AMD has announced its sixth-generation A-series accelerated processing units (APUs) in a system-on-chip (SoC) design.
Previously codenamed Carrizo, the AMD A-series processors bring HEVC/H.265 to the notebook, enabling consumers to benefit from higher quality, lower bandwidth streaming video playback versus traditional H.264 videos.
The APUs support Ultra HD resolution videos. The APUs also have a faster media conversion rate with up to five times accelerated encoding performance compared to CPU-only processing.
The A-series processors come with discrete-class graphics built in, harnessing AMD Radeon Graphics Core Next (GCN) architecture.
The APUs also supports AMD's FreeSync technology as well as DirectX 12, Vulkan and AMD's Mantle.
AMD Gesture Control is available on mainstream notebooks, allowing users to navigate and control their notebook with a wave of the hand.
For Microsoft Windows 10 experience, the A-series processors accelerate video playback on the forthcoming operating system with native HEVC decode supported, and enable the latest Windows 10 features with Secure boot and resume, Trusted Platform Module (TPM 2.0), and Drive Key Encryption using the first AMD Secure Processor for performance APUs.
Notebooks powered by AMD new A series APUs
Photo: Shihmin, Fu, Digitimes, June 2015