AMD sweetens A-series APU launch with an SDK

CHIP DESIGNER AMD has announced its latest A-series accelerated processing unit (APU) along with a software development kit (SDK) to sweeten the deal.

The A6-3500 APU offers three x86 cores along with over 300 Radeon cores. This enables DirectX 11 standard discrete graphics and dedicated HD video processing on the one chip for the price of $95.

AMD said, "As digital and visual content flourishes, consumers benefit from more responsive multitasking, vivid graphics, lifelike games, lag-free videos, and ultimate multimedia performance. With the AMD A6-3500 APU desktop end-users can enjoy these incredible APU experience at a broader range of price points."

Designed for FM1 motherboards, the A6-3500 is capable of running at 2.1GHz, which can be upped to 2.4GHz by Turbo Boost. The chip has a 3MB of L2 cache and a thermal design power rating of 65W.

The chip supports DDR3 1866MHz RAM and has HDMI 1.4a connections for 3D functionality. AMD reckons users who combine the processor with a Radeon HD 6000 graphics card can achieve twice the graphics performance of competitive offerings.

3D is one of AMD's focuses, with its technology found in many 3D devices such as laptops and monitors. AMD has made its launch of the A6-3500 more attractive for 3D applications with the release of the Quad Buffer SDK.

The firm hopes to speed up development for 3D by providing developers with the necessary tools. The SDK provides guidelines on how to implement 3D in software development projects and can be used to add 3D support to existing applications and game titles. µ