AMD Radeon HD 8000 Graphics Surface in ASUS VivoBook Ultrabook

We have yet to receive confirmation that the Radeon HD 8550M mobile graphics card is not just a rebranded series 7 card, but we will proceed on the assumption that it is until proven otherwise.

After all, it would not make much sense for a laptop featuring an AMD accelerated processing unit to have a discrete GPU at all. The A8-4555M used here has its own Radeon HD 7600G GPU.

Speaking of which, A8-4555M is a quad-core Trinity APU with a clock speed of 1.6 GHz (2.4 GHz in Turbo Mode) and a TDP (thermal design power) of 19W.

We do not have any information on the Radeon HD 8550M itself, save for the fact that it uses 1 GB of memory.

That said, the ASUS VivoBook U38DT-R3001H is the ultrabook the graphics device was found in. It has been listed by German retailer Cyberport, despite there having been no formal introductions for it.

Its price is of 799 Euro, which corresponds to either $1,022 (unlikely, since exchange rates seldom reflect reality) or $799 (much more probable).

The sum accounts for 4 GB of RAM, a hard disk drive with a capacity of 500 GB, 802.11 b/g/n WiFi, an SD card reader, three USB 3.0 ports, Bluetooth 4.0, B&O ICEPower audio, and a 13.3-inch LCD whose resolution is of 1366 x 768 pixels.

Not exactly the sort of liquid crystal display that will impress people like the creator of Linux (who had some choice words to say about laptop screens a while back), but at least there is an HDMI available for streaming video to HDTVs or monitors.

Finally, the ASUS VivoBook U38DT-R3001H ultrabook runs Microsoft's Windows 8 operating system and, thanks to a 6-cell battery, should be able to last for up to 5 hours without needing a recharge.

Now that retail stores have jumped the gun on ultrabooks equipped with next-generation hardware, a leak or two about AMD's desktop Radeon HD 8000 series may be forthcoming.