AMD today added a new chip to its line of desktop A-Series processors, the A10-7870K APU, a refresh to the existing line of processors codenamed "Kaveri". The latest iteration of the AMD A-Series APU family provides performance and multitasking powered by up to 12 compute cores (4 CPU + 8 GPU). It has been designed to support the upcoming Windows 10 PCs while offering an easy path for PC builders looking to upgrade to discrete-level graphics and faster processing at an afforadable price. The A10-7870K APU is available at e-tail now at a suggested price (SEP) of US $137.

The AMD A10-7870K APU features 12 compute cores (4 CPU + 8 GPU), and gets an incremental CPU frequency increase to 3.9GHz base and 4.1GHz turbo compared to 3.7GHz/4.0GHz on the A10-7850K. The GPU frequency is increased from 720MHz to 866MHz and it has a 95W TDP.

The APU is supported by the existing AMD socket FM2+ motherboard ecosystem and supports latest PCI Express 3.0 Graphics Cards.

It is based on the Graphics Core Next (GCN) Architecture, which is engineered for general computing and GPU-aware programming languages like C++ AMP and OpenCL 2.0. The new processor also supports Heterogeneous System Architecture (HSA) features hUMA and hQ which allow the CPU and GPU to work together in supported applications by quickly dividing and directing the right tasks toward the appropriate cores for f performance and efficiency in consumer and commercial PCs.

"AMD takes a major step forward today by unveiling the world's most advanced eSports and online gaming processor technology in the A10-7870K APU, giving players the ability to game like a pro without spending like one," said Matt Skynner, corporate VP and general manager, Computing and Graphics Business Unit at AMD. "eSports is one of the fastest-growing pastimes in the world with hundreds of millions of gamers worldwide playing games like StarCraft II, League of Legends, DOTA 2 and Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. With the new A10-7870K APU, gamers can play the most popular online and eSports games right out of the box with features to make that experience even better."

Gamers can enjoy 1080p gaming on popular games with the settings cranked up, and benefit from features available on AMD A-Series processors, including Virtual Screen Resolution (VSR) for improved image quality when gaming at lower resolutions, and AMD FreeSync for smooth gameplay on FreeSync-compatible displays.

The chip also supports multi-threaded APIs including DirectX 12, Vulkan and Mantle, which enable advanced gaming technologies to improve performance and visual fidelity, including asymmetric rendering pairing with an AMD Radeon R7 or R9 GPU to support DirectX 12 multi-adapter and multi-engine features.

AMD's own performance numbers hint incremental improvements showing a 6 per cent gain in PCMark8, a 29 per cent increase in 3DMark and a 14 per cent rise in BasemarkCL.

AMD is gearing the A10-7870K as a gaming chip and pitching it against Nvidia's low-end discrete graphics cards, notably the GeForce GT 740. According to AMD's testing the A10-7870K beats out a Core i3-4370 and GT 740 combination in a range of multiplayer titles like StarCraft II, League of Legends DOTA 2 and CS:GO -- with the use of more expensive DDR3-2400MHz memory.