A lot of testing
Yessir, 15 desktop chips in this mega-lineup. We've got everything from a quad-core Athlon X4 645 through to Intel's behemoth 990XE. But the comparison that we want you to pay particular attention to is the AMD A8-3850 vs. Intel Core i3-2100. The chips are similar in more ways than one, clearly, as the 32nm-based duo take in integrated graphics, can run four threads on the CPU and are priced below £100, making them ideal for a budget build.
Comparison CPUs |
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| A8-3850 APU | Phenom II X6 1100T BE | Phenom II X6 1055T | Phenom II X4 980 BE | Phenom II X4 975 BE | Athlon II X4 645 | Core i7 990X EE | Core i7 980X EE | Core i7 970 | Core i7 950 | Core i7 2600K | Core i5 2500K | Core i3-2100 | Core i7 870 | Core i5 750 | Core i5 650 | |
| UK Price | £99 | £145 | £120 | £145 | £130 | £75 | £770 | EOL | £430 | £180 | £240 | £160 | £90 | £220 | £150 | £140 |
| Frequency | 2.9GHz | 3.30GHz | 2.80GHz | 3.70GHz | 3.60GHz | 3.10GHz | 3.46GHz | 3.33GHz | 3.20GHz | 3.06GHz | 3.40GHz | 3.30GHz | 3.10GHz | 2.93GHz | 2.66GHz | 3.20GHz |
| Max turbo | NA | 3.70GHz | 3.30GHz | N/A | N/A | N/A | 3.73GHz | 3.60GHz | 3.46GHz | 3.33GHz | 3.80GHz | 3.70GHz | NA | 3.60GHz | 3.20GHz | 3.46GHz |
| L2 Cache | 4MB | 3MB | 3MB | 2MB | 2MB | 2MB | 1.5MB | 1.5MB | 1.5MB | 1MB | 1MB | 1MB | 0.5MB | 1MB | 1MB | 0.5MB |
| L3 Cache | NA | 6MB | 6MB | 6MB | 6MB | N/A | 12MB | 12MB | 12MB | 8MB | 8MB | 6MB | 3MB | 8MB | 8MB | 4MB |
| Cores / threads | 4/4 | 6/6 | 6/6 | 4/4 | 4/4 | 4/4 | 6/12 | 6/12 | 6/12 | 4/8 | 4/8 | 4/4 | 2/4 | 4/8 | 4/4 | 2/4 |
| Process | 32nm | 45nm | 45nm | 45nm | 45nm | 45nm | 32nm | 32nm | 32nm | 45nm | 32nm | 32nm | 32nm | 45nm | 45nm | 32nm |
| Socket | FM1 | AM3 | AM3 | AM3 | AM3 | AM3 | LGA1366 | LGA1366 | LGA1366 | LGA1366 | LGA1155 | LGA1155 | LGA1155 | LGA1156 | LGA1156 | LGA1156 |
| TDP | 100W | 125W | 95W | 125W | 125W | 95W | 130W | 130W | 130W | 130W | 95W | 95W | 65W | 95W | 95W | 73W |
Test Rig Specification |
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| Motherboard | Gigabyte UD4H (A75) | ASUS Crosshair IV Formula (890FX) | ASUS P6X58D Premium (X58) | ASUS P8P67 Deluxe (P67) | ASUS P8Z68-V Pro (Z68) | ASUS P7P55D (P55) | Gigabyte H57M (H57) | |||||||||
| Memory | 4GB (2 x 2GB) Corsair DDR3 | 6GB (3 x 2GB) Corsair DDR3 | 4GB (2 x 2GB) Corsair DDR3 | |||||||||||||
| Memory speed | 9-9-9-24 2T @ DDR3 1,600 | 9-9-9-24 2T @ DDR3 1,333 | 9-9-9-24 2T @ DDR3 1,600 | 9-9-9-24 2T @ DDR3 1,333 | ||||||||||||
| Graphics card | AMD Radeon HD 6950 (2,048MB) | |||||||||||||||
| Disk drive | Corsair Nova V128 SSD | |||||||||||||||
| Operating system | Windows 7 Ultimate (64-bit) | |||||||||||||||
| PSU | Corsair HX1000W (Zalman 400W for IGP tests) | |||||||||||||||
Benchmarks |
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| AIDA64 v1.50.1200 memory bandwidth and L3 latency HEXUS.PiFast to 10m places iTunes 10.1 MP3 encoding CINEBENCH R11.5 multi-CPU, 64-bit wPrime v2.04 TrueCrypt 7.0a encryption benchmark 7zip v9.20 built-in file-compression benchmark 3DMark Vantage b1.2.0 overall score - performance setting Call of Duty: Black Ops- 1,280x768 low quality StarCraft II - 1,280x800 low quality Power-consumption tests - idle and load (wPrime) |
