This time around, we aren't bringing you information about some new or upcoming chip, but of a pair of processors that escaped the public eye for a long time.
Truth be told, we aren't all that shocked that a couple of APUs with disabled GPUs managed to slip the attention of the world for so long.
After all, when Advanced Micro Devices released the
FM1 socket and accompanying chips, everyone kept tabs on the
Llano accelerated processing units.
Nevertheless, there were chips with their GPUs disabled, marketed as part of the Athlon II and Sempron series.
What we are looking at today are the dual-core Athlon II 221 and Sempron 198. They first
surfaced in CPU lists in mid-2011 but have only now been spotted.
The Sempron 198 powers the HP Pavilion p6-1152cx, Pavilion p6-1159cx,
Pavilion p6-1230cx and p6-1231cx desktop computers.
It is a dual-core unit with a clock speed of 2.5 GHz, L2 cache memory of 1 MB, DDR3-1600 RAM support and a TDP (thermal design power) of 65 Watts.
The other CPU, AMD Athlon II 221, is shipped in HP Pavilion p6-1169cx and
Pavilion p6-1226cn computers.
Like the Sempron, it features two cores, 1 MB of L2 cache memory, DR3-1600 support and a 65W TDP, but its clock frequency is higher, at 2.8 GHz.
AMD 64, Virtualization, and SIMD instructions up to SSE3 are available on both models. All things considered, it is a bit late in the game for these parts to surface, now that socket FM2 is what everyone is looking forward to.
Then again, the Athlon chips compatible with it have, so far, been
mid-to-high-tier versions, and it may take a while for the new technology to reach the lower levels of the industry. Until then, we may just see these two in
low-cost all-in-one PCs, nettops, etc.
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