Tuesday, April 5th 2016
AMD Accelerates Availability of Mobile 7th Generation AMD A-Series Processors
AMD today announced early availability of its new mobile 7th Generation AMD A-Series Processors, timed to support an exciting new notebook design by HP Inc. Equipped with advanced video, graphics, performance, and security features designed to boost productivity and enhance the entertainment experience, 7th Generation AMD A-Series Processors (codenamed "Bristol Ridge") also provide outstanding energy efficiency.
New OEM PC designs powered by mobile 7th Generation AMD A-Series Processors -- from ultrathin notebooks and convertibles to sleek All-in-Ones -- will come to market first with HP in the new HP ENVY x360, and with other OEM announcements expected later in the year. AMD will officially introduce 7th Gen A-Series APUs and showcase a wide range of OEM designs at Computex 2016, May 31-June 4, 2016, in Taipei, Taiwan.
"We know that consumers want more for their money than ever before -- sharper graphics, faster performance, and longer battery life. We have focused on working with key OEM partners to develop outstanding computing platforms that will fully take advantage of the powerful 7th Generation AMD APUs," said Jim Anderson, senior vice president and general manager, Computing and Graphics Business Group, AMD. "I'm excited that consumers will start to see some of these fantastic systems come to market so soon. I'm very proud of the exceptional AMD engineering execution that enabled us to accelerate these exciting new products into the market for our customers and end users."
"It is exciting for HP to be first in bringing 7th Generation AMD A-Series APU technology to market, especially in such a compelling new notebook design," said Kevin Frost, vice president and general manager, Consumer Personal Systems, HP Inc. "We think the HP ENVY x360 will resonate with consumers who are looking for the entertainment- and productivity-enhancing capabilities of the ENVY x360 design, which really showcases AMD computing and graphics prowess."
Now shipping in volume to OEM customers are both quad- and dual-core 7th Gen AMD A-Series processors, featuring mobile-optimized "Excavator" x86 CPU cores for high-speed computing, and Radeon R7 or R5 graphics for smooth online gaming and enhanced HD streaming capabilities. The 7th Generation AMD A-Series FX part shows up to 50% improvement in compute performance over the FX part released just two years ago.
The 7th Gen AMD A-Series APUs will allow users to enjoy the latest multimedia experiences in up to Ultra HD 4K video resolution, and AMD FreeSync Technology support for fluid, artifact-free online gaming performance in capable notebook and All-in-One configurations.
New OEM PC designs powered by mobile 7th Generation AMD A-Series Processors -- from ultrathin notebooks and convertibles to sleek All-in-Ones -- will come to market first with HP in the new HP ENVY x360, and with other OEM announcements expected later in the year. AMD will officially introduce 7th Gen A-Series APUs and showcase a wide range of OEM designs at Computex 2016, May 31-June 4, 2016, in Taipei, Taiwan.
"It is exciting for HP to be first in bringing 7th Generation AMD A-Series APU technology to market, especially in such a compelling new notebook design," said Kevin Frost, vice president and general manager, Consumer Personal Systems, HP Inc. "We think the HP ENVY x360 will resonate with consumers who are looking for the entertainment- and productivity-enhancing capabilities of the ENVY x360 design, which really showcases AMD computing and graphics prowess."
Now shipping in volume to OEM customers are both quad- and dual-core 7th Gen AMD A-Series processors, featuring mobile-optimized "Excavator" x86 CPU cores for high-speed computing, and Radeon R7 or R5 graphics for smooth online gaming and enhanced HD streaming capabilities. The 7th Generation AMD A-Series FX part shows up to 50% improvement in compute performance over the FX part released just two years ago.
The 7th Gen AMD A-Series APUs will allow users to enjoy the latest multimedia experiences in up to Ultra HD 4K video resolution, and AMD FreeSync Technology support for fluid, artifact-free online gaming performance in capable notebook and All-in-One configurations.
23 Comments on AMD Accelerates Availability of Mobile 7th Generation AMD A-Series Processors
Let me guess, in the product demo they will show you a full 35-42W rated APU, a dual-channel DDR4 running at DDR4-2133, and integrated graphics that is fast enough to be used in casual gaming scenario.
While in real-life products, we will have:
- Crippled to death 15W rated APU just so vendors can save $ on the VRM design and cooler
- The lowest single-channel RAM they could find, or even using Carrizo-L motherboard design so even they put 2 DIMM slots, users can only use single-channel
- Dual-graphics solution that don't even work, or an Add-on GPU that have LOWER performance than the IGP
- IGP share memory limited to 512MB and no way to change it
- OS full of bloatware shoved in a slow-ass HDD
-And they will price that unit as expensive as a MacBook!
I mean, I hate Apple, their pricing and how they do business, but at least they came up with ways to make a slowpoke Core M works quite well, not f**k a good CPU and make it slow. And vendors wonder why their laptop won't sell and 'the PC business is dwindling'
/rant
And while I don't play games on it anymore since it's too weak, updated drivers are a necessity for properly functioning hardware acceleration of Youtube videos and acceleration of webpages. Because when HW acceleration works, this little old GPU can decode even 4K @ 30fps. Without HW support, 1.6 GHz Dual Core cannot smoothy decode 480p Youtube video in software mode. Which is why I'm ranting about it so much.
Fix your driver shit AMD or people won't buy your hyped APU's.
You know what's really the maddest part? AMD CCC is constantly bitching there is an update for currently installed drivers. And when I download them it says no supported devices found. That's one of the biggest fuck ups from AMD side. and the fact they mention HD6000 as supported, but this particular HD6000 is somehow not. Because reasons. And they don't mention that anywhere. Their left hand doesn't know what their right hand is doing. Apparently.
And yeah, I'll bitch on every occasion I can so people stay away from APU's, because in the end, you can't even use it for non gaming stuff like browsing and Youtube because someone at AMD decides to cease support on random. I don't expect game profiles or anything fancy. But all browser devs complain drivers for this GPU are buggy as fuck and no one gives a damn about it. It's a freaking DX11 spec'd GPU that was capable of running games quite decently back in its days. And I'm not talking Solitaire, but proper 3D games. Not at 100fps, but it worked. And now it can't even run Youtube smoothly because of buggy drivers that aren't getting updated. Again, because "reasons".
Again if you don't like it throw it away and get an Intel Atom D2700 it was released after the E450 and has less support for LITERALLY EVERY PART, but no AMD is in the wrong for selling something low end that is feature packed.
I have an old emachines with a Radeon 320m IGP that wasn't compatible with anything but the official emachines driver. I had to mod ATi's oficial mobility drivers for them to install on my laptop.
Even Intel laptops suffer from this, my Lenovo L412 won't let me install newer Intel drivers for the chipset and GPU.
The only laptos with which I haven't got problems installing official drivers are Acer laptops... then again I've only had 2 of them ever so don't quote me on that.
I could always install desktop driver package on it till they've gone to this Crimson nonsense at which point they just dropped it from everything, even from legacy support while still stating it's supported.
I have one guy on the case working with Mozilla to fix video playback but that may take some more time. But all this could be solved if AMD stopped breaking their damn drivers and then not releasing updates for them after they break them.
You usually have some worthwhile things to say, but on this subject you've become a one-note song...don't be THAT dude, okay? ☺
Just read the first few lines on the driver support page:and later onAnother link from Anandtech, hinting at what total shills all the laptop OEMs are:
Very strange, I've had 0 problems installing a Crimson 16.1.1 Non-GCN/NIEG ('special' driver for older non-GCN gpus) on some older APUs, including arhaic Llano, so far... Don't wanna sound rude, but maybe you tried installing GCN Crimson instead of non-GCN version?