AMD Trinity APUs to compete with Intel Ivy Bridge processors

AMD has announced its second generation 'Trinity' Accelerated Processing Units.

The A-Series APUs, codenamed 'Trinity', are aimed at laptops, PCs and embedded hardware. AMD's latest processors will come in dual and quad-core variations and go toe-to-toe with Intel's third generation Ivy Bridge Core chips.

Chris Cloran, corporate vice president at AMD said: "The latest OEM notebooks, ultrathins, All-in-Ones and desktops based on the new AMD A-Series APU enable the best video and gaming experiences, highly responsive performance with AMD Turbo CORE, and accelerate an ever-increasing range of productivity and multimedia applications - in sleek, stylish designs at price points that make sense."

AMD touts a 'ground-up' improvement compared to the previous generation with double the performance per watt. Eyeing up the Ultrabook market, the firm quotes up to 12 hours of battery life for notebooks by way of the power-optimised 'Piledriver' CPU core.

Like Ivy Bridge, there is also a focus on graphics performance. The Trinity chips will have Radeon HD 7000 Series graphics giving an improvement of up to 56% on the previous generation.

"Our 2nd-Generation AMD A-Series APU is a major step forward in every performance and power dimension, allowing users to enjoy a stunning experience without having to give up the things that matter to them most. This experience doesn't stop at mainstream notebooks. It carries over into affordable ultrathin form factors featuring the latest in AMD Radeon graphics," added Cloran.

AMD added that the Trinity APUs are "well-positioned to take advantage of the upcoming transition to the Windows 8 operating system".

The second generation of A-Series Trinity APUs will available from today with "a record number of design wins with companies like Acer, Asus, HP, Lenovo, Samsung, Sony", the firm said.