Noli
They sound like they have their uses (good HTPC chips etc albeit slighly overkill for that) but they seem to have failed massively at their main niche, which is in *significantly* undercutting the price of equivalent intel cpu/gpu combinations. The problem is that even if the chips are half the price of the intel equivalent, that's probably only £50 savings.
What are you going on about? These are desktop APUs!
Did you even bother to read the article which had our reviews??
Moreover,an A6-3670K is £64 from Scan. A Core i3 costs much more.
Look at my review:
http://forums.hexus.net/hexus-reader-reviews/250933-cats-hexus-a6-3670k-self-build-amd-apu-bundle-review-thread.html#post2548937Scaryjim's HTPC angle with additional benchmarks:
http://forums.hexus.net/hexus-reader-reviews/251037-scaryjims-hexus-amd-bundle-review.htmlThe one from Apex with Monkey:
http://forums.hexus.net/hexus-reader-reviews/251301-apexs-hexus-amd-apu-bundle-review-thingy-whatsamacallit.htmlI have a Core i3 2100 and the A6 3670K which is massively cheaper and is not really that much different for many tasks. The only thing the Core i3 2100 is
noticeably faster at is at CPU limited games with a discrete card.
For a general purpose PC they are fantastic,and for day to day usage I saw zero difference between the two.
The IGP obliterates my Core i3 2100 in every way and that is where the difference is seen.
They are a great option for a cheap family PC,as the IGP can actually run some games. I also know as GPU compute picks up,the IGP will be good enough - Toms Hardware has covered this. Companies like Adobe are already supporting OpenCL with applications. Even Intel is supporting OpenCL I believe. The HD4000 technically supports it already(but is much slower than the current AMD IGPs).
Even on forums like OcUK I have seen people with Core i5 gaming PCs pick up A6 and A8 CPUs for second builds for themselves, or family,because they are perfect for that sort of thing or an HTPC.
Noli
But for a £800 laptop, that's not much of a saving for a 40% reduction in processing power (and hence laptop longevity) also. AMD need to focus on creating an equivalent of Optimus drivers for their discrete GPUs next…
Really now?? Every laptop which I had to ditch and literally everyone else I have known who has had to ditch laptops,ditched it due to poor IGP performance. The decode blocks in older generation IGPs did not support proper video playback and flash acceleration at all - it is rarely a CPU issue. The other instances is when a cheap laptop cannot run an old game. Remember a mate who could not run something like COD on a GMA4000(or something similar) due to crappy drivers even if the IGP was technically capable.At least with the HD4000,Intel has done something decent with their IGPs.
Tablets have very weak CPUs,but their IGPs and decode hardware are quite capable though,so this is why they are so popular,as they do a better job than netbooks. For instance an Atom has far more CPU power than most ARM based tablet SOCs,but a useless IGP so the whole user experience is horrible.
This is why laptops like even the Core2 based Mac Airs are still popular even second hand and Apple did not even update them for years(decent graphics for the class). Heck,I know enough people writing(or have written) their large theses on dual core machines.
Any reasonable dual core CPU and and a capable enough IGP or graphics card,will last years for normal usage.
Moreover,your prices of the AMD laptops are way off. You can get a Samsung A10-4600M laptop from John Lewis with an HD7670M(which runs in Crossfire with the HD7660G IGP) for £599.95 from John Lewis.
A chap over on OcUK has reviewed it:
http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18433537It's an honest review showing the pros and cons of the laptop.
