14 DAY TRIAL // In the world of CPU development, Computex 2015 still remains a modest event as Intel launched the end-of-the-line Broadwell C-series while AMD decided to sing the same tune with the launch of Carrizo APU, offering its dedicated graphics CPUs small improvements aimed at cheap to mid-range notebooks.
While AMD claims that the new APU will help mid-range laptop owners play mainstream multiplayer games like League of Legends and CS:GO at full HD resolutions with decent FPS, max settings, it's still not a perfect bargain when professional and competitive players will want a solid 60 fps framerate. With a few tweaks, this framerate might be achieved, but playing on "close-enough" FPS will not satisfy users that might want to invest in more potent portable gaming systems.
However, Carrizo's main selling point is its energy efficiency, offering excellent battery economy for hours on end on 1080p playback. Having the H.265 hardware decoder build-in inside the chip is perfect for movie playback or video rendering and less for performance gaming.
Faster and less power hungry
AMD promised last year that it would double its APU energy efficiency by 2020, and this new Carrizo promises to walk on this road, preparing the public for its new breakthrough HBM technology that will come with its next generation of Radeon GPUs.
In an earlier preview on the new AMD APU Carrizo, we underlined the "green" qualities of the new APU noticing an improvement of 38% in density efficiency together with greater limitations on thermal leaks increasing the power efficiency and slightly improving voltage and clockspeeds.
As it seems to be a trend now at AMD, Power Efficiency has now become a rule of law on which the company hopes to gain an advantage on his main rivals, Intel and Nvidia, by focusing on portable gaming platforms promising gamers longer laptop lives and "good enough" performance whenever and wherever they need it.
Next year's Zen x86 desktop processor will probably follow the same design rules of cooler and faster modules for a longer business or entertainment experience.
