AMD 2013 A & E-Series Kabini and Temash APUs
Our Summary and Conclusion
The PC market is changing rapidly, as tablets and other ultra-mobile / convertible form factors continue to eat away at traditional desktop and notebook PC sales. AMD hopes that its new mobile A-Series and E-Series APUs put the company in a better position to capitalize on the myriad opportunities offered by the burgeoning ultramobile market. And in all likelihood, they have.
We all know Intel’s Haswell is due to launch soon and that it will likely offer improved performance and power efficiency over current Ivy Bridge-based products. Since Ivy Bridge and Sandy Bridge Core processors already offer huge performance advantages over anything AMD currently has available, Haswell will most likely continue that trend in high-performance notebooks and desktop systems. But AMD’s new products don’t necessarily target Haswell. Kabini and Temash are going after the space currently occupied by CloverTrail (i.e. Atom) and entry-level Pentium/Celeron branded products; versus these parts, AMD is in a decent position.
There's That Kabini Die Shot Again...
As was the case with the previous generation Brazos, AMD’s low-power processor cores offer competitive, or much better, performance in the entry-level mobile space. AMD’s graphics performance, however, is simply on another level. Intel has BayTrail coming down the pipeline, but it won’t hit the market for a few more months at least. AMD is ready now with a new, more power-efficient architecture than its previous gen, which improves performance across the board. If Brazos was an unmitigated success for AMD, the prospects for its 2013 mobility platforms are good considering they offer much better CPU and GPU performance, at lower power.
Of course, AMD’s success ultimately is in the hands of its OEM partners. If AMD can land some lucrative design wins, we’re sure their 2013 mobility platforms will do well. We’re aware of a few interesting products built around AMD’s latest A- and E-Series APUs due to arrive soon, but we haven’t gotten our hands on retail-ready product just yet. Hopefully we will soon, because the idea of a low-power, relatively high-performing convertible with DX11-class graphics and all-day battery life is intriguing to say the least.
