The AMD A8-3850 Review: Llano on the Desktop
by Anand Lal Shimpi on June 30, 2011 3:11 AM ESTPerformance in Older Games
In response to our preview a number of you asked for performance in older titles. We dusted off a couple of our benchmarks from a few years ago to see how Intel's HD 3000 and AMD's Radeon HD 6550D handled these golden oldies.
First up is a personal favorite: Oblivion. Our test remains unchanged from when we used to run this test, the only difference is we're actually able to get playable frame rates from integrated graphics now. We set the game to High Quality defaults, although the Intel platform had to disable HDR in order to get the game to render properly:
The Core i3-2105 with its HD Graphics 3000 can actually deliver a playable experience at 1024 x 768 with just over 40 fps. Move to higher resolutions however and you either have to drop quality settings or sacrifice playability. The A8-3850 gives you no such tradeoff. Even at 1920 x 1200 the A8 manages to deliver over 40 fps using Oblivion's High Quality defaults.
We saw similar results under Half Life 2: Episode Two:
Here the Core i3 maintains playability all the way up to 1920 x 1200, but you obviously get much higher frame rates from the Llano APU.
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zac05 - Thursday, June 30, 2011 - link
was waitting for this reviw very badily......probabily amd llano desktop version is just a beafed up amd apu mobile version, it has a clear winnig point on its mobile platform ( added advantage of batterylife and graphics performance for relatively lower price than the intel counter part )
but for desktop its a mixed review....i think the bulldozer family apu..which is the real desktop apu variant must come into picture, for a face to face comparison with the intel counter part ...phew we have to wait another 4-5 months for that i guess.
a8-3850 would be good for casula gamers....else i3 will provide more performance and lower tdp for others
Musafir_86 - Thursday, June 30, 2011 - link
Hi Anand,-Thank you for the nice review, but would you add image quality (IQ) comparison as well? From what I found around the internet, Intel HD 2000/3000 still lacking competitive/comparable quality of the rendered images. So, it would be better to show what's the actual IQ the user will see even when the frame rate (FPS) looks like it's playable.
Thanks again.
ganeshts - Thursday, June 30, 2011 - link
Yes, that is coming up in a separate review. Give me a couple of hours.Musafir_86 - Thursday, June 30, 2011 - link
-Wow, what a quick reply, thanks!-Hmm, Anand said you're covering HTPC scenarios, right? So would that mean video (output) quality only? Or that will include 3D games as well?
Regards.
StormyParis - Thursday, June 30, 2011 - link
Thanks. very much looking forward to that t, being gaming or video.AnandThenMan - Thursday, June 30, 2011 - link
Seconded, a comparison of image quality would be nice. I'd also like to see 1024x768 dropped from testing, who runs that resolution? Looking at a couple of other reviews, the tests were done@ 1680x1050 with good frame rates on Llano. If a game has to be dropped down to 1024 to play then why bother, it's going to look ugly anyway.Musafir_86 - Thursday, June 30, 2011 - link
-In my place, budget/value systems often bundle with second-hand 15" or 17" CRT (sometimes LCD too) to reduce the sale price. So, I think 1024x768 (and 1280x1024) resolutions are still relevant. :)Regards.
L. - Thursday, June 30, 2011 - link
The third world is a dreadful place indeed...17 inches *shivers*
ppeterka - Thursday, June 30, 2011 - link
Hey, you dissin' me? My home rig is 17", my work rig is 2x17", and not gonna change soon. I don't want to. I enjoy life even at sub-HD resolutions too...L. - Thursday, June 30, 2011 - link
Just kiddin', my laptop is 17" too ... 17" of eye-killing 1920*1200 madness.No reason to change, except you can get LED pannels for like 130 euros now .. and damn it's good for the movies.