Intel isn’t the only one to make CPUs, and while everyone was busy celebrating Kaby Lake’s release, they forgot that AMD also has a new generation of chipsets in tow – the Bristol Ridge.
And the first OEMs to have the privilege of fitting their systems with the AMDs newest and best, are Lenovo and HP. And these PCs will be outfitted with a much higher graphical and computing performance when compared to the previous models.
HP and Lenovo will be the first to use the new Bristol Ridge APU
Bristol Ridge claims that it performs up to 100 percent more than its Intel chipset equivalent. And compared to its own Carrizo APU, computing function gets a 17 percent boost and graphics get a 27 percent boost! Technically, the graphical capabilities of AMDs chipsets have long stood a class apart from Intel’s meagre graphics capabilities.
Bristol Ridge makes sure that nothing has changed on that front. The OpenCL capabilities show that AMD chooses to make OpenCL its most preferred graphical interface of choice. In terms of CODEC support, the new AMD chips will get the same CODEC support as Kaby Lake does, including VP9 and H.265/HEVC in hardware.
A challenge that the new AMD chips will face is, well the perception of the buyers. Although on paper, it does have some great specifications going for it, with all base clocks crossing the 3.1 GHz mark, it does receive some heavy criticism for still being made with the now outdated 28nm manufacturing process. But AMD is keeping its head held high, promising to beat Intel’s processors.
What the newer chipsets will bring to the table is the AM4 sockets, aimed at specializing the user experience, making them made specially for mainstream and users and ‘essential’ users. An equivalent for Intel’s Atom chips that usually feature in much smaller systems, the X300, B300 and the A300 will fulfil those needs.
The new Zen-based chips will be a follow up to Bristol Ridge and they will bother come with the new AM4 sockets. But what’s special about this new AM4 socket? Well for starters, it’ll contain up to x8 PCIe gen 3 for external graphics, dual-channel for DDR4, fast USB 3.1 ports with an additional two lanes for PCIe storage.
The difference between the Bristol Ridge and the Summit Ridge, is that the Summit Ridge will get a more powerful SATA and PCIe in order to satiate every enthusiast’s needs.
AMD has always stood second-place in the chip wars. Maybe this time it actually could steal the top spot from Intel.
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