Reviews - AMD A6-3650 APU review - best chip below £100?

[kingpotnoodle]

SNB IGP also benefits from faster RAM BTW.

Barely... certainly not anywhere near like with Llano - http://www.anandtech.com/show/4476/amd-a83850-review/4

Well I can definitely tell the difference between by desktop and laptop, which is probably about the performance of an old P4. They both have SSDs... sure it's only second or two, but it's the difference between near-instant and seconds.

Anyway yes, it's all small bananas, for most people any CPU does the trick... and 99% of the world's computer users don't even give a crap I suppose - so long as it works they'll buy the shiniest or cheapest one depending on their leanings.

I thought the fairest thing was to compare the machines how I would buy them, hypothetically, I wouldn't buy a Llano with 1333MHz RAM as it would be wasting potential (unless my budget was super super tight)... however an i3 using a discrete card would't suffer as much, so spending approx the same amount of money on two configs and making the best out of them... well anyway... Llano is a bargain but I just don't think it quite trumps i3 in ALL scenarios.

[Jimbo75]

Nobody said Llano trumps the i3 in all scenarios. For instance the i3 is about 50% smaller in die size at similar selling cost.

Certainly a "win" if you are intel. Maybe we wouldn't be having this discussion if they sold their true quads at the same price, but they don't. They are being punished for greed and their ludicrous segmentation of the market and 2 cores + HT simply doesn't cut it vs even AMD's old 4 cores.

[HalloweenJack]

and today only on scan have the 3850 for £96....

[wasabi]

Personal viewpoint of someone who very nearly went llano then didn't.

I did look at the llano systems a month back when I was ordering bits for my new system. Spec and pricepoint wise they're great. The killer issue for me is TDP. I'm a quietness obsessive and could see issues with all the heat coming from one spot. Even a humungous scythe tower heatsink might struggle with the 3850 APU. The 3650 seemed a bit borderline at 65w too, with a LOT less oomph to go with it.

In the end I went for an 45w X3 400e processor (cooled by a passive ninja) paired up with the fanless sapphire 4670 ultimate graphics card recycled from the old system. That way I can use cheap Asrock M3A ucc board (£35) and get away with cheapo ebuyer 1333 ram without performance hit to graphics.

Zero fans in my PC - only moving part is the secondary drive, a 5400 rpm laptop drive - and it can play Deus Ex Human revolution very smoothly.

Given llano seems on paper perfect for media centre, light gaming users like me, heat dissipation and resulting noise issues is a killer.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Personal viewpoint of someone who very nearly went llano then didn't.

I did look at the llano systems a month back when I was ordering bits for my new system. Spec and pricepoint wise they're great. The killer issue for me is TDP. I'm a quietness obsessive and could see issues with all the heat coming from one spot. Even a humungous scythe tower heatsink might struggle with the 3850 APU. The 3650 seemed a bit borderline at 65w too, with a LOT less oomph to go with it.

The 100W A8 3850 and A6 3650 quad cores are meant to compete with the 95W AMD quad cores not with the specialist 45W and 65W triple and quad core AMD CPUs. The 45W Athlon II X3 and X4 processors are not only expensive but very few people buy them. I even considered getting a 65W Phenom II X4 but they were extremely hard to get hold off and are very expensive. The only common 45W AMD Athlon II CPUs are the Athlon II X2 240e and 245e.

The A8-3800 has a 65W TDP too. It runs at between 2.4GHZ to 2.7GHZ and has the same 400 shader IGP as the A8-3850.The 65W A8-3800 blows the Athlon II X4 and Phenom II X4 out of the water for power consumption.

The A6-3600 has a 65W TDP. It runs at between 2.1GHZ to 2.4GHZ and has a 320 shader IGP.

The 65W A6-3500 is a triple core which also has the same clockspeed and IGP as the A6-3600.

Llano has similar IPC to a Phenom II.

BTW,its quite funny you think 65W is a lot considering the 2.6GHZ Phenom II X4 910e alone is 65W. For the 65W TDP you are getting not only a similar speed CPU section ,but a 320 to 400 shader IGP and unlike the Phenom II X4 you are getting additional integration into the actual CPU. For instance the PCI-E controller is now in the CPU.

This means the A75 southbridge consumes less power than the SB710,SB850 and SB950 southbridges.

Also,on of this Llano has overall lower idle power consumption and under normal loads compared to a Phenom II X4 or Athlon II X4 alone.

It is impressive that AMD has made a CPU which is as fast as their previous generation fastest 65W TDP CPU,has a 400 shader IGP and additional on-die integration. It makes their previous generation fastest 45W CPU,the 2.6GHZ Athlon II X4 620e look weak too. However,the X4 620e was hard to get hold off. Even the X4 615e is over £100.

In the end I went for an 45w X3 400e processor (cooled by a passive ninja) paired up with the fanless sapphire 4670 ultimate graphics card recycled from the old system. That way I can use cheap Asrock M3A ucc board (£35) and get away with cheapo ebuyer 1333 ram without performance hit to graphics.

Zero fans in my PC - only moving part is the secondary drive, a 5400 rpm laptop drive - and it can play Deus Ex Human revolution very smoothly.

The SB600 southbridge cannot even run the HT on the Athlon II at full speed and probably consumes more power than any newer southbridges like the SB850 and A75.

The offical TDP of the HD4670 is 59W so the combined Athlon II X3 400e and HD4670 TDP is more than a 100W A8-3850 excluding the southbridge. Your combination means more heat is being dumped into the case.

However,a 65W TDP A8-3800 is in another league.

Given llano seems on paper perfect for media centre, light gaming users like me, heat dissipation and resulting noise issues is a killer.

Not really. Llano consumes less power overall. Systems will be easier to cool too. It has far better media decoding than the previous IGPs,and lower power consumption than previous AMD CPU,IGP and southbridge combinations. Overall platform power consumption has decreased. For a low power light gaming system it is ideal.

If you look at laptops with Llano CPUs compared to the previous AMD mobile CPUs,the CPU section is as fast and the IGP significantly better,battery life is massively improved and the laptops seem to be easier to cool.

[wasabi]

All your points are valid about overall power draw. I'm painfully aware my combined load is higher than a 3850's. And that my aged 4670 hasn't the best power management compared to 5670s and 6670s. However I've been doing no-fans systems for a while. The challenge comes when you start playing games, running handbrake etc. Passively cooling any single component above about 60w max load seems to a natural barrier. While I 'get' that air gets trapped in the case etc etc, real-world experience tells me splitting the heat-sources and attacking it with multiple heatsinks is more stable. You can't simply add up the watts per case - it doesn't work like that. I get two big heatsinks to shift the heat - llano gets one.

Now if the 3800 had been available a month back when i bought my system, or if I didn't already have a 4670 ultimate, maybe my decision would have changed. Like I say, with me it was close but no cigar. It still beats any of Intel's desktop offerings as far as PCs for typical home users go.

You're right about availability of the low power X3s/X4s. I'm genuinely confused why AMD never made the 'e' processors more widely available - I had to get my X3 400e from Spain off fleabay.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

I suspect the 65W Llano CPUs probably could be undervolted a bit more to around a 50W to 60W TDP as with the Phenom II X4 it seems AMD does overvolt them a bit. I never really understood this TBH.

The one review of the Llano A8-3800 suggests it does consume around 66W if the CPU is fully loaded and around 63W if the GPU is fully loaded. What surprised me is that idle power consumption was lower than a Core i3 2100 and with media playback power consumption is around the same.

TBH,regarding the "e" series Phenom II and Athlon II CPUs cost is another factor. The pricing did seem too high for the 45W Athlon II and 65W Phenom II X3 and X4 CPUs.

However,don't get me started on mini-ITX motherboards with AMD chipsets. I tend to prefer SFF PCs and was hoping to build and AMD based one in April and there were no mini-ITX motherboards with the SB850 southbridge which had been released in March 2010. When I looked around in June, AM3 motherboards with the SB850 southbridge had just been introduced!! It took the companies well over a year to do this. If the motherboards had been AM3+ it would have made more sense especially since they were not cheap.

In the end I built a Core i3 2100 based mini-ITX system with an HD5670 GDDR5. However,if the A8-3800 had been available early I would have ended up buying it instead. A single horizontal heatsink with a slow moving fan would have been better for the build which is in a modified Shuttle case.

Also,why does AMD persist with the rubbish heatsinks for their 65W and 95W CPUs?? Surely by now they can have introduced something a bit better.

[dangel]

Personal viewpoint of someone who very nearly went llano then didn't.

I did look at the llano systems a month back when I was ordering bits for my new system. Spec and pricepoint wise they're great. The killer issue for me is TDP. I'm a quietness obsessive and could see issues with all the heat coming from one spot. Even a humungous scythe tower heatsink might struggle with the 3850 APU. The 3650 seemed a bit borderline at 65w too, with a LOT less oomph to go with it.

Just for info - my 3850 runs nice and cool with "just" a scythe big shruiken with no noise to speak of in a mini atx case. I prefer the heat being in the one spot because it was far easier to deal with versus a giant graphic card cooler (i'd previously had to cut the case to get a passive cooler onto a gpu).

Just to echo cat (and my earlier posts) I totally agree the stock cooler is absolute junk - it works but the difference is staggering when moving onto a decent sink.