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It can also pair an add-in Radeon graphics cards with the on-APU graphics for increased 3D performance through a technology called Dual Graphics. The technology juggling required to achieve this feat means the APUs require a new motherboard and chipset socket, FM1, and partners such as Gigabyte, MSI and ASUS all have APU-supporting desktop boards in the marketplace right now.Ī fully-featured FM1 board, costing some £75, incorporates dual-channel DDR3 memory at up-to 1,866MHz speeds, SATA 6Gbps storage connectivity and USB 3.0 as standard. Understanding AMD's APUs is quite simple: they bring together existing mainstream AMD CPU and graphics technology and package it into one chip. Just like the A8, it's available in 65W and 100W versions, where the higher-wattage APU is geared more for performance than power efficiency.
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It has a slower graphics core and lower CPU speeds. This tiny bit of silicon enables the chips to run, smoothly, the latest high-definition video content - Blu-ray films, HD DivX content, for example - with low overall power consumption.Īs the tables show, the A6 APU is a scaled-down version of the A8. What's more, AMD tacks onto each APU its latest UVD technology. Understanding the provenance of the APUs' graphics means they can play the very latest (DX11) games at reasonable image-quality settings. Simplifying it somewhat, they use the graphics core found on low-end Radeon HD 5-series cards that you would normally slot into a motherboard. This means they're based around what's known as the K10 architecture and, generally speaking, have adequate performance for everyday tasks.īut the CPU is only one part of the equation with APUs AMD also adds in a graphics portion to each chip.Ī6 and A8 APUs' graphics are also based on largely existing technology. The A6 and A8 chips have four CPU processing cores whose technology is very similar to existing (CPU-only) AMD Phenom II's, which have been on sale for a couple of years now. The first two off the bat are the A6 and A8, as shown in the table, below. While Llano is the code-name, the mainstream-orientated APU chips are productised as the AMD A-series. Initially, AMD is releasing four Llano models for desktop PCs. The two sets of Llano processor share the same underlying technology, and we'll be focussing on the desktop variant in this guide.
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AMD Llano - four modelsĪ range of Llano APUs is available for both laptop and desktop PCs. The cheaper APUs run with the code-name Brazos, while the mainstream video-and-CPU chip, released in June 2011, is known as Llano. The company refers to these processors as APUs (Accelerated Processing Units).
#AMD K10 SERIES PC#
Appreciating that high-definition video playback and general multimedia usage are becoming must-have functions on a modern computer, both companies have worked towards bringing the video-processing chip and CPU together, right on to one chip.ĪMD has now successfully mated the integrated video and CPU on to one bit of silicon for both the low-end and mainstream PC markets. There are two main chip-makers for the consumer and business PC markets: Intel and AMD. While not powerful enough to run the latest games - you will need what's known as a discrete card for full-on gaming - this type of integrated video is found on practically all corporate PCs, where the primary function is to display simple 2D applications such as spreadsheets and web pages. In recent times, this video chip, known as a GPU, has been added to the motherboard on low-cost computers. A separate chip or add-in card has been used to provide the video/gaming processing and signal from the PC to a monitor. Personal computers (PCs) have historically been built with a central processing unit - better known as a CPU, which is considered the brains of the computer - installed on to a motherboard.