AMD has formally announced their seventh-generation APU family codenamed Bristol – the next phase in the company’s APU lineup that is expected to bring significantly faster graphics cores and overall improved performance alongside higher efficiency and compatibility with new technologies like DirectX 12.
The Bristol Ridge APUs for notebooks make an important to the existing Carrizo APUs that marked its debut in the market in 2015. With the availability of the new APUs, notebooks released later in the year are expected to bring along substantial performance boost.
For the uninitiated, one key difference between Carrizo and Bristol Ridge is the implementation of a DDR4 memory controller, as well as a series of minor microarchitecture manufacturing improvements.
As Ian Kurtis of AnandTech points out, Carrizo/Excavator under DDR in the embedded space was already there. And now, the chip giant is optimistic that the introduction of Bristol Ridge will lead to a hefty 50 per cent improvement over Kaveri, released in 2014.
With the new memory support taken into account, Bristol Ridge is expected to bring a 10 percent performance boost in a one-on-one comparison with Carrizo.
“We know that consumers want more for their money than ever before – sharper graphics, faster performance, and longer battery life. We have focused on working with key OEM partners to develop outstanding computing platforms that will fully take advantage of the powerful 7th Generation AMD APUs,” said Jim Anderson, senior vice president and general manager, Computing and Graphics Business Group, AMD.