Chipmaker AMD is betting on thermal solutions with its latest round of processors. The company rolled out the flagship AMD Wraith Cooler, the AMD A10-7860K, and the AMD Athlon X4 845 desktop processors today.
The new chips take aim at PC makers that want to appease consumers who are concerned about the way their desktop computers run, sound and look. The new thermal solutions generate less than one-tenth the noise of previous models, running at 39 decibels, according to AMD. That’s about as quiet as your local library.
“Customers can build a capable, near-silent online gaming PC in a surprisingly small form factor for an unexpectedly low price” said Kevin Lensing, corporate vice president and general manager of AMD’s client business unit, in a statement. “The low power requirements mean you can build a tiny system perfect for a small dorm room, for use in the living room as a home theatre PC, and portable enough to take to a LAN party.”
Smaller Footprints
The AMD Wraith Cooler (pictured above), for example, boasts nearly silent operations by tapping a fan shroud and leveraging LED illumination. AMD said the new design offers 34 percent more airflow and 24 percent more surface area to dissipate heat than the previous model.
The new AMD A10-7860K APU is powered by four CPU cores clocked at 4.0 GHz turbo boost and eight GPU cores. Radeon R7 processor graphics are integrated into the chip and run at 757 Mhz for high gaming quality. And AMD promises its FreeSync technology will squash choppy gameplay and broken frames.
Charles King, principal analyst at Pund-IT, told us the AMD announcements cover new processors and an improved cooler they demoed last month at CES 2016 in Las Vegas.
“The A10-7860 is aimed at customers, particularly gamers, who want to support graphics-intensive workloads,” King said. “But the compactness of the A10 package means that OEMs (original equipment manufacturers) can exploit AMD solutions in smaller footprint systems that still deliver top-line performance. The new Athlon CPU is the first product to leverage AMD’s new Excavator architecture.”
A Bonus for Gamers
King is talking about the new Althon X4 845, which is fast. The quad core CPU is clocked at 3.8 GHz boost offers and the highest-ever IPC (instructions per clock) AMD x86 performance in the company’s history, AMD said. The Athlon X4 845 paves the way for gaming and multi-threaded processing performance for an attractive price when paired with a discrete graphics card, according to the company.
“Like previous AMD solutions, the pitch here is blending robust performance with excellent value. That’s also the case with new AMD thermal solutions like the Wraith Cooler,” King said. “The Wraith doesn’t improve system performance in any way. Instead, it’s designed to keep the CPU quietly cool, even if users overclock their systems. That should be a bonus for gamers who don’t want the roar of virtual gunfire or racing engines drowned out by real world fan noise.”
The new AMD processors with new thermal solutions are available now at select online retailers and participating system vendors. Prices range from $ 69.00 to $ 199.99.
Image Credit: AMD via YouTube.
