Battle At $140: Can An APU Beat An Intel CPU And Add-In Graphics?

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What can you get for $140? How about AMD's top-of-the-line A8-3870K APU with four CPU cores and an integrated Radeon HD 6550D? That's also enough for a Pentium G620 and discrete Radeon HD 6670. We benchmark both to uncover the best budget-oriented option.

Benchmark Results: Just Cause 2

Just Cause 2 exacts a significant load on high-end hardware. Use the wrong settings, though, and it's downright brutal on entry-level components.

All three solutions manage a 30 FPS minimum frame rate at 720p, but the discrete Radeon 6670 DDR3 enables a much higher average frame rate than the APU.

A closer look at frame rates over time shows the Pentium/Radeon combo consistently pushing better results, except for three valleys where all of the solutions take a hit. Once again, overclocking takes the A8-3870K about halfway between its stock performance and the system with the discrete card.

Don Woligroski
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Don Woligroski was a former senior hardware editor for Tom's Hardware. He has covered a wide range of PC hardware topics, including CPUs, GPUs, system building, and emerging technologies.