14 DAY TRIAL // AMD's A-Series accelerated processing units are fast and have good graphics capabilities, but while they might not be as mighty or expensive as Intel's Core-series of CPUs, they aren't exactly cheap either. So AMD has released some low-cost APUs.
They are collectively known by the codename “Kabini” and don't bring a new naming scheme to the mix. Instead, they are spread across the Athlon and Sempron brands.
They still come in quad-core packages though, with the exception of one Sempron unit, which only has two x86 cores.
Before we go any further, here are some outlines: there are four new APUs available, two Athlon and two bearing the Sempron brand.
All but one Sempron are quad-core chips, but the core number doesn't seem to have had any effect on the TDP (thermal design power). Which is to say, all four newcomers have a thermal envelope of 25W.
The same goes for the I/O controller (input/output controller): all four chips have support for eight USB 2.0 ports, two USB 3.0 ports and two SATA 6.0 Gbps ports.
Finally, the last feature that the newcomers share is the Stream Processor count for the integrated graphics processing units (GPU), and that is 128 SPs. All four newcomers are based on the Jaguar micro-architecture.
And now for the individual specifications of each processor. We'll start with the low-end one and work our way up.
The AMD Sempron 2650 is the lone dual-core chip we talked about. The x86 core frequency is of 1.45 GHz. Also, the processor has a cache memory of 1 MB and Radeon R3 graphics clocked at 400 MHz.
Finally, the memory controller drives whatever DDR3 RAM is installed on the hosting AM1 motherboard at 1333 MHz.
The Sempron 3850 is a 1.3 GHz quad-core processor with the same Radeon R3 graphics. Its GPU clock is of 450 MHz, and the memory runs at 1600 MHz.
The third chip, Athlon 5150, is a quad-core at 1.6 GHz with Radeon R3 GPU clocked at 600 MHz. The memory speed is, again, of 1600 MHz.
Finally, the Athon 5350 is a 2.05 GHz quad-core chip with otherwise identical specifications to those of the Athlon 5150 above.
The AMD Athlon and Sempron Kabini AM1 accelerated processing units have prices of $34 / €34 to $59 / €59. They will be paired with AM1 micro-ATX and mini-ITX motherboards priced at $25 / €25 to $35 / €35. The platforms should already be available for order.