AMD really is focused on gaming performance with Kaveri and believes this is where its latest APUs have a serious advantage over the competition. The company's latest processors are being pushed as budget solutions for modern 1080p gaming, though on paper the Radeon R7 doesn't look quite up to the task...
In 2006 AMD announced 'Fusion', a project aimed to develop a system on a chip that combined a CPU and GPU on a single die. Fast forward to this day, AMD has taken things a step further with Kabini, the first ever quad-core x86-based SoC.
AMD are releasing their first Kabini based processors today with the launch of the A6-5200 and the A4-5000. The A4-5000 that we are reviewing features four Jaguar cores clocked at 1.5GHz, a total L2 cache of 2MB, and the Radeon HD 8330 GPU on-die.
While full-sized desktop computers are still around, tablets and smartphones have proven that technology has come far enough to essentially cram a fully capable computer into a space that is suitable for your pants pocket, a purse, or a small backpack. This idea of shrinking hardware hasn't been overlooked by manufacturers as several now feature space-saving designs based on mobile hardware.
Such is the case with Sapphire's new Edge VS8 mini-PC powered by AMD's A8 APU. The system is hardly any larger than an external optical drive, while still packing 4GB of DDR3 memory, Radeon HD 7600G graphics, a 500GB SATA HDD, built-in support for Bluetooth 3.0 as well as 802.11 b/g/n wireless and a bevy of rear I/O connections.
