The games won't be included for free, but the price premium shouldn't be too high either

Dec 30, 2013 07:17 GMT  ·  By

The codename “Kaveri” is used by Advanced Micro Devices to refer to the next generation of desktop accelerated processing units. This is something that everyone keeping track of the tech market probably knows. What people might not have known is that they'll be bundled with Battlefield 4.

Until now, game bundles have mostly been restricted to the company's collection of add-in graphics adapters, specifically the highest levels of the Radeon series.

It made sense, because previously only those cards (not counting NVIDIA's matching models) had the graphics prowess needed to launch games like Assassin's Creed, Skyrim and Battlefield 4 at full blast.

Now, though, AMD is about to release Accelerated Processing Units (APUs) whose integrated GPUs (graphics processing units) operate at the same level as AMD's high-end video boards of a couple of generations back.

That means that the chips will be able to run even demanding games like Battlefield 4 on their own.

It's kind of unfortunate for AMD's Radeon R9 line, since it gives people a reason against buying them, or any add-in board really.

But since it's still and AMD product they'd be buying, the Sunnyvale corporation must feel it's a good tradeoff.

Anyway, what we're getting at is that some of the A10 Kaveri APUs, or some of them, will be bundled with Battlefield 4 when they come out on January 13 or 14.

Thanks to Hermitage Akihabara, we have a screenshot of a CineBench R15 session, CPU-Z and GPU-Z shots, as well as a photo of the APU itself. The FM2+ socket chip is smaller than it looks.

These “Battlefield 4 Edition” bundles will not have the games (or Origin keys) included for free, unlike for Never Settle video board bundles, but the price premium shouldn't be too great either.

The two APU models most likely to ship with the game are the A10-7850K, and A10-7700K, since they meet the minimum spec requirements (resolution of up to HD+ 1600 x 900 pixels).

Photo Gallery (4 Images)

AMD A10 Kaveri APU
AMD A10 Kaveri APUAMD A10 Kaveri APU
+1more