AMD's 35W "Bristol Ridge" A-Series APUs Now Available at Retail
by Anton Shilov on September 6, 2017 10:00 AM EST- Posted in
- CPUs
- AMD
- APUs
- Bristol Ridge
- AM4
We have some good news for low-power AMD builders this morning: AMD has (finally) begun to sell the 35W versions of their "Bristol Ridge" desktop APUs. Overall the company has released 3 35W retail Bristol Ridge SKUs, the A12-9800E, A10-9700E, and A6-9500E, with these chips fleshing out the low-power segment of AMD's AM4 platform through the end of the year.
AMD originally released its Bristol Ridge A9000-series APUs to OEMs in mid-2016, targeting desktops and laptops. The SoCs integrate one or two Excavator v2 modules (two or four x86 cores in AMD’s nomenclature), a Radeon R5/R7 iGPU featuring AMD’s GCN 1.2 (3rd generation) architecture and up to 512 stream processors, a dual-channel DDR4 memory controller and so on. Earlier this year AMD finally decided to release a rather broad lineup of its 7th-generation A9000-series APUs on the retail market, enabling end-users to build their own inexpensive AM4 systems, essentially popularizing the AM4 ecosystem compatible with the company’s latest Ryzen processors in general.
| AMD Bristol Ridge APUs and CPUs | ||||||
| CPU | GPU | TDP | ||||
| Modules/ Threads |
Base/Turbo (MHz) |
Brand | Stream Processors |
Base/Turbo (MHz) |
||
| A12-9800 | 2M / 4T | 3800 / 4200 | Radeon R7 | 512 | 800 / 1108 | 65W |
| A12-9800E | 3100 / 3800 | 655 / 900 | 35W | |||
| A10-9700 | 3500 / 3800 | 384 | 720 / 1029 | 65W | ||
| A10-9700E | 3000 / 3500 | 600 / 847 | 35W | |||
| A8-9600 | 3100 / 3400 | 655 / 900 | 65W | |||
| A6-9550 | 1M / 2T | 3800 / 4000 | Radeon R5 | 576 / 800 | ||
| A6-9500 | 3500 / 3800 | 720 / 1029 | ||||
| A6-9500E | 3000 / 3400 | 256 | 576 / 800 | 35W | ||
| Athlon X4 970 | 2M / 4T | 3800 / 4000 | - | 65W | ||
| Athlon X4 950 | 3500 / 3800 | |||||
| Athlon X4 940 | 3200 / 3600 | |||||
The originally planned retail lineup for Bristol Ridge included 11 SKUs with a mix of 35 W and 65 W TDPs, but until now, only select 65 W SKUs were available. In the meantime, the interest towards inexpensive Mini-ITX systems is high these days. AMD spent a little over a month after the formal introduction of the family to bring the 35 W A12-9800E and A10-9700E APUs to store shelves. In the last days of August, the new chips hit store shelves across the world: they can be purchased in the U.S., Europe and in Japan, a clear indicator that they are indeed available broadly.
The AMD A10-9700E costs $85 – $91 in the U.S., whereas the more advanced AMD A12-9800E is available for $105 – $113, depending on the retailer. Meanwhile, the A6-9500E, the most basic 35 W Bristol Ridge APU, can be purchased for around $55 – $58. In Europe and Japan, prices are traditionally higher, see the table below for details. Overall, the 35 W APUs from AMD do not look very affordable, but it is typical for chipmakers to charge extra for energy-efficient parts.
| Availability of AMD's Bristol Ridge APUs and CPUs | |||||
| Amazon | Newegg | Amazon UK | Caseking.DE | Japan* | |
| A12-9800 | $112.96 | $109.99 | £107.5 ($139) | €104.9 ($125) | - |
| A12-9800E | $112.95 | $104.99 | £140 ($181) | €99.9 ($119) | ¥13,993 ($127.9) |
| A10-9700 | $91.37 | $89.99 | £91.8 ($119) | €82.9 ($98.5) | - |
| A10-9700E | $91.37 | $84.99 | £122 ($158) | €79.9 ($95) | ¥11,664 ($106) |
| A8-9600 | $69.13 | $69.99 | £68.1 ($88) | €61.9 ($73.5) | available |
| A6-9550 | - | - | - | - | - |
| A6-9500 | available | - | £82.4 ($106) | €47.9 ($57) | - |
| A6-9500E | $58.19 | $54.99 | - | €49.9 ($59) | - |
| Athlon X4 970 | - | - | - | - | - |
| Athlon X4 950 | $66.27 | $66.26 | £77.6 ($100) | €51.9 ($62) | - |
| Athlon X4 940 | - | - | - | - | - |
| *Lowest price according to Hikaku.com, or according to AKIBA PC Hotline. | |||||
From AMD’s standpoint, the main purpose of Bristol Ridge CPUs and APUs is to fill the gap in the AM4 lineup before the company releases Raven Ridge APUs and cheap CPUs based on the Ryzen microarchitecture later on.
Related Reading:
- AMD Releases Bristol Ridge to Retail: AM4 Gets APUs
- AMD 7th Gen Bristol Ridge and AM4 Analysis: Up to A12-9800, B350/A320 Chipset, OEMs first, PIBs Later
Sources: Amazon, Amazon UK, Caseking, Newegg, AKIBA PC Hotline, Hikaku.com.
Image Source: AKIBA PC Hotline.
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ET - Wednesday, September 6, 2017 - link
I'm tempted to buy the A8-9600, just to have the AM4 system to later upgrade to Raven Ridge, but the rational part of me understand that it's not a good enough excuse. :)The thing is, I'm really tempted to play around with Bristol Ridge, but I know I won't really do it. I hope that some hardware sites (perhaps Anandtech?) will do a comprehensive review of Bristol Ridge, testing various chips, overclocking, doing both games and computational loads (I've read it has great double precision performance in the GPU).
bill.rookard - Wednesday, September 6, 2017 - link
Absolutely agreed. I'm not going to pay $112.00 for an older inferior product. I have a spare AM4 board sitting around doing absolutely nothing, and I'm not going to do anything with it until I can put a real processor in it.artk2219 - Friday, September 8, 2017 - link
Then dont spend $112, spend 60 or 70 and play around with it for a bit then sell or give away the old chip once you upgrade.https://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Su...
nandnandnand - Wednesday, September 6, 2017 - link
Zen or death. Maybe even Zen+.Excavator might as well not exist. If you can't wait a year to upgrade...
HStewart - Wednesday, September 6, 2017 - link
I not sure this CPU has any value of all. I understand game users that like AMD using Ryzen chips - but these chips don't seem to have any value at all.duploxxx - Wednesday, September 6, 2017 - link
@HStewart. they are perfect for home cinema. Good graphics and enough CPU power in low power platform.HStewart - Wednesday, September 6, 2017 - link
But these are desktop chips - there are other forms factors that could provide smaller spaceMrSpadge - Thursday, September 7, 2017 - link
But the "other form factors" (i.e. laptop style) are usually more expensive.HStewart - Saturday, September 9, 2017 - link
I not talking about full laptops - I am typing this on Intel Computer Stick - yes it is 6y30 which almost has the speed i5 - definitely faster than my i3 NUC - but this little thing can fit in my pocket. This chip is not the Atom version - but the Atom versions is slight about $100 and all you need is monitor, keyboard and mouse.ToTTenTranz - Wednesday, September 6, 2017 - link
I haven't seen any AM4 motherboard with HDMI 2.0 though, which nullifies that advantage for a lot of people.