Advanced Micro Devices today announced its latest Fusion A-Series Accelerated Processing Units (APUs) which the company promises will deliver improved graphics and video performance.

The new chips, which are shipping now and will go on sale in laptops later this month and desktops soon after, combines up to a quad-core CPU and a DirectX 11 capable CPU with dedicated HD video processing on a single chip.

Earlier this year AMD released the first Fusion chips, with dual-core CPUs, for netbooks and thin-and-light laptops. The second generation quad-core A-Series APUs (previously codenamed "Llano") are expected to appear in more than 150 notebook and desktop PCs beginning next month.

In addition to delivering improved performance, AMD says the new chips are also more energy efficient and can deliver more than 10.5 hours of resting battery life, a more than 50 percent increase compared to the 2010 AMD Mainstream Platform.
AMD announced three A-Series processors. The A4 has a dual-core CPU and 240 Radeon graphics cores, the A6 has a quad-core CPU and 320 graphics cores, and the A8 a quad-core CPU and 400 graphics cores.
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