2011-07-18, 08:37 PM
Tikey Wrote:What are your guys thoughs on AMDs new A8 APU series?
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.as...6819103942
Basically it's a new CPU that caters to the integrated GPU user base. It's a pretty good buy for its price. The only downside is that you need to buy an entirely new motherboard just to use it.
I think it's cute but only really for a certain niche of people. The CPU (portion?) seems to score similarly but slightly lower than my 955 BE on 3dmark vantage. Similar (same?) architecture for the chips and similar clock speeds explain most of that. Side note: evidently that a8 2.9ghz can be cranked up to 3.6ghz and I realize there is a difference in caches between the products.
I've seen plenty of videos of the GPU portion of the a8 apus playing games and these seemed to run nicely enough. The IGP is still an IGP, even if it may be the best IGP out there right now. I bet it plays maplestory well enough. Side note: the IGP can work with certain stand-alone GPUs using something called "dual graphics"; I think that's kinda cool.
I think $140 is a good price for something that offers CPU 3dmark vantage scores similar to the 955 BE, and has a kick-ass IGP, for an IGP. The processor performance from a8 stuff has got to be worth $100 and another $40 for the IGP sounds reasonable. I hear they will release a BE of the a8 stuff eventually, too.
If I only had $140 to spend on CPU + GPU, and I only wanted to use 100w, then the a8 stuff isn't a bad choice. Besides, a nice board for these is like ~130.