The Sandy Bridge Pentium Review: G850, G840, G620 & G620T Tested
by Anand Lal Shimpi on August 23, 2011 12:11 AM ESTThe Matchup
The Sandy Bridge Pentiums go head to head with AMD's Athlon II and to a lesser extent the new triple-core AMD A6. At the low end we have the Athlon II X2 260 vs. Intel's Pentium G620. AMD has the clock speed advantage (3.2GHz vs. 2.6GHz) but Sandy Bridge does offer better performance at the same clock, we'll have to see if the 600MHz advantage is too much for Intel to overcome.
Moving on up AMD gets to throw more cores at the competition. The Athlon II X3 455 (3.3GHz) has three cores to the Pentium G840's two (2.8GHz), although the clock speed advantage shrinks a bit.
Finally compared to the Pentium G850 we have two options from AMD. If you can find one there's the Athlon II X4 635. The clock speed advantage goes away completely but AMD delivers twice the cores of Intel's Pentium G850. The 635 is no longer on AMD's price list so your chances of finding one at a reasonable price go down considerably. The Athlon II X3 460 is the only other similarly priced competitor, and its performance should be similar to the 455 I mentioned above.
Meet the A6
Although at a slightly higher price point than the most expensive Sandy Bridge Pentium, we also have a lower cost member of the Llano family: AMD's A6-3650. For $20 less than the flagship 3850, the A6-3650 loses 300MHz on the CPU clock and lops off 80 GPU cores. The GPU also runs at a slower 443MHz frequency. The TDP remains unchanged at 100W. Given the small price difference between a 3650 and a 3850 I'd much rather opt for the latter but we'll see what the slower GPU does to performance when every dollar counts.
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Shadowmaster625 - Tuesday, August 23, 2011 - link
Despite the fact that these chips are so crappy, they will still outsell amd's cheaper alternative by a factor of at least 3 to 1. AMD could give you an A6-3650+FCH for the same price as a G850+chipset, and the G850 would still outsell it by 2:1.yankeeDDL - Tuesday, August 23, 2011 - link
I totally agree.Exactly like the Pentium 4 still surpassed the Athlon when it came out. Made no sense, but people still bought it.
MonkeyPaw - Tuesday, August 23, 2011 - link
There's more to it back then. Intel was using anti-competative practices to keep OEMs away from AMD. Now I think a huge part of AMDs problem is supply. Even now, there's a pretty nice mix of AMD and Intel products at B&M stores.That said, I totally loathe Intel's CPU marketing. You have to do in depth research on their products because features are randomly disabled down the product line. There's no good reason for it, and it just goes to show what Intel would sell you if there was no AMD.
CeriseCogburn - Wednesday, June 27, 2012 - link
Just look at the gaming benchmarks - the "crappy" G850 is at the top of the chart, the a6-3650 is 2/3rds to the bottom.The difference in G850 winning frame rates over a6-3650 is a gigantic super-win when it comes to evaluating video cards, so why does your prediction surprise you ? Why scowl and moan about it, amd loses and should sell less.
Do you want to buy a new motherboard, a new amd APU, get all fired up, drop your $500, then have some crappy Intel cpu with a $50 video card spank the ever loving daylights out of your brand new amd rockin' system ?
You probably don't, but that's what will happen. So you go buy a new smokin' video card to catch up - and the "crappy" G850 system slams you into the dirt, anyway !
Two years later, as you moan for amd driver patchings that don't break and fail other things while not really fixing anything except 2 fps in a game you used to play but don't anymore because your crappy amd APU can't keep the frames very high, you spend your upgrade money on depression meds...
The Intel G850 person upgrades to the then $99 2500K, overclocks it to 4400 on stock volts, and DOUBLES their frame rate. They show.... and you ... well... it's been good knowing you...
See- that's why 2X the sales really isn't enough. Should be 10X the sales of the amd apu.
Amd= locked into CRAP a6-3650 failure forever
Intel= massive G850 upgrade path on the cheap years down the road.
alent1234 - Tuesday, August 23, 2011 - link
3 year old intel GMA 950 graphics cards will accelerate flash as wellyankeeDDL - Tuesday, August 23, 2011 - link
Correct. Just like any GPU integrated in older north bridges. I think I am missing your point.CeriseCogburn - Monday, June 25, 2012 - link
Don't you feel like an idiot now yankeeDDL ? The crappy as heck amd APU and it's debilitated motherboard END OF LIFE is already toast.If you would have been smart instead of an amd fan with no sense, you would have supported the 850 and said " I can save literaly hundred$ a year or two down the road with a massive cpu upgrade, while amd will leave me and my crap single use cpu in the dirt dung of lonely and slow forever...
It's nice to see how these amd fan predictions work out - as in "epic fail".
BSMonitor - Tuesday, August 23, 2011 - link
It is not aimed at YOU at all. Lenovo, Dell, HP and others LOVE to sell these to the corporate world. The chart that matters most is that power consumption number. The will stick these in their ultra-low end "workstation" and sell millions of them.There is a huge number of computer users who need nothing more than a dumb terminal. And these are that. Intel can produce the quantity at a price point that AMD simply cannot offer for this kind of market.
Stuka87 - Tuesday, August 23, 2011 - link
Well, probably NOT HP....stimudent - Tuesday, August 23, 2011 - link
...and who the hell has a desktop computer anymore??!