A6-3500 of AMD lies at the bottom of the
Llano integrated-graphics processors’ line of AMD. What we impressed by the
premium A8-3850 is the combination between the reasonable 2D application
performance and excellent 3D performance from the onboard graphics, and we felt
that A6-3650 - which is cheaper – is a real bargain, though it isn’t as fast as
it due to its lower specification.
A6-3500 uses the same technology with
A6-3650, which has 320 stream processors running at 443MHz. However, its
processing power reduced tremendously due to 3 instead of 4 cores running at
2.1GHz rather than 2.6Hz. Like Sandy Bridge’s processor of Intel, Llano cores
can speed up whenever they need more power; this usually happens in case
applications only use 1 core, therefore, the processor can speed up its core
pace without becoming overheated.
This processor is equipped with lower TDP
processor than the powerful Llano chipsets – 65W instead of 100W; during the
light image editing benchmark, it mainly remained 2.4GHz.
Nevertheless, it is definitely not a fast
processor. In spite of its 53 scores in the image editing benchmark which is
not much inferior with A6-3650, its cores are less than A6-3650 and leads to
its not good performance in the multithreaded video-encoding and multitasks
benchmarks. This PC would be suitable for not only office work but also web
browsing, the 38 overall scores prove that this processor isn’t suitable for
the heavy workload.
Yet this chipset has its own position in
gaming. During running Dirt 3 in 1280x720 at High details without
anti-aliasing, we recognized 28.5fps, similar with A6-3650. This speed is just
enough for playing, and quite impressive for such cheap processor.
Speed demand
In order to speed up, an option for you is
combining the processor with the AMD Radeon HD 6450 512MB graphics card in the
CrossFire mode. With $32.5-costed card, a great improvement in 3D performance
will be shown; we still run Dirt 3 in 1280x720 with High details and activated
anti-aliasing 4x, and it resulted in smooth 38.1fps speed.
Weirdly, the combination between A6-3500
and HD 6450 seemed to be a little bit slower than the similar graphics card
goes along with A6-3650, regardless they bear nearly the same resemblance in 3D
performance – the slower general processing power of A6-3500 might make the
difference. However, when we replaced with our reference graphics card Radeon
HD 5770, we still saw its speed at 34.5fps in 1920x1080 with Ultra details and
4x anti-aliasing; as a result, the processor can’t pull back the powerful
graphics card.
A6-3500 of AMD has great 3D performance on
good chipset and ability in creating a suitable gaming system with the addition
of a cheap graphics card in CrossFire mode. Nevertheless, its 2D performance is
as good as a budget laptop; as a consequence, those who want to accomplish
heavy workloads such a video-encoding need to find another option. It is
reasonably cheap chipset but we make a recommendation that you should pay more
£30 for a faster A6-3650.
Summary
Comments: Good for 3D game, but A6-3500 has its outstanding 2D performance.
Processor: 3
cores runs at 2.1GHz, FM1 socket, 100MHz external bus, 3 L2 cache 1024KB, 65W
TDP, and 1 year warranty.
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Ratings
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Price
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$80
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Website
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www.amazon.com |
