AMD has launched its A-Series Chips. These Chips have a combination CPU + GPU chips in a single package that the company is dubbing APUs or Accelerated Processing Unit. The A-series was formerly known under the code name Llano. The company describes the new chips as follows:
[quote]AMD A-Series APUs combine up to four x86 CPU cores with powerful DirectX 11-capable discrete-level graphics and up to 400 Radeon cores along with dedicated HD video processing on a single chip. [/quote]
The processors will be available as the A4, A6, and A8 and are meant for mid to high-level laptops. The high-end quad-core A8 is targeted for “enthusiast HD and 3D entertainment,” with the quad-core A6 for “HD creation and Blu-ray entertainment,” and the lower-end dual-core A4 (comparable to Intel’s Core i3) for “Photo editing and HD movie playback.” Higher-end Laptops will also offer a separate discrete graphics card on top of the bundled GPU, in a setup called AMD Dual Graphics. The physically discrete GPU can be set to turn off while the system is not plugged into an outlet, in order to extend battery life.
The first company to announce a line of A-Series Laptops is HP. It is not creating new models for these chips but is instead, adapting its existing models for these APUs. These processors should provide Intel’s second generation Sandy Bridge CPUs a run for their money.
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