14 DAY TRIAL // In the fourth quarter of this year, AMD is expected to update its A-series desktop APU lineup with a new chip that will feature an unlocked multiplier, and recently, an overclocker used an engineering sample of this processor to break the 3D Mark Vantage and 06 world records for integrated graphics.
The new accelerated processing unit will be known as the A8-3870 Black Edition and, thanks to its 3.1GHz base frequency, it will become AMD's fastest APU to date, surpassing the current 2.9GHz clocked A8-3850.
In order to achieve the two 3DMark world records, the AMD APU had to be overclocked from its base clock speed around 3.9GHz, which enabled it to score 11822 points in 3DMark 06 and 7386 points in 3DMark Vantage.
According to Chew, the overclocker who set these world records, the chip has the potential to go over 5GHz, but the motherboard's BIOS kept interfering with the engineering sample APU.
Outside of the higher operating clock and unlocked multiplier, the A8-3870 Black Edition is almost identical with the current A8-3850 and sports quad processing cores with 4MB of Level 2 cache memory, an integrated dual-channel DDR3-1866MHz controller, and Radeon HD 6550D graphics.
This is AMD's fastest on-die GPU to be included in the Llano APU line and it packs no less than 400 stream processors that are running at 600MHz.
In spite of the increased clock speed, the A8-3870 will carry the same 100W TDP as the A8-3850 and A6-3650 APUs.
Until the A8-3870 is launched, AMD is expected to release four more A-Series desktop APUs. These will feature a 65W TDP, pack between two and four cores, range in speed between 2.1GHz and 2.7GHz and select models will feature support for AMD's Turbo Core technology. (via WCCFTech)
