AMD A6-3650 2.6GHz Llano APU Review

Final Thoughts and Conclusions

The AMD A6-3650 ‘Llano’ APU performed exactly how we expected it to once we got it on the test bench. It was found to be slower than the Intel Core i3 2120, Core i3-2105 and AMD A8-3850 processors when it came to CPU benchmarks, but it was found to be faster than the Intel Core i3-2120, Core i3-2105 and Core i7-2600K in GPU benchmarks. The AMD A8-3850 still ruled the roost when it came to GPU performance since it has more Radeon cores that are running at higher clock speeds.

	AMD A75 Platform	Intel Z68 Platform
Processor	A6-3650 $119.99	Core i3-2105 $139.99
Motherboard	Gigabyte GA-A75M-UD4H $129.99	Gigabyte GA-Z68X-UD3-B3 $139.99
TOTAL	$249.98	$279.98

When it comes to price versus performance the AMD A75 ‘Lynx’ platform prices out as being less expensive than its direct competitor for both the processor and the motherboard. The Intel Z68 platform performs better in the CPU tasks and the AMD A75 platform performs better in the GPU tasks. At the end of the day it really depends on what you are trying to do with your system as to which one is right for you. The AMD A75 can play decent game titles without a dedicated graphics cards, but some CPU intensive tasks might take a bit longer. With the Intel Z68 platform it blazes through many of the CPU benchmarks, but is unable to play game titles at decent resolutions and the GPU is just DirectX 10 capable.

Overclocking performance on the AMD A6-3650 was nothing short of amazing! We were able to get this 2.6GHz processor all the way up to 3.8GHz with rock solid CPU performance. We didn’t spend much time overclocking the Radeon HD 6530D GPU, but we increased the clock speed on that from 443MHz up to 600MHz with no issues at all. This APU has gobs of overclocking room in it, but we did encounter a couple issues that we have never seen before. The first being that analog displays stopped working after a mild overclock and the second being that once the APU Voltage was increased that the SuperSpeed USB 3.0 ports on the board stopped working. Neither of this were a big deal to us as we had a DVI input on our display and we didn’t need to use any of the USB 3.0 headers for our testing. If you plan on running overclocked 24/7 we can see the USB 3.0 issue being a concern to some people. We were able to reach 3.1GHz (119MHz x 26) on the A6-3650 before needing to increase the APU voltage though and that is a solid 500MHz overclock.

We get to review all of the high-end parts that cost a million dollars, but at the end of the day some of the most fun we get to have is with processors like this. The AMD A6-3650 is a robust little 32nm ‘Llano’ APU that can do anything it’s big brother can if you give it a little extra time. We found this processor to be able to play back Blu-ray discs just fine and if you are building a HTPC or a system where gaming graphics isn’t a concern then it is all you are going to need. If you use your PC on a more regular basis then you might want to spend that extra $20 and get the AMD A8-3850 as the extra 300MHz core clock speed on the CPU and the extra Radeon cores that are clocked higher do make a rather significant difference.

Legit Bottom Line: The AMD A6-3650 APU is a very capable processor that can do anything you ask it to and it overclocks very well as our chip got up to 3.8GHz!