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AMD announces 7th Generation A-Series Processors

by Mark Tyson on 6 April 2016, 09:31

Tags: AMD (NYSE:AMD)

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AMD has announced early availability of its mobile 7th generation A-Series processors. The mobile processors are now shipping in volume to OEM customers. Yesterday saw HP announce a new ENVY x360 laptop featuring a Bristol Ridge APU, for example. However there's still a wait until availability, the mobile processors will debut in "a wide range of OEM designs at Computex 2016," where we also expect to see the desktop chips launched.

AMD's Bristol Ridge uses the same Excavator cores as can be found in its predecessor, code named Carizzo, but with some micro architecture and manufacturing tweaks. Perhaps one of the biggest changes is in platform memory support: Bristol Ridge supports DDR4 memory. The refinements and improvements in Bristol Ridge seem to add up, as AMD claims a "massive x86 improvement" over previous gen APUs, as you can see in the slide below.

As a pre-announcement of Bristol Ridge APUs, the AMD press release doesn't offer many substantial details and it admittedly was timed "to support an exciting new notebook design by HP," the aforementioned ENVY x360. With such laptops the built-in graphics capabilities are vital, you can't upgrade them at a later date. Thus improvements in the built-in Radeon R7 and R5 graphics components of the APU can help you enjoy your device for longer.

With the upcoming Bristol Ridge APUs, AMD promises users will "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". Graphics performance uplift with the new Bristol Ridge APUs is said to be as much as 18 per cent better than previous generation APUs and 50 per cent better than the "comparable Intel product" (an Intel Core i7-6500U).

Overall AMD's 7th Generation A-Series Processors will bring "sharper graphics, faster performance, and longer battery life," said Jim Anderson, senior vice president and general manager, Computing and Graphics Business Group, AMD. More details about Bristol Ridge will likely come nearer to, or at, Computex 2016.



HEXUS Forums :: 17 Comments

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not convinced - notebook availability will be low and will it even come to desktop? Carrizo didn't.
Bristol Ridge should arrive on the desktop in the AM4 slot, if I recall the roadmap correctly. I'm certainly waiting for that. For laptops I might have bought one if it was in a laptop around the 12" size, but I'm guessing we won't see that, so I'll probably end up with a Dell XPS 13.
ET3D
Bristol Ridge should arrive on the desktop in the AM4 slot, if I recall the roadmap correctly. I'm certainly waiting for that. For laptops I might have bought one if it was in a laptop around the 12" size, but I'm guessing we won't see that, so I'll probably end up with a Dell XPS 13.

I expect it would happen eventually, but it looks like HP are using this in a new 15" version of the Envy 360 :(
DanceswithUnix
I expect it would happen eventually, but it looks like HP are using this in a new 15" version of the Envy 360 :(

As is always the case. AMD build a CPU with moderate gaming power and good enough CPU power for daily tasks all within a healthy power usage budget that's perfect for netbook size devices… and HP stick it in a massive laptop with a 1366x768 screen :(
Biscuit
As is always the case. AMD build a CPU with moderate gaming power and good enough CPU power for daily tasks all within a healthy power usage budget that's perfect for netbook size devices… and HP stick it in a massive laptop with a 1366x768 screen :(

Right. I'm still occasionally using my Thinkpad X120e with an E-350 CPU, and while it's not a perfect machine, I won't mind replacing it with a similar laptop with a Bristol Ridge APU. For ~$400 I'd even make do with the same low res screen and a dual core APU.

Still, where I really want one is in my HTPC, where I know it won't be crippled by low power requirements and single channel RAM. The A10-7860K appeals to me but FM2+ doesn't, so I'm hoping that AM4 Bristol Ridge chips won't be far behind their mobile brethren.