AMD’s new chip consumes much less power but performs better

AMD boasted earlier this year that its upcoming Carrizo chip for laptops and lower-end desktops will use significantly less power than the company’s previous generation chip, Kaveri. The power consumption is lower across the board thanks to a collection of impressive tweaks that AMD implemented for the Carrizo chip, although exactly how much power is saved has yet to be revealed. 

In January, AMD said that its upcoming Carrizo chip for notebooks and low-power desktops would cut power significantly over the prior generation, Kaveri. On Monday, AMD explained how. AMD still isn’t disclosing what the actual power consumption or the performance of the Carrizo chip will be. But the manufacturer offered some breadcrumbs, creating a trail forward to when those disclosures will actually take place. AMD claims that Carrizo will offer double-digit improvements in performance and battery life compared to Kaveri, which AMD positioned as competitive to Intel’s midrange Core i5 chips in January 2014. But while AMD certainly isn’t discounting the performance of the chip, extending the battery life of the notebooks that use it seems to be its primary design goal.