AMD's A8 series APU review

AMD recently released the A6 and A8 series APUs, the power of Fusion, the processor and graphics processor merged ... but what's it all about you wonder ? We had a peek at the A6-3650 APU, the A8-3850 APU, but there are more models to be found. The A8-3800 is a good example of that.

The A8 series processors are entry level to mid-range targeted processors (well -- APUs). So we are looking at reasonably up-to okay CPU performance versus a rather kick ass integrated GPU, and all that for prices that are very interesting. Today's tested A8 3800 APU will cost roughly 89 EUR, and you get a whole lotta CPU/GPU for that money.

AMD's A4 series
The A4 series A4-3400 is a 65W processor with 2 cores that run at 2.7GHz. There will also be an A4-3300 65W processor with two cores at 2.5GHz. These A4 models have 160 Radeon (shader processor) Cores with an integrated Radeon HD 6410D. The L2 cache is 1MB and the graphics GPU clock is 600MHz for the A4-3400 and 443MHz for the A4-3300.

AMD's A6 series
Initially, there will be three processors to be found in the A6 Series, the first is the A6-3650. It is a 100W 4 core processor running at 2.6GHz. The A6-3600 is a 65W 4 core APU running at 2.4/2.1GHz (Turbo Core). The third APU is the A6-3500, a 65 Watt 3 core 2.4/2.1 (Turbo Core) APU. These processors have a 4MB L2 cache pool except the A6-3500 which has 3MB (one core less). All three models have 320 Radeon (shader) Cores at 443MHz. The graphics class is HD 6530D.

AMD's A8 series
The best performing Lynx APUs will be injected into the A8 series. There are two APU models to be found in A8 series, the A8-3850 is rated at 100W running at 2.9GHz. The other model is the A8-3800 rated at 65W, 2.7/2.4GHz (Turbo Core). Both SKUs have a Quad Core processor and a 4MB L2 cache and pack no less than 400 Radeon Cores with that embedded GPU running at 600MHz with what AMD calls a Radeon HD 6550D.

Yep 400 Shader cores... that's right. That's really a huge leap in performance for integrated graphics alright. Also, for those that immediately noticed it, correct -- these processors do not have a shared L3 cache. Anyway, we'll talk all about the features and architecture over the next pages of course.

So before we dive a little deeper into the performance of the processor review, I wanted to quickly talk about the APU and the technology behind it. Next page please.