AMD’s long awaited desktop edition of the ‘Trinity’ APU finally became a reality today when the company launched its second generation A-series APU into retail and distribution channels.
The new AMD A-Series APU is ideal for anyone looking for a new desktop or home theatre PC with leading performance for the dollar,” said Leslie Sobon, AMD’s corporate vice president, Desktop and Component Products, in a statement. “The combination of processing speed, multiple compute cores and discrete-level graphic capabilities on the second generation AMD A-Series APU make it an excellent platform for the gamer and PC enthusiast alike.”
These APUs are available at prices between $122 to $53 USD: the high-end quad-core A-10 5800k is clocked at 4.2 (max) GHz with a base speed of 3.8 GHz and commands a suggested MSRP of $122 while the value priced A4-5300 comes in at $53 and has a dual-core 3.6 (max) GHz chip with a base speed of 3.4 GHz. There are many mid-range offerings in between these two chips such as the A8-5500 that is priced at $101 and is clocked at 3.7 GHz (max) with a 3.2 GHz base speed.
The second generation AMD A-Series APUs include AMD Radeon HD 7000 Series graphics and includes support for AMD’s Eye-Finity technology.
AMD has said that these new APUs will be compatible with its “AppZone” marketplace of APU-accelerated Android apps on Windows 8.
The second generation A-Series APU has won substantial praise from some of AMD’s partners.
In press materials, the President of WinZip goes on record praising the OpenCL acceleration offered by the APUs.
“Millions of business professionals and consumers count on WinZip to zip and deliver their files quickly,” remarked Patrick Nichols, President of WinZip. “The OpenCL accelerated file performance of WinZip 16.5 on AMD A-Series APUs lets our customers zip, share and secure even the largest file sets faster than ever.”
GIGABYTE is quoted as saying their motherboards are ready for AMD’s new APUs.
“With AMD’s second generation APU platform, GIGABYTE is bringing several exclusive technologies to an AMD platform for the first time, including our new Ultra Durable 5 technology and Digital Power delivery,” commented Henry Kao, vice president of GIGABYTE Motherboard Business Unit. “These technologies help ensure GIGABYTE FM2 series motherboards will get the absolute maximum graphics and processing performance from AMD’s new and exciting A-Series APUs.”
A producer at Codemasters also sings the praises of the A-Series APU’s performance.
“Graphics power today’s entertainment lifestyle and with the AMD A-Series APUs, customers will have a richer visual experience when playing DiRT Showdown,” said Clive Moody, Executive Producer, DiRT Showdown. “The arrival of the second-generation AMD A-Series APUs delivers a superior visual quality and outstanding performance with a full panel DirectX 11 gaming experience that’s second to none.”
This launch is not without controversy for AMD, as one prominent technology journalist alleges AMD has been controlling the been attempting to control the release of benchmarks for the new platform.
Scott Wasson of the Tech Report claims that AMD’s Peter Amos, who is one of AMD’s coordinators of review materials, contacted him to, “[attempt] to shape the content of reviews by dictating a two-stage plan for the release of information.”
Mr. Amos, according to Mr. Wasson’s allegations and posted e-mail thread, offered the Tech Report early review posting rights if they would release preview articles highlighting certain information and promising not to post other information — gaming benchmarks were permitted (as AMD expected gaming performance to be a strength) but non gaming benchmarks were prohibited.
The second generation A-Series APU is available from retailers now.
