AMD Pro A-Series targets reliability
September 2014 – During IDF 2014, AMD had offsite briefings to highlight their new professional series processors. Based on the Kaveri processor architecture with mixed CPUs and GPUs on a single chip, the Pro-A Series processors are delivering performance and reliability. The consumer marketplace has traditionally seen the AMD products in either low end cost “teaser” systems in the retail side. The other location has been in the high end add on graphics cards for the gaming marketplace.
The new processors have a new marketplace target which is the high end of the consumer lines targeted for SMBs, and IT departments. As a departure from the standard consumer processors and systems, these new processors have a higher quality metric. They have been tested at double the normal duty cycle from reliability and as a result sport a 3X warranty. To insure the designs are built properly, AMD is providing the OEMs both an updated BOM and AVL for the board designs and builds. These parts on the AVL & BOM have been tested to work in combination with the new processors to give the improved performance experience.
AMD Pro Processor integrated experiences
These new designs are appearing in products as the HP EliteBook and Elite Desk, Lenovo ThinkPad Edge and ThinkCenter, the Dell Vostro 3xxx series, and other high end performance oriented systems from Acer. The devices all support docking stations for maximum usability in an office environment. A major enhancement is that the system designs are now battery compatible with similar model laptops containing Intel processors. This attempt at “standardization” of the batteries by vendor and laptop size will be a big help to the IT department by providing a reduce number of SKUs that have to be stocked for replacement parts.
These new Pro A series processors are still standard processor cores – single clock operation, and standard DDR3 and DDR4 memory. They are not the server class processors that are typically reserved for workstations if the devices are in a desktop. The workstation processors use ECC memory, and have different memory and drive interfaces that are designed for 24/7 high temperature & high duty cycle operation. The standard business person and SMB owner/employee just needs something that will work the 60-80hrs/week without fail when they need to use a computer. These units also need to have the highest performance that can be purchased for a reasonable amount usually in the $500-$1500 range.
The advanced capabilities of these APUs support gesture and touch control of the sytem and GPU intensive task such as facial recognition for account sign on. These products are available and shipping now.
