Which APU is right for me?

AMD markets a wide range of APUs under the ‘Vision Technology’ brand and desktop users currently have three primary product lines to choose from; Vision A4, Vision A6 and Vision A8.

All three A-Series product lines feature integrated CPU and GPU components but are differentiated through varying levels of performance as depicted by the table below.

AMD A-Series Accelerated Processor Model Number and Feature Comparisons
Model	Radeon Brand	CPU Clock Speed	CPU Cores on Die	TDP	Total L2 Cache	Radeon Cores on Die	GPU Clock Speed	DDR3 Speed
A8-3870K	HD 6550D	3.0GHz	4 cores	100W	4MB	400	600 MHz	1866
A8-3850	HD 6550D	2.9GHz	4 cores	100W	4MB	400	600 MHz	1866
A8-3820	HD 6550D	2.8GHz/ 2.5/GHz	4 cores	65W	4MB	400	600 MHz	1866
A8-3800	HD 6550D	2.7GHz/ 2.4GHz	4 cores	65W	4MB	400	600 MHz	1866
A6-3670K	HD 6530D	2.7GHz	4 cores	100W	4MB	320	444 MHz	1866
A6-3650	HD 6530D	2.6GHz	4 cores	100W	4MB	320	443 MHz	1866
A6-3620	HD 6530D	2.5GHz/ 2.2GHz	4 cores	65W	4MB	320	444 MHz	1866
A6-3600	HD 6530D	2.4GHz/ 2.1GHz	4 cores	65W	4MB	320	443 MHz	1866
A6-3500	HD 6530D	2.4GHz/ 2.1GHz	3 cores	65W	3MB	320	443 MHz	1866
A4-3400	HD 6410D	2.7GHz	2 cores	65W	1MB	160	600 MHz	1600
A4-3300	HD 6410D	2.5GHz	2 cores	65W	1MB	160	443 MHz	1600

The desktop range is well defined with a good degree of separation between available options. At the entry-level end of the scale, the A4 APUs offer a dual-core CPU, 1MB of onboard cache and an integrated GPU consisting of 160 Radeon graphics cores.

Moving up to the A6 range introduces tri- and quad-core CPUs coupled with a larger 3MB/4MB cache and a Radeon GPU armed with 320 graphics cores – double what’s on offer from the A4 counterparts.

Then, at the top of the ladder, the desktop A8 APUs are all quad-core solutions operating at best-in-class frequencies with 4MB of cache and a Radeon GPU equipped with a full complement of 400 high-speed graphics cores.

The current crop of A-Series APUs, codenamed ‘Llano’, are all built on a 32nm fabrication process and consist of ‘Stars’ CPU cores derived from the Phenom II microarchitecture, while the Radeon graphics portion is based on the ‘Redwood’ architecture that powered Radeon HD 5000-series discrete GPUs.

The integrated Radeon GPU in every A-Series APU offers full DX11 support and is married to a dedicated, low-power UVD3 video-processing block that provides hardware video decoding and support for stereoscopic 3D.

What’s clever is that the integrated Radeon GPU retains support for CrossFire technology, enabling end users to easily install a discrete graphics card in a configuration where both the discrete and integrated GPUs team up to deliver extra graphics performance.

APU technology is ideally suited to multimedia PCs and keen pricing makes the range available to a wide audience. Today, the entry-level A4-3300 APU is available for just £50 and the top-of-the-range A8-3870K is readily available for under £100.