity") and updated graphics, the 2013 AMD Elite A-Series APUs feature significant performance increases along with support for new technologies including:
- Visual and compute performance increases over the previous generation of AMD A-Series APUs;
- AMD Start Now Technology for tablet-like responsiveness;
- Improved AMD Turbo CORE technology with higher boost frequencies than the previous generation, for more performance when you need it and energy conservation when you don't;
- Support for AMD Eyefinity technology, AMD Radeon Dual Graphics, and DirectX 11.
AMD Start Now technology is a BIOS optimized solution designed to deliver better system responsiveness by minimizing the time to wake up the system from sleep mode, boot the system to desktop and connect to a wireless local area network. The technology is available with select AMD APUs when running Windows 7 or Windows 8.
AMD Radeon Dual Graphics requires an AMD "A" series APU plus an AMD Radeon discrete graphics configuration and is available on Windows 7 and/or Windows 8 OS. Linux OS supports manual switching which requires restart of X-Server to engage and/or disengage the discrete graphics processor for dual graphics capabilities. With AMD Radeon Dual Graphics, full enablement of all discrete graphics video and display features may not be supported on all systems (e.g. AMD Eyefinity technology is not supported and OpenGL applications will run on the APU).
AMD's latest power management technologies enable more intelligent, higher compute and graphics core performance to help extend battery life. Building on the idea of AMD AllDay Power, the 2013 AMD Elite A-Series Platform enables up to 7.9 hours of web browsing, 5.7 hours of HD video playback and up to 10 hours of resting battery life on a 55 watt/hour battery.
The new Richland chips include quad-core A10 and A8 quad-core chips and dual-core A6 and A4 chips that operate at speeds between 3.1GHz and 3.5GHz. The quad-core chips have 4MB of cache, while the dual-core chips have 1MB cache. The chips use 35 watts of power.
While 35 watts chips are considered power hungry for laptops, AMD will announce low-power A-series variants later this year.
Performance and traditional notebooks based on these 2013 AMD Elite A-Series APUs are shipping now with availability beginning this month in select regions.
In related news, AMD today agreed to sell and lease back its campus in Austin, Texas, to raise $164 million in cash and fund its chipmaking business as it diversifies beyond the struggling PC industry into new markets.
AMD has entered into an agreement to sell and lease-back its "Lone Star Campus" located at 7171 Southwest Parkway in Austin, Texas to 7171 Southwest Parkway Holdings, LP, an affiliate entity of real estate investment company Spear Street Capital. Upon closing, net of all fees, the sale is expected to generate approximately $164 million in cash. The proceeds are expected to be reflected in the company’s first quarter 2013 financial statements when reported on Apr. 18, 2013. At closing, AMD will enter into a 12-year lease with an extension option to continue its operations on the campus. The transaction is expected to close on or about Mar. 26, 2013.
