Bits and pieces: new 65W APUs spotted in HP PCs

On December 20 AMD announced five new socket FM1 desktop Accelerated Processing Units (APUs), including two unlocked A6-3670K and A8-3870K models with 100 Watt Thermal Design Power, and A4-3420, A6-3620 and A8-3820 SKUs with 65 Watt TDP. Unlocked CPUs were released about a week later, while three 65 Watt chips are still not available anywhere, even for pre-order. The processors did emerge in specifications of several Hewlett Packard PCs, which confirms our suspicion that the 3420, 3620 and 3820 APUs may be shipped only as OEM parts. AMD A4-3420 will be offered HP Pavilion P6-2100 desktop PC and HP TouchSmart 320-1130jp all-in-one computer. A6-Series A6-3620 will be shipped in HP Pavilion p7-1210 and p7-1254 systems, and A8-3820 will be sold in HP Pavilion P7-1220 and p7-1247c. Some of these desktop PCs can be already pre-ordered, and their expected availability date is the second half of January.

We previously reported on Sempron 198 model for socket FM1, which is now listed in CPU support lists of many motherboard manufacturers. In December, AMD published Sempron datasheet (PDF file) for socket FM1 platform. The fact, that the company released the datasheet, tells us that the Sempron CPUs may eventually become available either in OEM systems, or in retail. AMD also released datasheet for Athlon II FM1 microprocessors, and that datasheet references only quad-core Athlon IIs.

Also in December, dual-core A-Series APUs with "HX" suffix showed up in retail stores. We believe that the HX suffix indicates newer CPU and/or GPU core stepping. We tested A4-3300 and A4-3400 "HX" models, and compared benchmark and CPUID results with older "GX" models. According to our results, both "GX" and "HX" APUs have very close performance (within error margin), and identical CPUID information. Based on these findings, we believe that the "HX" CPU and/or GPU core stepping has only minor changes, that do not result in improved APU performance.