AMD Expands its Desktop Line-Up of AMD Fusion APUs with A4 Series

[btarunr]

AMD today announced availability of the AMD A-Series Accelerated Processing Unit (APU) A4-3300 and A4-3400 desktop processors, bringing the entry-level desktop APU price down to just $70 (U.S. suggested retail price) for consumers who want PCs with brilliant HD graphics, advanced performance, and fast application and connectivity speeds.

The AMD A4-3300 and A4-3400 desktop APUs each combine two x86 CPU cores with 160 Radeon cores, enabling powerful DirectX 11-capable discrete-level graphics and dedicated HD video processing on a single chip. These dual-core APUs enable responsive and energy-efficient performance for everyday PC productivity and multitasking, as well as an amazing gaming experience.

In addition to leading-edge graphics and competitive compute power, the AMD A4-3300 and A4-3400 APUs support:

• AMD Steady Video for instant removal of shakes and jitters when re-watching video, so content looks steady and smooth.
• AMD Dual Graphics for a visual performance boost when paired with select AMD Radeon HD 6000 Series graphics cards.
• Integrated USB 3.0 controller for rapid transfer and storage of digital content.
• AMD VISION Engine Software to provide users with regular updates to help improve system performance and stability, and to introduce new software enhancements.

With a suggested retail price of $70.00 (U.S), the AMD A4-3300 APU operates at 2.5GHz (CPU) and 444MHz (GPU) with 160 Radeon Cores, 1MB of L2 cache and a TDP of 65W.

With a suggested retail price of $75.00 (U.S), the AMD A4-3400 APU operates at 2.7GHz (CPU) and 600MHz (GPU) with 160 Radeon Cores, 1MB of L2 cache and a TDP of 65W.

View at TechPowerUp Main Site

 

[Red_Machine]

with 160 Radeon cores, enabling powerful DirectX 11-capable discrete-level graphics

Does not compute.

 

[HalfAHertz]

unfortunately if you want to enjoy those dx11 effects with smooth frames, you'd have to play at 640x480

 

[morphy]

It can take in a normal pcie card kinda like Nvidia Optimus or ATi PowerXpress/Hybrid CrossFire on supported boards. I can see this setup work on htpcs that double as gaming boxes where you will need the graphics horsepower and the other times when you're just watching movies IGP will do fine.

 

[[H]@RD5TUFF]

Is there really a need for these uber low end APU's ?

 

[repman244]

Before you complain about lag, think about Jesus. He lagged three days before respawning.

 

[cheesy999]

brilliant, just what we needed from amd, more low end proccesors while still no idea about the high end one's

also sigged

 

[_Zod_]

They also snuck in this AMD Athlon II X4 631

I assume it's just a failed APU with the graphics core disabled. I wonder if that extra cache and smaller die will make it out perform current Athlon II's by any kind of noticeable margin. What strikes me however is the stupidly high TDP for the die size and low speed.

 

[TheGuruStud]

They also snuck in this AMD Athlon II X4 631

I assume it's just a failed APU with the graphics core disabled. I wonder if that extra cache and smaller die will make it out perform current Athlon II's by any kind of noticeable margin. What strikes me however is the stupidly high TDP for the die size and low speed.

AMD has been ridiculously overvolting all CPUs (and I'm mostly thinking of the higher end ones, low end can undervolt like crazy). You can take .2-.3 V off and they'll still be stable. I have to wonder even with the overvolting if the TDP claimed is a little high.

I guess they just don't give a shit about binning.

 

[Thefumigator]

I prefer this A4 than a sempron/Athlon II X2 paired with an 800 series chipset sporting 4000 series IGP. I've been selling this lately, but the A4 performs better as dual core than any Athlon dual core, and not even mentioning the graphics performance increase.

So the A4 makes perfect sense to me. But I agree that DX11 support won't be practical, still if it's there, what do people expect? AMD retrotaking it to DX10 or DX9? No, they won't. And DX11 still has some advantages in the low end, where game developers are the ones to blame if the graphics advantage over DX10 don't show up.

 

[eidairaman1]

I prefer this A4 than a sempron/Athlon II X2 paired with an 800 series chipset sporting 4000 series IGP. I've been selling this lately, but the A4 performs better as dual core than any Athlon dual core, and not even mentioning the graphics performance increase.

So the A4 makes perfect sense to me. But I agree that DX11 support won't be practical, still if it's there, what do people expect? AMD retrotaking it to DX10 or DX9? No, they won't. And DX11 still has some advantages in the low end, where game developers are the ones to blame if the graphics advantage over DX10 don't show up.

Newer Arch dude, this is the precursor to Bobcat/bulldozer

 

[Xaser04]

The TDP makes these chips a whole lot of MEH.

 

[eidairaman1]

who cares about TDP n All.

 

[FreedomEclipse]

who cares about TDP n All.

If youre trying to build a low power consumption HTPC then I would think you'd be fairly concerned

 

[Zubasa]

The TDP makes these chips a whole lot of MEH.

The TDP is not bad at all when you consider these APUs have a built-in graphics core and northbridge.
This thing is in effect more or less a 45w chip considering the whole system power consumption.