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AMD 35 W Bristol Ridge A-Series APUs now available

The 35 W Bristol Ridge APUs only have their CPU / GPU clocks reduced compared to the 65 W models. (Source: AMD)
The 35 W Bristol Ridge APUs only have their CPU / GPU clocks reduced compared to the 65 W models. (Source: AMD)
The 35 W APUs from AMD are available now, after more than a month of shortage. These low TDP APUs still retain the core count, stream processors and integrated GPUs from the 65 W models, but the CPU / GPU clocks were reduced. Prices range between US$58 and US$112.95.

Even though AMD launched the 7th generation Bristol Ridge APUs for socket AM 4 back in late July, small form-factor system builders reported that the 35 W models were nowhere to be found, and only the 65 W ones were available. It took AMD more than a month to fix the shortage problem, but the low TDP models are finally available now.

The A6-9500E, A10-9700E, and A12-9800E 35 W APUs retain the core count, stream processors and integrated GPUs from the 65 W models, the differences being that the CPU / GPU clocks are reduced and the prices are obviously lower.

Thus, the high-end A12-980E comes with the 4 cores clocked at 3.1 GHz by default, and the boosted clocks go up to 3.8 GHz. All eight R7 GPU compute units were dropped to 900 MHz. Amazon has this model for US$112.95.

The A10-9700E still features 4 cores, but the clocks were dropped to 3.0 / 3.5 GHz. The six R7 GPU compute units were also dropped to 847 MHz.  Prices for this model vary between US$85 and US$92.

Lastly, the A6-9500E dual-core had the clocks dropped to 3.0 / 3.4 GHz, while the four R5 GPU compute cores got downclocked to 800 MHz. This model will only set you back around US$58.

Since the Bristol Ridge APUs don't feature the 14 nm Zen technology and still use the 28 nm process, they don't really present a threat to Intel's Coffee Lake ULVs. It would be interesting to see if AMD could implement a variation of the Zen microarchitecure for the 8th generation of APUs.

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Bogdan Solca, 2017-09- 7 (Update: 2017-09- 7)