AMD announces sub-$100 triple-core A6-3500 APU

As rumored, AMD today announced the release of its first triple-core Llano APU: the A6-3500. The new chip is essentially the same as the upcoming A6-3600 minus one core, which means 2.1-2.4GHz clock speeds, 3MB of L2 cache, support for 1866MHz DDR3 memory, Radeon HD 6530D integrated graphics with 320 stream processors running at 443MHz, and a TDP of 65W.

With a suggested retail price of $95, this is also AMD's cheapest A-Series APU, but unless you are on a really tight budget perhaps you'll want to spend an extra $20-$30 for one of its quad-core siblings. For reference, the range topping A8-3850 is priced at $135 while the A6-3650 has an asking price of $115.

The company is also expected to release two additional 65W parts soon, the aforementioned A6-3600 and the 2.4-2.7GHz A8-3800, priced at around $110 and $130 respectively.

In addition to the A6-3500 announcement AMD also revealed that it has shipped over 12 million APUs to date, counting both E-Series and C-Series models released earlier this year as part of the "Brazos" platform. The company will launch its enthusiast-grade FX-Series sometime around September with four, six and eight core processor models designed for the AM3+ socket.