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AMD preparing launch of A-Series Fusion "Trinity" desktop APUs: report

According to rumors, AMD is getting ready to unveil A-Series Fusion "Trinity" accelerated processing units (APUs) for desktop systems to compete with Intel's Ivy Bridge silicon.
Written by Adrian Kingsley-Hughes, Contributing Writer

Rumors are circulating that AMD is preparing to launch A-Series Fusion "Trinity" accelerated processing units (APUs) for desktop systems.

Japanese tech site Hermitage Akihabara, chips have already made their way to partners and systems featuring this silicon should be available from October 1, just in time for the holiday season.

These processors follow-on from the A-Series Fusion mobile parts unveiled back in May and will require motherboards with the new Socket FM2 and will make use of AMD's new A85X chipset. These APUs, like their mobile predecessors, combine a CPU and GPU onto a single die and AMD hopes that they will put pressure on Intel's Ivy Bridge processors.

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Details are offers up for five A-series 5000-series desktop APUs. These processors will be manufactured using AMD/GlobalFoundries 32-nanometer technology.

Processor Cores Speed (GHz) TDP (W) Graphics
A6-5400 2 3.6/3.8 turbo 65 HD 7540D
A8-5500 4 3.2/3.7 turbo 65 HD 7560D
A8-5600 4 3.6/3.9 turbo 100 HD 7560D
A10-5700 4 3.4/4.0 turbo 65 HD 7660D
A10-5800 4 3.8/4.2 turbo 100 HD 7660D

Systems built around APUs with a lower TDP will benefit from requiring less cooling, not only making them cheaper to build but also quieter to run.

All of the APUs feature an AMD Radeon HD 7000-series graphics core which offers DirectX 11 graphics support and an improved video playback engine.

On paper, these APUs seem to have an advantage over Intel's Ivy Bridge parts in that the HD 7000 series GPU is superior to the GPU found in equivalent Ivy Bridge processors. We will however have to wait for independent benchmark testing of hardware to confirm these observations.

Image source: Hermitage Akihabara.

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