AMD Announces Richland APUs

AMD announced that the AMD Elite A-Series Accelerated Processing Units (APUs), codenamed “Richland”, will be available starting yesterday, March 12, 2013.  These new processing units allow for ingenious experiences for the user by having facial log-in and gesture recognition, computes performance over previous generations, and enhanced power management capabilities on just this chip.

People know that AMD provides stunning graphics with their products but this new processing unit provides more battery life as well. Corporate Vice President and General Manager of AMD’s Client Business Unit, Bernd Lienhard said that their engineers have increased processor performance while simultaneously decreasing power consumption.

The 2013 AMD Elite A-Series APUs are based on the award-winning history of AMD’s original APU line-up to get the best performance on their notebooks. The "Richland" family of APUs allows for a better user experience because it has faster performance and improved power management compared to its predecessor's architecture, coupled with AMD Radeon HD 8000 series graphics. 

As stated above, the new AMD Elite A-Series APUs enhances the user experience because of the power of the combined computer and graphics cores. Some of them are:

• AMD Face Login – Allows users to use a webcam for facial recognition to log-in to Windows or other websites that require log-in information, like social networking websites and email.
• AMD Gesture Control – Uses webcams, advanced image processing and machine-vision algorithms to track a user’s hand gestures and convert them into basic commands
• AMD Screen Mirror – Photos, videos, HS media streams and webpages can be wirelessly shared from a PC or tablet based on a 2013 AMD A-Series APU with a TV that is supported or display with a DLNA receiver.
• AMD Video Entertainment Features – Content can be at its best with AMD Steady Video technology by allowing users stabilize images and video. AMD Quick Stream technology7 enables smooth video streaming without interruptions and AMD Perfect Picture HD8 creates realistic and rich colours on video entertainment

Later in the year, the AMD-optimized software will be pre-loaded on select AMD Elite A-Series APU-based notebooks and will be available for download from AMD's website next month.

Compared to the previous generation “Trinity”, the 2013 AMD Elite A-Series APUs feature performance upgrades and high-end technologies:

• Visual and compute performance is better than the previous generation of AMD A-Series APUs
• AMD Start Now Technology for tablet-like response – The AMD Turbo Core technology is improved with higher boost frequencies which means better performance when needed and conserves energy when not needed
•  Support for AMD Eyefinity, AMD Radeon Dual Graphics, and DirectX 11

AMD continues its leadership on power/performance with its latest generation. The technologies use intelligent control systems, higher compute methods, and the efficiency of graphics cores to improve PC responsiveness and extend battery life.  Based on the idea of AMD AllDay Power, Richland-based notebooks boast a battery life of up to 7.9 hours of web browsing, 5.7 hours of HD video playback, and 10 hours of resting battery life just from a 55 watts/hour battery.

Beginning this month, performance and traditional notebooks based on 2013 AMD Elite A-Series APUs are shipping in select regions.  Model numbers and technical details are below: