Conclusions
Contents
There is good news and bad news about the new A-Series CPU from AMD we reviewed, the A8-3850.
The good news is that its integrated graphics controller is simply the best integrated solution we’ve seen so far. It was way faster than the Core i3-2100’s and, on Lost Planet 2, it was even faster than a GeForce GT 430, making us suspect that it is optimized for DirectX 11 games. It was also faster than a GeForce GT 430 for applications that use the GPU for processing (GPGPU), such as converting video files using Media Espresso.
Also on the good side, applications that perform better with four “real” cores will perform better on the A8-3850 than on the Core i3-2100, which has only two “real” cores and two “simulated” ones, using Hyper-Threading technology.
The bad news is that, aside from gaming and 3D rendering, the Core i3-2100 is faster and, depending on the application, by a large margin.
So, if you are a gamer on a really tight budget, the new A8-3850 is a really nice option. But if you are an average user who won’t play games, the Core i3-2100 is a better option.
