AMD’s upcoming Richland APUs will share a lot of the characteristics of the current Trinity APU range. Some commentators even refer to it as Trinity 2.0. The processors are both fabricated using the 32nm process and use the Piledriver CPU architecture. However AMD has managed to get more MHz out of these new APUs while maintaining the power-envelope. Also to sweeten the deal Richland APUs will feature updated Radeon HD 8000 series GPUs and faster DDR3-2133MHz dual-channel memory controllers.
Looking at the current top of the range Trinity APU compared to the Richland APU waiting in the wings; the Trinity A10-5800K has a base speed of 3.8GHz and CPU Turbo speed of 4.2GHz, the Richland A10-6800K will have a base speed of 4.1GHz and a CPU Turbo speed of 4.4GHz. Furthermore the 800MHz HD 7660D GPU in the A10-5800K is to be upgraded to an 844MHz HD 8670 GPU in the Richland APU. The TDPs remain the same; we might assume that AMD has improved power management and a made few architectural refinements over its predecessor.
Below is a good comparison chart courtesy of XBit labs. I’ve shaded the Richland APUs in Blue to highlight them.
An “elite software experience” will be bundled with Richland APUs to help differentiate them from the previous Trinity offerings. The software pack includes utilities for gesture control, facial recognition, wireless connectivity and video streaming. Check out the short video below to see these in action. Richland processors are already shipping to OEMs, reports ZDNet, and they should appear by Q2 2013.
