DRAM Speed

We conducted all our stock speed and overclocking testing using 1,333MHz DDR3 memory on both of our test systems to achieve a fair result. However, we were intrigued to see how much of a boost the A8-3850-powered system would receive from using faster RAM, especially as its GPU shares the system memory; using faster memory should be comparable to overclocking a discrete graphics card’s RAM.


This is exactly what we found to be the case; stepping our DDR3 speed up to 1,600MHz provided an appreciable boost in 3D performance. Minimum frame rates rose by 6fps at 1,680 x 1,050 in Left 4 Dead 2 and by 3fps in Black Ops at the same resolution, which pushed the game into the realms of playability. Interestingly, the boost afforded by upgrading to 1,600MHz RAM was greater than that given by our meagre HT overclock, which we detailed earlier.

Conclusion

We can’t help but be positive about the AMD A8-3850, as it finally delivers on the promise of integrated graphics that offer a reasonable degree of performance. The APU proved to be capable of playing our test games smoothly at low and medium resolutions, even with all the detail settings set to high.

This makes AMD’s A-series processors a compelling buy for those looking either to build a low-power media centre PC or a budget gaming rig to pair with a modestly sized monitor. It also seems to have made a large portion of the low end of the GPU market redundant at a stroke - a result that we’re more than happy to see.

Sadly, it isn’t all good news. As the A8-3850’s lacklustre Media Benchmarks performance demonstrates, it’s a long way behind Intel’s similarly priced chip, the i3-2100, in many respects. This will obviously be a concern if you’re likely to perform lots of image editing or video encoding on the processor. However, we think the trade-off of massively improved graphics performance in return for modestly worse media performance is worth it in most cases, especially if GPGPU applications become more prevalent in the future.

If you’re planning a budget build, or simply want an office or lounge PC that can still handle a little gaming when required then the A8-3850 is ideal, as it will be significantly cheaper than building an i3-2100 system with a discrete GPU. With more than enough CPU power to deliver a quality desktop experience, and the advantage of a dedicated GPU to provide genuine 3D performance, it’s a highly competitive package.