A new CPU is in town and according to AMD, it's faster and better than ever. Termed as VISION technology, it times itself with the release of Windows 7, and will be aimed towards the mainstream market.

According to AMD, a large number of CPU-centric models exist on the market today, which results in confusing the regular user. Tan See Ghee, the Marketing Director for AMD South Asia mentioned that consumers today cared about what their PCs were capable of, and not individual hardware specifications. Therefore, rather than focus on separate components, the company has decided to keep it simple by packaging everything into one range.

VISION comes in three different ranges, namely Basic, Premium and Ultimate. Each of these categories reflect the different needs of PC consumers, from digital consumption to content creation. For instance, VISION Basic will contain the bare necessities, Premium will support Blu-Ray with HD technology, and Ultimate will allow for HD video editing and encoding.

VISION CPUs will also enable up to 1 billion colours, support Windows 7, and maintain DirectX11 for richer 3D detail on games and other media applications. VISION also makes use of the Unified Video Decoder, which is said to free up CPU resources to power up other applications.

PCs and OEM notebooks armed with AMD VISION are currently available in selected retail stores throughout the country.