New Balance 768

AMD A8-3850

When processor titan AMD bought video powerhouse ATI several years ago, everyone knew it was just a matter of time until the companies' specializations permanently united. That marriage was not fully consummated until this year, and Intel's January release of its mainstream second-generation Core (aka "Sandy Bridge") chips meant AMD's competitor brought together CPU and GPU functionality within a single die first (but just barely). With its new A8-3850 ($135 list), however, AMD shows that its approach was worth waiting for. This AMD accelerated processing unit (APU), which is scheduled for official release soon, offers superior graphics performance and features—if at the expense of raw computing power. APUs will require a new motherboard, and hanging on to (or purchasing) a discrete video card is still the best way to go, but with these chips AMD looks poised to give Intel a real run for its money.

The A8-3850 is based on a 32nm production process and contains four cores, each running at 2.9GHz, as well as 128KB of L1 cache and 1MB of L2 cache per core. It supports dual-channel DDR3 memory at speeds up to 1,866MHz. (In terms of raw numbers, this puts it on par with AMD's Athlon II X4 635 CPU from last year.) The graphics hardware in the A8-3850 is of the Radeon HD 6550D variety which places it in the middle region of lower range of discrete offerings (its name suggesting it falls between the AMD Radeon HD 6450 and the Radeon 6570 ).

Because this is new technical territory for AMD, APUs like the A8-3850 require a new socket, the FM1—and that means they won't work in existing AM2+ or AM3 motherboards. To get the full range of these chips' capabilities, which also include switchable graphics for making the most of both integrated and discrete hardware, you'll need a motherboard based on one of AMD's two newest chipset designs: A75 (which offers greatly expanded support for native USB 3.0 (for the first time on AMD chipsets) and SATA III data transfer technologies) or A55 (utilizing USB 2.0 and SATA, which are slower but less expensive).

A couple of quick notes about the graphics system. First, if you have a discrete GPU installed, the APU will by default function as the boot-up video adapter, meaning any displays connected to a video card won't work until Windows loads the proper video drivers. This can be annoying if you only have one display, but you can toggle this "feature" in the motherboard's BIOS or UEFI settings. Second, the APU lets you access AMD's new Dual Graphics technology to "combine" the power of a discrete GPU with the integrated graphics; this only works if your system is configured correctly on both the software (you'll need the AMD Vision Engine Control Center running) and hardware (the video card must be relatively low-end, and if you're only using one DIMM of memory, the whole thing might not work) sides, so be sure your PC meets all the requirements before trying it out.

New Balance 768 : WR768ST

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