AMD releases two new APUs and Carrizo based CPU, bundles Wraith Cooler with various CPUs

[DocSwag]

Sources: http://www.anandtech.com/show/10009/amd-launches-excavator-on-desktop-the-65w-athlon-x4-845-for-70 and http://www.pcworld.com/article/3028978/computers/amd-launches-first-ever-excavator-desktop-cpu-whisper-quiet-wraith-cooler.html and http://www.pcper.com/reviews/Processors/AMD-Refreshes-Q1-2016-Offerings-New-APUs-CPUs-and-Coolers

AMD has released two new APUs as well as a new Athlon chip.

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As part of today’s launch AMD released two new Kaveri based APUs as part of the FM2+ platform, the A10-7860K and the A6-7470K, as well as clarifying the way the new 125W Wraith stock cooler would be distributed at this time. What went under the radar almost was the release of a third part, the Athlon X4 845 CPU, featuring no integrated graphics but AMD’s newest architecture instead.

The first, the A10-7860k is a Godavari based APU similar to the 7850k. It is basically a 7850k with a 100 mhz lower base clock as well as a slightly higher clocked graphics unit. The big thing to note though is that this is a 65 watt part, while the 7850k is a 95 watt one.

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AMD also launched the AMD A10-7860K desktop APU. APUs, or accelerated processor units, is the term AMD uses for chips that combine a traditional CPU with onboard Radeon graphics. In the A10-7860K’s case, the computing’s handled by four CPU cores clocked at up to 4GHz in turbo boost, paired with eight Radeon R7 graphics cores running at 757MHz.

The second is the A6-7470k. It is basically like a 7850k cut in half. It is a dual core unit compared to the quad core, and also has half the CUs compared to the 7850k. However it also has a slightly higher clocked GPU and is a 65 watt part.

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The A6-7470K is another unlocked APU that features a two core product with competitive clock speeds.  It runs from 3.7 GHz to 4.0 GHz.  The GPU portion is cut down to 4 GCN units as compared to the 8 in the 7860K.  The GPU does run at 800 MHz, which will make up some of that difference.  This chip is a 65 watt part also, but it is also very inexpensive.  The official price has not been released, but it is going to be well under $100 US.

However these aren't the most interesting parts. Even though the third CPU AMD launched probably won't exactly be a big seller, it is still quite interesting because of what it signals will come in the future.

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Fast forward to today and there seems to be a slight reversal here. The new AMD Athlon X4 845 is a pair of Excavator modules in a desktop package, designed to slot right in where the Steamroller design through Kaveri has been sitting for a couple of years. Why the change? And why a single SKU at 65W, way off the 15W-35W range quoted as 'ideal' back at the Tech Day?

The Athlon X4 845 is a Carrizo based CPU. It contains 4 cores/2 modules clocked at 3.5 to 3.8 ghz. It is also a 65 watt part. This is the first Carrizo CPU/APU made for desktop. Carrizo based AM4 chips will most likely follow it in the future, with this being the reason it has sparked the interest of many.

The A10-7860k will also ship with the new wraith cooler. The other two are shipping with an unnamed 95 watt cooler. It could potentially be a lesser wraith cooler, but then again I am only guessing.

As well, there will now be an option to get the fx 8370 with a wraith cooler.

It will be interesting to test out the x4 845 and check out how much IPC it has. This could give us a good idea as to what future desktop Carrizo parts' performance will be like.

 

EDIT: Just want to clarify all four of these are on the fp2+ platform. AM4 is yet to come.

[FloRolf]

pls AMD, stop releasing hundreds of basically the same APUs.

[asim1999]

40 minutes ago, FloRolf said:

pls AMD, stop releasing hundreds of basically the same APUs.

True, but isnt that what Intel does as well?

[ForsakenLive]

Before someone gets mad about this releases, I think it's just AMD throwing a couple of chips out there that feature new manufacture and new thermal design. Let's say this could be a 'beta' for their new upcoming stuff, but instead of demoing Zen, they demo the manufacture process which uses less power.

Also a new Athlon, which is more powerful that the current one, yet it uses less power could be interesting. Right now the Athlon 860K isn't a bad choice for the low budget gamer (as it costs roughly $70, and motherboards for it are cheap). Low power on that CPU could also mean that the OC on it would be more forgiving in terms of VRM stress, meaning that more users could get away with a 4+GHz OC on a crappy board.

[MEC-777]

59 minutes ago, asim1999 said:

True, but isnt that what Intel does as well?

Indeed. Intel has more SKU's per CPU family (celerons, pentiums, i3's, i5's, i7's etc.) than AMD does - by quite a lot. 

It's just that we've seen these APUs before and these new ones bring nothing new or interesting to the table. I like that they are 65w now instead of 95w, however. Shows they are making improvements in power efficiency.  

That Athlon X4 845 on the new unified AM4 socket has my interest though. Curious to see how that performs. 

[Trixanity]

Only the FX processor gets the Wraith cooler. The rest are using an updated design with a fan similar to Wraith but are ultimately meant for smaller chips. Wraith is rated at 125W whereas these two new coolers for the three new processors are rated at 95W and 65W. Still, these are basically derived from Wraith so it seems like AMD is updating many of their cooling solutions. Probably also wants to get them out there early to let us see how they perform and to avoid them taking away the attention from upcoming products. 

All the new chips are basically binned or a bunch of broken chips like the new Excavator Athlon X4. So don't expect it to be AMD going out of their way in money, effort and time to come out with these. It's just them trying to make some money off some products they have stockpiled that could be sold as new models. This is just an interim product that doubles as a launchpad for the new coolers. 

 

These also have no relation to the upcoming Bristol Ridge and the corresponding AM4 platform, so don't get confused by this launch. AM4 is yet to come. Those will launch (probably) within 3 months.

[DocSwag]

57 minutes ago, MEC-777 said:

Indeed. Intel has more SKU's per CPU family (celerons, pentiums, i3's, i5's, i7's etc.) than AMD does - by quite a lot. 

It's just that we've seen these APUs before and these new ones bring nothing new or interesting to the table. I like that they are 65w now instead of 95w, however. Shows they are making improvements in power efficiency.  

That Athlon X4 845 on the new unified AM4 socket has my interest though. Curious to see how that performs. 

Just note it isn't on AM4 but on FP2+. It just uses Carrizo, and the first wave of AM4 CPUs should use Carrizo as well. 

[MEC-777]

10 minutes ago, DocSwag said:

Just note it isn't on AM4 but on FP2+. It just uses Carrizo, and the first wave of AM4 CPUs should use Carrizo as well. 

Oh it won't be AM4 yet? I see. Also, I think you meant to say FM2+?  

[Watermelon Guy]

@DocSwag http://www.anandtech.com/show/10009/amd-launches-excavator-on-desktop-the-65w-athlon-x4-845-for-70 This as well, they have released excavator,

[patrickjp93]

2 hours ago, asim1999 said:

True, but isnt that what Intel does as well?

Eh, Intel tends to release most of the mobile and desktop lines in one shot. Devil's Canyon was an anomaly, and Skull Trail is sort of it's own thing. AMD just keeps doing micro-sized refreshes. It's tiring.

[DocSwag]

36 minutes ago, MEC-777 said:

Oh it won't be AM4 yet? I see. Also, I think you meant to say FM2+?  

Yeah I just meant this would be like a preview to AM4. It confirms AMD will be tapping Carrizo for desktop.

[MrRavens]

AMD you better come out with a bang when you release your GPUs and eventually Zen.

[Tomsen]

2 hours ago, patrickjp93 said:

Eh, Intel tends to release most of the mobile and desktop lines in one shot. Devil's Canyon was an anomaly, and Skull Trail is sort of it's own thing. AMD just keeps doing micro-sized refreshes. It's tiring.

Well, their launches has been a little messed up with broadwell/skylake. Seems like they continue the trend with kaby lake.

[patrickjp93]

45 minutes ago, Tomsen said:

Well, their launches has been a little messed up with broadwell/skylake. Seems like they continue the trend with kaby lake.

We'll see. So far it seems Kaby Lake is in fact its own architecture. That being the case, I don't mind.

[PlayStation 2]

3 hours ago, patrickjp93 said:

Eh, Intel tends to release most of the mobile and desktop lines in one shot. Devil's Canyon was an anomaly, and Skull Trail is sort of it's own thing. AMD just keeps doing micro-sized refreshes. It's tiring.

Amen. I love a lot of AMD's CPUs, and Jaguar was extremely interesting, but AMD is really confusing with their CPU lineup. AM1 went nowhere and the APUs are scattered all over the place.

[azurezeed]

Interesting, I want a full review of that athlon now

[Prysin]

right then... seem like ill be grabbing a 845 to test how it stacks up against Steamroller. That way i can see if 40% above Excavator will be anything remotely impressive...

[Dabombinable]

9 hours ago, MEC-777 said:

Indeed. Intel has more SKU's per CPU family (celerons, pentiums, i3's, i5's, i7's etc.) than AMD does - by quite a lot. 

It's just that we've seen these APUs before and these new ones bring nothing new or interesting to the table. I like that they are 65w now instead of 95w, however. Shows they are making improvements in power efficiency.  

That Athlon X4 845 on the new unified AM4 socket has my interest though. Curious to see how that performs. 

Seeing the TDP made me think of the 86W TDP Pentium 4 631, and the 65W TDP Pentium 4 631 (which I own and still can't kill).

[Trixanity]

6 hours ago, valdyrgramr said:

So, they're only adding to the FX line+the FM2+ phenoms?  I thought FX was done.

I think you need to read up on AMD products. 

 

No Phenoms. Phenoms are pre-Bulldozer. They are more dead than FX. 

 

FX is done (in its current form). The "new" FX is an old model being relaunched with their new Wraith stock cooler. This will launch at the existing price while the existing model with the old cooler will drop in price. 

 

The new processors are launching on the existing platform with new coolers as well. The X4 will be the first Excavator-based product on desktop. The two others are A-series and Steamroller-based. All three are on FM2+. 

 

This slide describes the current AMD platforms perfectly: 

[MEC-777]

2 minutes ago, valdyrgramr said:

In my defense, x4 is part of different phenom II and few athlon names depending on the core amount there's like x2, x4, and x6.  And, FX is from bulldozer.  Not my fault AMD poorly recycles.

 

It's not though. There are no Phenoms anymore. The "x2" "x4" is simply referring to the core count. AMD has used this across a number of CPU families/generations/architectures.  

[Tomsen]

13 hours ago, patrickjp93 said:

We'll see. So far it seems Kaby Lake is in fact its own architecture. That being the case, I don't mind.

I'm going to doubt that Kaby Lake will be its own architecture. From what I've been able to gather, it is basically a skylake refresh.
Perhaps a few bugs will be sorted, improved cell libraries (for greater density, clock speeds, efficiency), and maybe even a improved uncore.

[itsmyjobtoknow]

14 hours ago, Tomsen said:

Well, their launches has been a little messed up with broadwell/skylake. Seems like they continue the trend with kaby lake.

 

Well...for a good chunk of time, the Broadwell CPU weren't available to purchase anywhere in the US for awhile....

 

They are now....but it makes me wonder why they released a Haswell Refresh with the z97 chipset instead of just launching Broadwell outright to begin with. 

[Tomsen]

5 minutes ago, itsmyjobtoknow said:

 

Well...for a good chunk of time, the Broadwell CPU weren't available to purchase anywhere in the US for awhile....

 

They are now....but it makes me wonder why they released a Haswell Refresh with the z97 chipset instead of just launching Broadwell outright to begin with. 

I'm thinking that doing a second iteration of the same architecture have been a way to combat the longer transition periods between new nodes.
It is no longer tick tock, but more like tick-tock-toe.

[patrickjp93]

2 hours ago, Tomsen said:

I'm going to doubt that Kaby Lake will be its own architecture. From what I've been able to gather, it is basically a skylake refresh.
Perhaps a few bugs will be sorted, improved cell libraries (for greater density, clock speeds, efficiency), and maybe even a improved uncore.

New graphics architecture as well is the other confirmed detail.

[Doobeedoo]

I never understood what's the point of having so many chips with just somewhat different frequency. Like having around 3 tiers of CPUs and in each 5-6 with difference of 100Mhz or something. It could be reduced like 3 times. For each tier, low, mid, high, have maybe 2-3 CPUs.

Though I can see this as just updating current ones until new architecture.