AMD aims to sell modified PlayStation 4 APU for PCs

AMD
AMD APU's for all

The PlayStation 4's components were only divulged by Sony a few days ago, but already AMD is revealing plans for its architecture beyond the game console.

Speaking with the Inquirer, AMD's Head of Marketing John Taylor revealed the company's plans to release a scaled down version of the accelerated processing unit (APU) for PCs.

While the PC version of the APU won't be as powerful as the chip inside the PS4, it will be based very closely on the AMD Jaguar Sony is currently touting for its unseen console.

Covering all bases

The decision shouldn't cause concern for any Sony faithful worried that the proprietary tech in the PlayStation 4 will be making its way into the wild.

Taylor made sure to stipulate the APU released for PCs won't have the same number of cores or the same computing capabilities as found in the PS4.

"Everything that Sony has shared in that single chip is AMD [intellectual property], but we have not built an APU quite like that for anyone else in the market," Taylor added.

According to Taylor, the PS4's APU is "by far the most powerful APU" AMD has ever built, and that the chips arriving later this year won't be capable of "that level of sheer number of cores, sheer number of teraflops."

Curiously, the Xbox 720 is also rumored to use the same x86 chip that was revealed for the PS4, but since that console hasn't actually been announced yet, it's impossible to know what sort of chip the next Xbox will run yet.