AMD Fusion: A8-3500M A-Series Llano APU Review
Test Systems and PCMark Vantage
For this article, we were presented with a bit of a challenge with respect to providing relevant and reasonably balanced reference numbers for benchmark comparisons. The Compal Llano mobile reference platform is more of a mainstream configuration, rather than a high-performance or gaming-targeted model. As such, for productivity, content creation and multimedia testing, we wanted to compare it to other machines in its class, based on Intel's current architectures. These test machines are listed in detail below.
Primary Test System
| PROCESSOR | AMD A-3500M APU (1.5GHz, 2.4GHz Turbo) |
| SYSTEM | Compal Referenace Platform |
| INTEGRATED GPU | Radeon HD 6620 |
| GRAPHICS CARD | Radeon HD 6700 Series |
| DISPLAY | 15" LED Display - 1366 x 768 |
| MEMORY | 4 GB Samsung DDR3-1333 |
| HARD DRIVE | Hitachi 250GB 5400RPM |
| OPERATING SYSTEM | Microsoft Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit |
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| Packard Bell Whitebook Intel Core i7-2820QM (2.3GHz - Quad-Core) 4GB DDR3 Intel HD Graphics 3000 On-Board Ethernet On-board Audio Seagate Momentus 640GB HD Windows 7 Ultimate (64-bit) 15.6" LED LCD (native 1366x768) |
ASUS K53E Intel Core i5-2520M (2.5 GHz - Dual-Core) 4GB DDR3 Intel HD Graphics 3000 Onboard Ethernet Onboard Audio Seagate Momentus 640GB HD Windows 7 Ultimate (64-bit) 15" LED LCD (native 1366x768) |
Dell XPS 15z Intel Core i7-2620M (2.70GHz - Dual-Core) 8GB DDR3 Intel HD w/ GeForce GT 525M nboard Ethernet Onboard Audio Seagate Momentus 750GB HD Windows 7 Home Premium (64-bit) 15.6" LED LCD (native 1920x1080) |
Asus K42F Intel Core i5-540M (2.53GHz - Dual-Core) 4GB DDR3 Intel GMA HD On-Board Ethernet On-board Audio Seagate Momentus 640GB HD Windows 7 Ultimate (64-bit) 14" LED LCD (native 1366x768) |
First, we our test systems through Futuremark’s latest system performance metric, PCMark Vantage. PCMark Vantage runs through a host of different usage scenarios to simulate different types of workloads including HD TV and movie playback and video manipulation, gaming, image editing and manipulation, music compression, communications, and productivity. Most of the tests are multi-threaded as well, so the tests can exploit the additional resources offered by multi-core CPUs.
For general purpose compute tasks and lighter duty everyday work loads, Llano shows itself mostly competitive versus Intel's Core i5 dual cores with HyperThreading, but no match for the quad-core Core i7 2820QM. An area where Llano trails significantly is the Communications test, where Intel's latest security instruction set support and the on-board IPSec processing engine in Sandy Bridge, take this test up a notch or three.
