All-in-One Desktops Get Graphics of Their Very Own from AMD

When building an all-in-one PC, companies often use GPUs normally found in laptops, unless they make do with CPUs with integrated circuitry, but AMD decided it was time AiOs had their own range of graphics components.

Lacking the usual fanfare that accompanies products from high-tier IT companies, a number of video solutions for all-in-one PCs have, nonetheless, appeared.

Their maker is none other that Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), whose main goal were to strike a lower power draw than that of desktops add-in boards (AIBs) without much loss to performance.

AMD seems to have built on the fact that AiOs, though compact, can still use cooling systems stronger than those found in laptops.

As such, hardware parts needn't be equipped with the sort of low temperature ships that laptop discrete graphics utilize.

The product series is called Radeon HD 6000A and is, for now at least, made up of four members, 6670A, 6650A, 6550A and 6450A.

“Depending on the form-factor of the target product, ASICs are defined and qualified differently, thus the use of an A or M at the end of the series number to distinguish an All-in-One (A) or mobile (M) part from that of a desktop part,” said Dave Erskine, a spokesman for AMD.

“OEMs immediately know that a part designated as AMD Radeon HD 6000A has been validated and specified for the unique needs of All-in-One designs, including thermals, power requirements, and feature support.”

The 6450A uses a Caicos chip with 160 stream processors, 8 texture units and 4/16 color/z ROPs, while the other three are Turks products with 24 texture units each, 480 stream processors and 8/32 color/z render operating units.

They don't have all the power management features of notebook components but their power draw is, nonetheless, smaller than what desktop cards can brag about.