AMD A8-3800 Pro Reviews

First of all I would like to remind you that Llano is not really a new desktop processor, but mostly a solution that will finally let AMD feel very confident in the mobile PC market. However, today we did get a desktop modification and in this respect Llano makes very versatile impression. As a new AMD processor that came to replace Phenom II and Athlon II, it doesn’t strike as particularly exciting. Of course, four computational cores of the new A8 processors may help them take the lead over Core i3 in applications that are well optimized for multi-threading, but this is hardly a consolation. The thing is that in systems equipped with discrete graphics Llano work slower than their predecessors from Athlon II X4 family. Llano processors still use x86 cores based on K10 microarchitecture from 2007 and all minor improvements are of purely cosmetic nature, while time has been long calling for a complete redesign. Moreover, trying to achieve acceptable TDP levels AMD had to lower the clock speeds. And even though Turbo Core technology was supposed to compensate lower frequencies, it doesn’t do it too well. Overclocking is also no remedy for this situation. Llano processors do not overclock well and even the Lynx platform itself doesn’t favor overclocking in general.

We'd still like to see AMD lower prices on its retail boxed A-series APUs or, better yet, raise the performance bar while keeping TDPs steady once those pesky manufacturing issues are resolved. The A8 isn't far from being more broadly appealing, but some tweaks would alleviate our doubts. Here's hoping those happen soon, or it may fall to the next-gen Trinity APU to close the gap.