AMD's A* APU numbering scheme: How to spot desktop/laptop APUs?

[mikeymikec]

It's not tremendously important, but it irritated me a bit when doing a clean install on a Packard Bell "desktop" when I was looking for drivers on the AMD site; It wasn't giving me an option to download APU drivers for APUs with R3 graphics, only R5 and R7. After a bit of poking around, sure enough I discovered that APUs with R3 graphics are mobile APUs.

The APU model number in this machine is A4-6210.

 

[NTMBK]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_AMD_accelerated_processing_unit_microprocessors

EDIT: Oh, and some desktop chips like the Athlon 5370 have R3 graphics.

 

[LTC8K6]

CPU World is a good place to look up a CPU.

 

[Bouowmx]

The model number ends in "10": mobile.

 

[mikeymikec]

The model number ends in "10": mobile.

Perfect Perhaps I should have specified 'at a glance' in the OP because that's what I meant.

 

[Abwx]

After a bit of poking around, sure enough I discovered that APUs with R3 graphics are mobile APUs.

The APU model number in this machine is A4-6210.

That s indeed a mobile chip, these are used in the AM1 plateform for OEMs only, those latter have the ARM security CPU enabled contrary to the socketed versions sold in the retail market like the Athlon 5350.

http://www.cpu-world.com/CPUs/Puma/AMD-A4-Series A4-6210.html

 

[AMDisTheBEST]

For Bristol ridge generation(9xxx series) laptop APUs ends in p, e.g. 9xxxp. Desktops are all 9xxx without the p at the end. The 8xxxp series are all for laptops only and as you can see, they all have p at the end. The older 7xxx series, steamroller based APUs are different. Desktop versions all end in k e.g a10 7850k. The laptop version has no k at the end. Eg a6 7310.

Now for the prefix... They denote performances levels just like Intel's i3,i5,i7.
A12 series are meant for businesses but performance is the same as the A10. The FX prefix also appear for laptop. These are a bit higher performance than the A10 and are meant to compete with an Intel ULV i5. E.g. FX 9800p is higher clocked than the A10 9600p and has faster R7 Radeon iGpu. A6 and anything lower are for netbooks. A4 and A2 series are not bulldozer based cores, they are puma cores which is the successor to the jaugar cores found in consoles. Their performance is around that of an Intel atom brand or Apollo lake SoCs so they are meant for netbooks.

Generally, prefix ax denotes performance category. First digit denotes generations. 2nd to the 4th digit denotes performance. Letter it ends with denotes desktop or laptop variants. Higher the number in everyone of them means higher performance APU.

 

[AMDisTheBEST]

Oh, I forgot, there are also Athlon branded desktop CPU like the Athlon 5730. No modern Amd mobile APUs use the athlon brand so you can assume all Athlons are desktop only.

 

[Azuma Hazuki]

It's not quite so simple. I have a machine in front of me here at work with an A8-4500M APU in it. This is older, yet faster, than the modern A8-4710, as it is based on Trinity rather than Beema. APU naming has been a mess until fairly recently.

 

[Abwx]

. I have a machine in front of me here at work with an A8-4500M APU in it. This is older, yet faster, than the modern A8-4710, as it is based on Trinity rather than Beema. APU naming has been a mess until fairly recently.

Faster only on ST, on MT the 7410 is faster and consume significantly less..

Otherwise i agree that those gens naming is confusing since there s such Beemas as the 7110 /7310 but also 7100/7300 Kaveris...

 

[Azuma Hazuki]

Oh jeez, really? No wonder the thing feels so slow. I've got a slightly hardware-hacked Elitebook 8470p with an i7-3632QM in it at home, but no way am I bringing that to work.