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NitroWare.net - Mainstream Computing Showdown - AMD A6 APU v Intel 2nd Gen Core i3 CPU
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amd a6 llano reviewAMD have made some bold claims about their 'Fusion' architecture, especially their A-Series 2011 mainstream computing product range. The industry leader went as far to make some very big claims by declaring their A-series APU as the company's most important product in their history and a computing game changer as it saw the future of computing being visually and graphically rich.

This raises several questions: Is AMD's new mainstream computing solution - their A-Series 'Fusion' APU, hero or hype? How relevant is graphics performance with modern software especially integrated graphics? Which 2011 mainstream PC is a better choice for the consumer - AMD or Intel?

To answer these questions we put AMD's A6-3650 APU and its competitor - Intel's 2nd Generation Core i3-2100 CPU through their paces with the full spectrum of tests ranging from everyday audio/video applications, to industry standard benchmarks, popular 3D games, Professional Digital Content Creation software and Web browsing.

To show the relevance of graphics performance in a mainstream computer in 2011 we also included two other systems. A high-speed Intel Core 2 Duo system fitted with a High Performance graphics card from NVIDIA to show the boost powerful graphics can give an older CPU in everyday applications and a low-speed Intel Core 2 Duo system with older Integrated Graphics to show how far 'integrated' graphics has changed in just a few years.

Background

What a year 2011 has been for consumer technology, new 'smart' devices are released on an almost monthly basis. Unfortunately some of this drive and push from some manufacturers revolves around infinite clone products and profit rather than enhancing technology and the consumer experience.

It takes innovative and ground breaking hardware and software technology to bring these products and user experiences to market and into our hands. Intel, AMD, ATI and NVIDIA; the leaders in Processors, System Platforms and graphics featured in this review have these ideas as their core principles and have consistently introduced interesting and worthwhile products. In some cases mainly graphics they have changed industry segments or user experiences completely.

Desktop and Portable computing in the traditional sense has lagged behind the rapid development of phones and tablets although annually delivering in power, performance and battery life. To keep pace with the consumers taste for the rich visual web and multimedia as well as requirements of software developers , traditional computing needs to deliver. The 'slideshow' experience of a slow computer or poor battery life typical of the 1990s and 2000s is no longer acceptable or tolerated by the increasing impatient user who is accustomed to the now always on and visually rich digital lifestyle.

It took a few years as of 2011 to get mainstream desktop and portable computing to a level where we can now call an affordable computer 'fast' or a portable computer finally has acceptable battery life that is more than 2 hours – vendors claim 'all day' battery life in 2011.

Although PC sub-systems have gotten faster over the years, much of the innovation has revolved around graphics capability of a computer whether it is the interface of the operating system, digital video, 3D Gaming or professional graphics and more recently the web. Without graphics, we would not be able to see what we are doing and computing will revert to the dark old days of the command line operating system such as DOS or UNIX. Apple Inc. recognised the importance of a graphical interface in the early 1980s and that was only just the tip of the iceberg.

The last twenty years of computing would not have been possible without suitable graphics technology. The next twenty years of digital technology will rely on graphics technology even more in ways only the 'founding fathers' of computing have envisioned. All current popular entertainment and information devices focus on a rich graphical display whether it is a smart phone, television, media player, net book or in-car infotainment system. No more needs to be said about these devices or the fascination, if not addiction the populous have with smart devices. The graphics revolution can be seen with your own eyes.

The advance in graphics technology since 2006 has allowed software developers to leverage these powerful parallel processors and speed up otherwise sluggish multimedia, scientific computations several times. This revolution has meant that computer manufacturers can no longer sacrifice graphics capability with old or weak designs. The reliance on graphics by modern software has led the CPU vendors to finally integrated advanced graphics capabilities into the CPU itself, something which was not part of the original concept of the computer processor. As the following diagrams show, only the bottom most recent processors of 2010 and 2011 have integrated graphics where as prior graphics was more an auxiliary component relative to the CPU and the required systems it needs to operate.

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2018-09-21 | NVIDIA QUADRO RTX 6000 In action - Photoshop, Porsche RTX, Kubernetes, CLARA and Metropolis


2018-09-20 | NVIDIA RTX Live Demo - Ray Traced Porsche on Turing GPU


2018-09-21 | EPSON goes bright with laser projection and 4K


2018-09-15 | 8 NVIDIA TESLA V100 VOLTA GPU server from HP


2017-12-31 | Future of Networking with Extreme Networks - Eric Broockman CTO Interview


2018-02-16 | NVIDIA’S VOLTA is real, it works and it is finally here.


2018-02-07 | motorola harbourside chat and interview | moto x4, g5s plus, 360 camera & gamepad


2018-02-07 | Inwin X-Frame product tour and interview


2018-02-07 | ASUS Zenbook 3 Deluxe UX490 Ultrabook


2017-11-20 | VICHYPER - Australian Hyperloop Interview and Tour


2017-11-17 | Eugene Kaspersky & Kaspersky Lab Press Conference Sydney 2017


2017-11-17 | Eugene Kaspersky Keynote Sydney 2017


2017-05-21 | AMD RYZEN - Australian launch and Q&A Session | BIOS Update Detailed


2016-11-21 | Motorola Mobility VP Engineering Interview | Moto Z and Moto Mods Developer Kit for Makers & Modders


2016-11-30 | EPSON Tech Interview | 2016 Business and Professional Projectors


2016-11-30 | EPSON Tech Interview | 2016 Home Theatre Projectors 6000, 8000 & 9000 Series


2016-11-22 | EPSON HDR Home Theatre Projector Demo | EPSON TW9300W


2016-11-21 | HDR video Demo - AMD Radeon 'Polaris' RX480 with LG OLED TV


2016-11-30 | Intel Game Chamber 2016 Tour and Interviews | VR, Games, PC Mods, Overclocking and FUN


2016-11-30 | Intel Core i7-6950X Broadwell-E @ 5.62 GHz Live Overclock | Intel Game Chamber 2016


2016-08-29 | LG puts OLED in all the things - Integrate/CEDIA AUS 2016 Booth Tour


2016-08-12 | What is Software Defined Networking with Doug Murray, CEO Big Switch Networks.


2016-06-17 | NVIDIA DGX-1 launches in Australia - NVIDIA ANZ Interviewed


2016-05-01 | Build a kickass Dolby ATMOS Home Theatre - The Pros show us how


2016-04-01 | The Panasonic Toughbook CF-20 Story


2016-03-23 | Seagate 8TB Family, 10TB Helium & Mobile HDD 2016 Hard Disk Update


2016-03-21 | Panasonic Toughbook 20 : Fully Rugged detachable Laptop launch - Water, Drop & Weight Tested


2016-03-23 | ASUS ROG Gaming House Tour - Sydney, Australia


2016-03-01 | ASUS ROG GX700 Liquid Cooled Notebook Preview & Interview


2016-03-23 | League of Legends Legacy eSports Team Interview


2015-12-09 | Microsoft Store SYDNEY - Grand Opening Press Conference


2015-11-11 | HP 6th Gen Core Intel Skylake PC & Jet Intelligence Printing Launch - Melbourne Experience Centre


2015-11-11 | HP Experience Centre Melbourne Tour -Part 2


2015-11-11 | HP Experience Centre Melbourne Tour -Part 1


2015-08-28 | Parrot Interviewed - Flower Power Wireless Plant Monitor


2015-08-28 | Parrot Interviewed - ZiK 2.0 Headphones


2015-08-28 | Parrot Interviewed - AR. Drone, MiniDrones, Bebop Drone


2015-08-23 | MOTO G 3rd Gen IPX7 Water Proofing Demo & Moto X Style/Play/G Q&A


2015-08-21 | Motorola Mobility Interviewed - 3rd Gen Moto G, Moto X Play, Moto X Style


2015-08-20 | NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 950 Launch Ep.1 | Gamestream Co-Op - A New way to share games


2015-08-20 | NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 950 Launch Ep.2 | MOBA/DOTA 2 Latency and Smoothness


2015-08-08 | Intel SKYLAKE i5-6600K LN2 overclock at 6.33 GHz with ASUS Z170 ROG Hero


2015-08-07 | Intel Skylake i7-6700K @ 4.8 GHz & DDR4 @ 3.5GHz on ASUS Z170 Deluxe Overclocking Guide


2015-08-05 | ASUS Z170 Deluxe Motherboard for Intel Skylake 6th Gen Core CPU Overview


2015-08-05 | Review - ASUS Installation Tool for Intel SKYLAKE 6th Gen Core CPU


2015-08-02 | HP Pavilion and Envy 2015 Consumer Notebook First Look


2015-07-25 | HP Envy Phoenix 2015 Overclockable Gaming Tower First Look


2015-07-22 | Ashes Of The Singularity - DirectX 12 Hands-On Demo with AMD FURY X


2015-07-14 | Media Q&A with AMD and Richard Huddy - AMD Fury X ‘Fiji’ Graphics comes to Australia


2015-07-14 | MSI Interview - AMD Radeon R9 300 Gaming, Armour and Lightning GPUs