Press Coverage: Praise and Awards for the A-Series APUs 

Following June’s “Llano” launch of the AMD A8-3850 and AMD A6-3650 APU’s, AMD's global communications team conducted outreach to analysts, bloggers, reviewers and press across the world, in order to gather their collective and individual assessments of the AMD A-Series APUs.

Among the highlights in coverage¹:

• PC Magazine called AMD's APUs, “revolutionary in all the right ways.”
• Benchmark Reviews said being DirectX® 11 capable is a “must-have” for mainstream gaming and noted that Lynx is native USB 3.0 compatible, which Sandy Bridge is not.
• AnandTech said the AMD A-Series APU is the only solution for entry level PC gaming on the market today.
• Tom’s Hardware said Intel’s best integrated effort can’t even come close to the AMD A8-3850 APU.

In other AMD A-Series APU news, two mainboards featuring the AMD A8-3850 APU have earned special awards for their overclocking ability and speed:^{1, 2}

• MSI’s A75 main board— the A75MA-G55—is now currently being hailed as the world's fastest mainboard with integrated graphics! From a recent news release on the MSI website: “With nearly 25 years of mainboard overclocking experience built into the A75MA-G55, it is the perfect tool to enjoy the ultimate performance of AMD's upcoming A series APUS.”

More AMD A-Series APU quotes¹:

"The AMD A8-3850 provides an excellent balance between video and number-crunching performance that you simply can't get from Sandy Bridge chips...AMD's APUs are revolutionary in all the right ways." - Matthew Murray, PC Magazine

“For one, the A-Series APUs are DirectX 11 ready. This is pretty much a must-have if you are going to say that your product is capable of mainstream gaming. Another feature that a lot of us were wondering about when Sandy Bridge was released was native USB 3.0 compatibility. Intel left if off Sandy Bridge; AMD included it in Lynx.” – Hank Tolman, Benchmark Reviews

“If you're building an entry level gaming PC and have to rely solely on integrated graphics, it's clear that Llano is the only solution on the market today. You easily get 2x the frame rates of Intel's Core i3-2105 and can use that extra headroom to increase resolution, quality or sometimes both. The performance advantage is just one aspect of what Llano offers in this department.” – Lai Shimpi, AnandTech

“AMD clearly seems to have Intel beat this time around. First on the notebook and then on the desktop, AMD has beat Intel in mainstream performance. It's not flashy, and it's no performance champ Sandy Bridge Core i7, but Fusion continues to show its potential for huge sales. Intel should be very, very concerned.” – Jason Mick, Daily Tech

“Intel must be scratching their heads right now as AMD has made a massive step forward today.” – Guru3D (Benelux - EMEA)

"The new architecture from AMD is, in our opinion, the winning choice, as it allows the mid-level user to experience his PC for every usage, with no particular restrictions.” – XtremeHardware.it (Italy)

“Llano offers a new level in the world of computers where the minimum performance levels have taken an important step, not only in terms of power but also in quality, supporting the latest technologies for games, video, processing capacity and general computing.” – Hispazone (Spain - EMEA)

"The APU, combined with CPU, GPU and north bridge, will reduce power consumption by 30 percent, differentiating itself from other products in terms of heat and power consumption. It is expected to lead the mainstream computing market." – Inven (Korea)

“AMD's new Llano A8-3850 desktop APU is a quad-core solution that combines the CPU and GPU on the same die. The A8-3850 runs at 2.9GHz and offers support for DirectX 11, which sets it apart from the competitor. While gamers will still want to pair the Llano A8-3850 with a dedicated graphics card, the AMD A8-3850 is priced right at only $135 and features a low power draw that is perfect for HTPCs as well.” – Christine McKee, About (North America)