Under the top tier A8-3850 APU comes the A6-3650. How well does this compare when we crank up the resolutions and throw a Radeon HD 6570 into the mix?
Product on Review: AMD A6-3650 APUManufacturer and Sponsor: AMD
Street Price: £85 inc. VAT (GBP)
A few months back Vortez took a look at what the A8-3850 APU with it’s 6550D iGPU had to offer. We return now with an A6-3650 APU to put through its paces and see how it will compare, to further spice things up we have a shiny Radeon HD 6570 to throw into the mix too! Aimed at the ‘Mainstream market’ AMD’s APU is an innovative fusion of x86 cores, the northbridge, UVD3 and DX11 Radeon graphics cores all on one die.
About AMD
AMD (NYSE: AMD) is a semiconductor design innovator leading the next era of vivid digital experiences with its ground-breaking AMD Fusion Accelerated Processing Units (APUs). AMD’s graphics and computing technologies power a variety of solutions including PCs, game consoles and the servers that drive the Internet and businesses.
Features & Specifications
Specifications
Model Name: A6-3650
Radeon™ Brand: HD 6530D
CPU Clock Speed: 2.6GHz
CPU Cores on Die: 4 cores
TDP: 100W
Total L2 Cache: 4MB
Radeon™ Cores on Die: 320
GPU Clock Speed: 443 MHz
DDR3 Speed: 1866MHz
DX11 and UVD3
Features
– Quad-Core Processor: Easily handles productivity and entertainment all at once. More cores allows you to do more at once and handle tough tasks faster
– AMD VISION Engine: Hardware acceleration of enabled applications (productivity, media editing, Web browsing) and DirectX® 11 support
– AMD Radeon™ Dual Graphics: Combines two powerful AMD Radeon™ graphics processors to dramatically boost graphics and gaming performance1
– AMD Steady Video technology: Helps stabilizes shaky and jittery online and home video during playback for a smoother viewing experience
– AMD Perfect Picture HD: Auto-boosts image quality for enhanced color, contrast and resolution3
– AMD Cool ‘n’ Quiet™ Technology: Reduces heat and noise so you can experience amazing performance without distraction
– Form Factor: Efficient design capable of supporting leading edge, unique desktop form factors
Model Name: A6-3650
Radeon™ Brand: HD 6530D
CPU Clock Speed: 2.6GHz
CPU Cores on Die: 4 cores
TDP: 100W
Total L2 Cache: 4MB
Radeon™ Cores on Die: 320
GPU Clock Speed: 443 MHz
DDR3 Speed: 1866MHz
DX11 and UVD3
Features
– Quad-Core Processor: Easily handles productivity and entertainment all at once. More cores allows you to do more at once and handle tough tasks faster
– AMD VISION Engine: Hardware acceleration of enabled applications (productivity, media editing, Web browsing) and DirectX® 11 support
– AMD Radeon™ Dual Graphics: Combines two powerful AMD Radeon™ graphics processors to dramatically boost graphics and gaming performance1
– AMD Steady Video technology: Helps stabilizes shaky and jittery online and home video during playback for a smoother viewing experience
– AMD Perfect Picture HD: Auto-boosts image quality for enhanced color, contrast and resolution3
– AMD Cool ‘n’ Quiet™ Technology: Reduces heat and noise so you can experience amazing performance without distraction
– Form Factor: Efficient design capable of supporting leading edge, unique desktop form factors
The A6-3650’s CPU cores come in clocked at 2.6GHz, 300Mhz slower than the A8-3850 which is close to a 10% reduction. The HD 6530D GPU however has been stripped far more mercilessly, a 20% reduction in Radeon cores, SIMD and texture units and a 25% reduction in GPU clock speed results in a 40% reduction in GPU compute performance when compared to the A8-3850’s HD 6550D.
Test Setup
A75 Setup
Motherboard – GIGABYTE GA-A75M-UD2H
RAM – Team Xtreem PC3 12800 DDR3 1600 7-7-7-21
HDD – Western Digital Caviar Blue 500GB 7200RPM SATAIII
Power Supply – OCZ StealthXtream 2 600W
Cooler – CoolerMaster Hyper 212+
APUs
AMD A8-3850 @ 2.9GHz (100MHz x 29, 1333MHz 9-9-9-24)
HD 6550D integrated graphics, AMD Radeon HD 6570 discrete graphics card and CrossfireX
AMD A6-3650 @ 2.6GHz (100MHz x 26, 1333MHz 9-9-9-24) @ 3.69GHz (142 x 26, 1524MHz 7-7-7-21)
HD 6530D integrated graphics, AMD Radeon HD 6570 discrete graphics card and CrossfireX
Motherboard – GIGABYTE GA-A75M-UD2H
RAM – Team Xtreem PC3 12800 DDR3 1600 7-7-7-21
HDD – Western Digital Caviar Blue 500GB 7200RPM SATAIII
Power Supply – OCZ StealthXtream 2 600W
Cooler – CoolerMaster Hyper 212+
APUs
AMD A8-3850 @ 2.9GHz (100MHz x 29, 1333MHz 9-9-9-24)
HD 6550D integrated graphics, AMD Radeon HD 6570 discrete graphics card and CrossfireX
AMD A6-3650 @ 2.6GHz (100MHz x 26, 1333MHz 9-9-9-24) @ 3.69GHz (142 x 26, 1524MHz 7-7-7-21)
HD 6530D integrated graphics, AMD Radeon HD 6570 discrete graphics card and CrossfireX
Benchmarks
AIDA64– Memory and CPU benchmarks
x264 HD 4.0 – 1st and 2nd pass encoding
SiSoftware SANDRA 2011 – CPU, GPGPU/APU and memory benchmarks
Cinebench 11.5 – CPU and Open GL benchmarks
3DMark Vantage – CPU, GPU and overall score, Performance preset
3DMark 11 – Overall score, Performance preset
PCMark 7 – System Benchmark
UNIGINE Heaven 2.5 – Benchmark Score
Games – Alien VS Predator, Deus Ex:Human Revolution, Left 4 Dead 2, Shogun 2
Llano APU CrossfireX Setup
The card we are using to pair with the A6’s 6530D iGPU (integrated GPU) is AMD’s Radeon HD 6570 graphics card.Specifications
– 650 MHz engine clock
– 1GB GDDR5 memory 4.0 Gbps GDDR5
– 480 Stream Processing Units
– 128-bit DDR3/GDDR5 memory interface
– 650 MHz engine clock
– 1GB GDDR5 memory 4.0 Gbps GDDR5
– 480 Stream Processing Units
– 128-bit DDR3/GDDR5 memory interface
Setup was somewhat frustrating as there seems to be a delicate art to get CrossfireX to work with an A-Series APU. If you encounter this issue yourself, do not fret, here is how it is done.
1) Remove discrete graphics card and connect video out to motherboard.
2) On startup, enter BIOS and search for INTI Display (for initial), select ONBOARD
3) Enter Windows and install latest display driver AND CrossfireX package (AMD now have this as a seperate install package)
4) Shut down the system and install discrete graphics card, KEEP VIDEO OUT PLUGGED INTO MOTHERBOARD
5) Power on and enter Windows, once loaded in, AMD Graphics Drivers should either auto detect CrossfireX capability OR open Catalyst Manager and select the ‘performance’ tab and enable CrossfireX.
6) Shut Down the system and change video out to discrete graphics card.
7) Start up BUT WAIT! You will not see any visuals until you enter windows, if you have sound on and you hear that you have entered windows but still have no visuals. Restart again.
Once you have video you should not have an issue with video out again, however you will still not get initial display until loading into Windows. This is a particular hassle if you often enter BIOS or want to try overclocking, as you will need to switch the video output from the discrete graphics card to onboard then back again. It is unclear if this is a driver issue or a BIOS issue or generally an issue with the platform itself though I would be particularly eager to see a fix for this soon.
Overclocking
The A-Series APUs may be targeting a mainstream audience but that doesn’t mean it can not be overclocked. Though caution is recommended, this is not something you can increase the multiplier on and say hello to 4.6GHz. Like the 1155 platform with the Intel Sandy Bridge CPUs, the base clock is tied to many other system components including the northbridge, the GPU, memory, storage, USB and PCI-E. However, unlike the 1155 platform, when increasing the baseclock there are automatic multipliers changing in the background allowing an increase in the baseclock affecting the CPU, resulting in a higher speed.
The A6-3650 with Cool & Quiet enabled.
Hitting the stock 2.6GHz
Finding a stable OC @ 142 x 26 to give 3.69GHz
Finding a stable clock at first can be hit and miss as you never know when the hidden system multiplier will change. Many have pointed to around 133 baseclock. You will find that if you try to boot, for example, at 125 baseclock, you may find that your system will not boot or even recognise your storage drive, but loading in at 135 will resume system stability. I managed to get a stable 3.69GHZ (linX and MSI Kombustor simultainiously) though I only benched the CPU in the results. The A-3650 APU looks like it could offer pleasing rewards for those with enough time to spend overclocking it to the perfect settings. It has a strong, 1866MHz capable IMC, (some have been able to get DDR3 memory stable at 2500MHz) as well as scalable GPU improvement with increased memory bandwidth. Die-Hard overclockers will find a lot to like about overclocking this platform. Aiming for highest clock I managed to get 4GHz validated alas it was not stable. Note in the validation, for some reason it doubled the base clock speed (154 x 26-4004). Another issue with overclocking, is that I have found no reliable way of measuring temperatures accurately. Good Luck!
Power Consumption
Idling at 3W less than the A8-3850 and at 10W less than with a discrete card, the A6-3650 offers low power functionality while Cool & Quiet is enabled. Peak power load is more than triple it’s idle consumption and with the HD 6570 in CrossfireX the system is only just close to 200W. To put those numbers into perspective, some systems idle using that much power.
Synthetic Benchmark: AIDA64
Memory Tests
Memory bandwidth benchmarks (Memory Read, Memory Write, Memory Copy) measure the maximum achiveable memory data transfer bandwidth. The code behind these benchmark methods are written in Assembly and they are extremely optimized for every popular AMD and Intel processor core variants by utilizing the appropriate x86, MMX, 3DNow!, SSE, SSE2 or SSE4.1 instruction set extension.
The Memory Latency benchmark measures the typical delay when the CPU reads data from system memory. Memory latency time means the penalty measured from the issuing of the read command until the data arrives to the integer registers of the CPU.
The Memory Latency benchmark measures the typical delay when the CPU reads data from system memory. Memory latency time means the penalty measured from the issuing of the read command until the data arrives to the integer registers of the CPU.
CPU Queen Benchmark
This simple integer benchmark focuses on the branch prediction capabilities and the misprediction penalties of the CPU. It finds the solutions for the classic “Queens problem” on a 10 by 10 sized chessboard. At the same clock speed theoretically the processor with the shorter pipeline and smaller misprediction penalties will attain higher benchmark scores. For example — with HyperThreading disabled — the Intel Northwood core processors get higher scores than the Intel Prescott core based ones due to the 20-step vs 31-step long pipeline. CPU Queen test uses integer MMX, SSE2 and SSSE3 optimizations.
CPU Photoworxx Benchmark
This benchmark stresses the integer arithmetic and multiplication execution units of the CPU and also the memory subsystem. Due to the fact that this test performs high memory read/write traffic, it cannot effectively scale in situations where more than 2 processing threads used. For example, on a 8-way Pentium III Xeon system the 8 processing threads will be “fighting” over the memory, creating a serious bottleneck that would lead to as low scores as a 2-way or 4-way similar processor based system could achieve. CPU PhotoWorxx test uses only the basic x86 instructions, and it is HyperThreading, multi-processor (SMP) and multi-core (CMP) aware.
FPU Mandel Benchmark
This benchmark measures the double precision (also known as 64-bit) floating-point performance through the computation of several frames of the popular “Mandelbrot” fractal. The code behind this benchmark method is written in Assembly, and it is extremely optimized for every popular AMD, Intel and VIA processor core variants by utilizing the appropriate x87, SSE2, AVX or FMA4 instruction set extension. FPU Mandel test is HyperThreading, multi-processor (SMP) and multi-core (CMP) aware.
Synthetic Benchmarks: x264 HD
Simply put, this test measures how fast your machine can encode a short, DVD quality MPEG-2 video clip into a high-quality x264 video clip. What’s x264, you ask? It’s more or less the next-generation Xvid/DivX codec. I think it’s ideal for a benchmark because the application (x264.exe) reports fairly accurate compression results (in frames per second) for each pass of the video encoding process, and it uses multi-core processors very efficiently.
The A6-3650 scores relatively average at stock speeds but with an overclock, results improve and become competitive.
Synthetic Benchmarks: Cinebench 11.5
CINEBENCH can measure systems with up to 64 processor threads. This test scene contains approximately 2,000 objects which in turn contain more than 300,000 polygons in total, and uses sharp and blurred reflections, area lights, shadows, procedural shaders, antialiasing, and much more. The result is displayed in points (pts). The higher the number, the faster your processor.
A 30% overclock results in a 30% score boost over stock speed proving that the A6-3650 and indeed all A-Series APUs scale well as the CPU speeds are pushed higher.
This procedure uses a complex 3D scene depicting a car chase (by renderbaron) which measures the performance of your graphics card in OpenGL mode. The performance depends on various factors, such as the GPU processor on your hardware, but also on the drivers used. The graphics card has to display a huge amount of geometry (nearly 1 million polygons) and textures, as well as a variety of effects, such as environments, bump maps, transparency, lighting and more to evaluate the performance across different disciplines and give a good average overview of the capabilities of your graphics hardware.
In the GPU department, the HD 6550D edges out the 6530D however with a Radeon HD 6570, both iGPUs are left in the dust.
Synthetic Benchmarks: SiSoftware SANDRA 2011
SANDRA isn’t always a benchmark that is included in hardware reviews but I believe it shouldn’t be ignored. SANDRA provides a vigorous package that tests your system in a rather large array of benchmarks. There are many aspects of benchmark that can be executed. We will be considering – CPU, memory and GPGPU tests.
The trend is set with the A8-3850 beating the A6-3650 in most tests except for Memory Latency.
Synthetic Benchmarks: SiSoftware SANDRA 2011 cont…
At this point I start to notice Scaling issues with the HD 6530D and 6570 in CrossfireX as the scaling in GPGPU Processing is roughly 80%. With the HD 6550D and 6570 CrossfireX the scaling is roughly 87%, which is a significant difference. Will this trend be seen later?
CrossfireX scaling in bandwidth and cryptography performance is close to 100%.
Synthetic Benchmarks: 3DMark Vantage & 3DMark 11
3DMark Vantage
3DMark Vantage is the industry standard performance benchmark for DirectX 10 gaming PCs. It includes two graphics tests, two CPU tests and six feature tests. Trusted by gamers worldwide to give accurate and unbiased results, 3DMark Vantage is the best way to consistently and reliably test DirectX 10 under game-like loads.
The A6-3650’s overall performance was greatly increased with the addition of a discrete graphics card and was on par with the A8-3850 showing that the CPU speeds in this benchmark were negligible. Though the A6-3650 with a 6570 only gained 400 extra marks when in CrossfireX, where as the A8-3850 gained a whopping 1500 extra points in CrossfireX.
3DMark 11
Designed to measure your PC’s gaming performance 3DMark 11 makes extensive use of all the new features in DirectX 11 including tessellation, compute shaders and multi-threading. Trusted by gamers worldwide to give accurate and unbiased results, 3DMark 11 is the best way to consistently and reliably test DirectX 11 under game-like loads.
Again Stock performance between the HD 6530D and HD 6550D are in predicatable positions while both APUs were on par when coupled with the 6570. However in this benchmark, the HD 6530D no longer wanted to play as a threesome and when in CrossfireX 3DMark 11 failed to complete the final combined test thus no result is available. It would appear that there is a driver and/or compatibility issue with the software when using the A6-3650 in CrossfireX with the 6570.
Synthetic Benchmarks: PCMark 7 & UNIGINE Heaven 2.5
PCMark 7
PCMark 7 is a tool provided by FutureMark that tests the PCs ability in general office and everyday use. It produces a number that reflects the all-round performance of the PC and is useful to compare between differing setups. For more information, visit the FutureMark website.
Not too much difference between the two systems, however it is likely the slower CPU speed that hinders the A6-3650 in PCMark 7.
UNIGINE Heaven 2.5
Unigine’s benchmark is to showcase the benefits of DX 11 and the use of tessellation as opposed to normal rendering techniques. The demo has impressive visuals that give an insight into what we can expect from gaming in the future.
At 1080p this benchmark seems to be GPU dependant and we see the A6-3650 and A8-3850 on par when paired with the 6570. Scaling in CrossfireX is good too. However performance on both APUs iGPU was lacking on their own, however that is understandable considering the demanding nature of this DX11 benchmark at high resolution.
Game Benchmarks: AVP, Deus Ex:HR, L4D2, Shogun 2
Alien Vs. Predator
Spawned from the popular Alien and Predator franchises, Rebellion have collaborated to bring the legendary war to us through the medium of a first-person shooter. The game forces you to hunt, prey and most importantly survive in the swamp colony of Freya’s prospect as a Predator, Alien or Marine. The stunning visuals add to the sense of dread and terror that we have become so accustomed to seeing with the series.
The stand-alone Alien VS Predator benchmark tool was used for testing here. All the settings were set to very high and Tessellation was applied. The average FPS was recorded at the end.
The stand-alone Alien VS Predator benchmark tool was used for testing here. All the settings were set to very high and Tessellation was applied. The average FPS was recorded at the end.
Stock performance at these settings for the HD 6530 would be very unplayable, the addition of the 6570 in CrossfireX nearly achieves acceptable frame rates with some good scaling involved too and not too far off the A8-3850 CrossfireX. Maybe with some overclocking of CPU + CPU + RAM..? (It is worth mentioning that this benchmark is not indicative of actual AVP gameplay.)
Deus Ex: Human Revolution
You play Adam Jensen, an ex-SWAT specialist who’s been handpicked to oversee the defensive needs of one of America’s most experimental biotechnology firms. Your job is to safeguard company secrets, but when a black ops team breaks in and kills the very scientists you were hired to protect, everything you thought you knew about your job changes
Unfortunately at these settings the A6 APU cannot provide playable frames, on top of that DX:HR follows the ‘other’ trend we have seen, and that is CrossfireX issues with the A6-3650 and the 6570. Adam Jensen never asked for this.
co-operative action horror FPS takes you and your friends through the cities, swamps and cemeteries of the Deep South, from Savannah to New Orleans across five expansive campaigns.
You’ll play as one of four new survivors armed with a wide and devastating array of classic and upgraded weapons. In addition to firearms, you’ll also get a chance to take out some aggression on infected with a variety of carnage-creating melee weapons, from chainsaws to axes and even the deadly frying pan.
You’ll play as one of four new survivors armed with a wide and devastating array of classic and upgraded weapons. In addition to firearms, you’ll also get a chance to take out some aggression on infected with a variety of carnage-creating melee weapons, from chainsaws to axes and even the deadly frying pan.
Popular Survival FPS L4D2 acheives near playable frame rates maxxed out on the A8-3850, with a little OC will get you those magic numbers, again the A6-3650 and the decimated HD 6530D fall short of delivering. Left 4 Dead 2 does not support CrossfireX and prefers faster CPU clock speeds so in this scenario, the A8 wins out right.
In the darkest age of Japan, endless war leaves a country divided. It is the middle of the 16th Century in Feudal Japan. The country, once ruled by a unified government, is now split into many warring clans. Ten legendary warlords strive for supremacy as conspiracies and conflicts wither the empire. Only one will rise above all to win the heart of a nation as the new shogun…The others will die by his sword.
Epic battles of Samurai fuelled by AMD’s APU, we again see good crossfire scaling, level performance on the HD 6570 and playable frame rates on the A8. Again the A6 falls below par.
Conclusion
AMD have flaunted the word ‘Fusion’ for a number of years now, but Fusion is now here firmly in the present. Offering an affordable, well balanced combination of processing power and graphics that cater for the needs of an ever developing visual interactivity that technology provides, the APU really does take a huge step forward in mainstream computing. There were various hiccups with the A6-3650 APU including the CrossfireX set up and the driver/compatibility issue. Stand alone, the A6-3650 does offer a low power all round work horse that would be happy in any home PC. It has the CPU power to get your work done and the graphical power for light gaming, high definition movies and the features that will allow software to take advantage of GPGPU compute. As time progresses more and more applications will be available to take advantage of the APU.
A6-3650 + HD 6570 not a bad combo for a lan machine.
I felt, while using the A6-3650, that the GPU felt pretty crippled compared to the A8 variant. Considering cost, the A6 is not that much cheaper at £85-90 compared to the £100-£105 for the A8-3850. The A6 has a 10% lower CPU clock speed and 20-40% lower GPU horses. It may be that AMD are having yield issues with Llano and that is causing the price to remain high. However, it is difficult to ignore that from a gaming perspective, the HD 6530D seems over kill for HTPC applications, yet not powerful enough alone to satisfy a gamer. Which is why a £55 Radeon HD 6570 or a £65 Radeon HD 6670 is needed. When considering the price of an APU and discrete graphics card there may be other, better options? What about an existing Phenom II x2 CPU that can bought for £65 with a HD 6670 for £65? Totalling for roughly £10 less than an A6-3650 + HD6570, likely perform better without any hassles and has the possibility of being unlocked into a Phenom II x4.
Regardless the A6-3650 APU from AMD does exactly what it is set out to do, be a balanced processor that can provide the grunt for an everyday home PC and deliver stunning graphics and flawless HD movie playback with an upgrade option of adding in a discrete GPU for extra performance (If they can fix all the bugs). For the gamers out there, if you are looking at a Llano chip, it would depend on what games you play. If it is CSS or TF2? Then something like this will offer great value. If it is for the latest and greatest on a budget or for a LAN rig, then look at the A8-3850 with the possibility of an extra card to bolster the performance. If you are wanting to max out your games at the highest resolutions at the highest frame rates. You are looking at the wrong hardware.
Pros.
+ Quad Core
+ Strong Integrated Graphics
+ Low power
+ Support for 1866MHz+ memory
+ Fun overclocking potential
Cons.
– CrossfireX/compatibility issues
– Needs add in card for high res gaming
– Too close in price to the A8-3850
+ Quad Core
+ Strong Integrated Graphics
+ Low power
+ Support for 1866MHz+ memory
+ Fun overclocking potential
Cons.
– CrossfireX/compatibility issues
– Needs add in card for high res gaming
– Too close in price to the A8-3850
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