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AMD’s Carrizo was a forthcoming mobile APU focused on power efficiency, but the specific contents of the leak behind that headline cannot be verified from the available record. AMD’s later announcements establish what Carrizo became: a 28nm design with Excavator CPU cores, Radeon graphics, power-management features, H.265 hardware decoding and an integrated southbridge. Those official disclosures should not be mistaken for proof of what an earlier leak said.
What can be confirmed about the Carrizo leak?
The exact report implied by the headline, “AMD’s next-gen Carrizo APU features leaked,” has not been identified. That means its distinctive claims cannot be reconstructed reliably. AMD’s subsequent public announcements can explain Carrizo’s eventual design and the company’s efficiency goals, but they do not confirm that those details appeared in the leak.
The distinction matters: the phrase “greater focus on power efficiency” fits AMD’s later messaging, but the official record supports it as AMD’s design emphasis—not as a verified quotation or finding from the missing leak.
What was AMD Carrizo?
Carrizo was the codename for the mobile APU that AMD launched as its 6th Generation A-Series processor in June 2015. AMD described it as a 28nm system-on-chip for notebooks and low-power desktops, combining Excavator x86 CPU cores with Radeon GPU cores. The launch announcement said the family offered up to 12 compute cores: four CPU cores and eight GPU cores. AMD’s February 2015 architecture announcement and June 2015 launch announcement describe the design and product identity.
#1 Best Overall
- Can deliver fast 100 plus FPS performance in the world's most popular games, discrete graphics card required
- 6 Cores and 12 processing threads, bundled with the AMD Wraith Stealth cooler
- 4.2 GHz Max Boost, unlocked for overclocking, 19 MB cache, DDR4-3200 support
- For the advanced Socket AM4 platform
AMD’s November 2014 roadmap had described Carrizo as its flagship mobile APU, pairing Excavator CPU cores with next-generation Radeon graphics. It called the design its first HSA 1.0-compliant SoC and expected shipments in the first half of 2015, with systems by mid-year. These were plans announced at the time, not evidence of the leak’s contents. AMD’s roadmap announcement also distinguished Carrizo from Carrizo-L, a related but different family.
Carrizo and Carrizo-L were not the same design
The flagship Carrizo used Excavator CPU cores; AMD said Carrizo-L would instead use Puma+ CPU cores and Radeon R-Series GCN GPUs. Treating “Carrizo” as a single interchangeable platform can therefore blur meaningful architectural differences.
Rank #2
- Pure gaming performance with smooth 100+ FPS in the world's most popular games
- 6 Cores and 12 processing threads, based on AMD "Zen 5" architecture
- 5.4 GHz Max Boost, unlocked for overclocking, 38 MB cache, DDR5-5600 support
- For the state-of-the-art Socket AM5 platform, can support PCIe 5.0 on select motherboards
- Cooler not included
Why did AMD emphasize power efficiency?
AMD’s public case for Carrizo centered on power management and integration, not a move to a smaller manufacturing process: Carrizo remained a 28nm design. The company highlighted an integrated southbridge, H.265 hardware video decoding, and several power-management techniques. In February 2015, before its fuller architecture disclosure, AMD announced an ISSCC presentation titled “A 28nm x86 APU Optimized for Power and Area Efficiency,” led by AMD Fellow and Design Engineer Kathy Wilcox. AMD’s ISSCC announcement provides the session details.
In its architecture announcement, AMD reported 3.1 billion transistors and 29% more transistors than Kaveri in nearly the same die size. The same release presented efficiency figures as AMD claims: up to 40% less power consumed by the x86 cores versus the prior-generation APU; up to 10% GPU and 19% CPU power savings from voltage-adaptive operation; up to 30% savings from adaptive voltage and frequency scaling (AVFS); and up to 20% lower GPU power than Kaveri graphics at the same frequency. These are company-reported figures, not independent measurements. AMD’s February 2015 announcement is the source for these specifications and comparisons.
Rank #3
- Play some of the most popular games at 1080p with the fastest processor graphics in the world, no graphics card required
- 8 Cores and 16 processing threads, bundled with the AMD Wraith Stealth cooler
- 4.6 GHz Max Boost, unlocked for overclocking, 20 MB cache, DDR4-3200 support
- For the advanced Socket AM4 platform. Maximum Operating Temperature (Tjmax)-95°C
How should you read AMD’s battery-life claim?
At launch, AMD claimed up to 2x battery life versus its predecessor. Its announcement included test-system details and footnotes; the result should not be generalized to every Carrizo notebook. For example, AMD compared an FX-8800P reference platform with an FX-7600P platform using specified memory, SSD, drivers and a 50 Whr battery. Actual runtime depends on the complete laptop and workload, not just the APU family name. See the test notes in AMD’s launch announcement.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.What the announcements do—and do not—tell us
- They establish: Carrizo’s official architecture, AMD’s stated power-efficiency priorities, selected company-reported comparisons, and the 6th Generation A-Series identity.
- They do not establish: which details appeared in the earlier leak, whether its claims were accurate at the time, or how every Carrizo laptop performed in real use.
- For a laptop comparison: check the exact processor SKU and notebook model, along with memory, battery capacity, display and test workload. The APU family name alone is not enough to predict equivalent performance or battery life.
Carrizo is historical hardware, and the family name is not a desktop replacement-processor compatibility label. AMD’s launch materials framed it for notebooks and all-in-one systems; they do not establish what models are currently available.
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