AMD's integrated graphics received a new lease on life when the company unleashed its 32nm "Llano" desktop processors before this year. Sporting an on-die Radeon HD 6550D graphics processor, the AMD A8-3850 APU rendered many low-finish detached graphics cards obsolete and made Intel's Hard disk drive Graphics 3000 engine look foolish in the procedure.

Despite losing its L3 cache completely, AMD's A8, A6 and fifty-fifty the upcoming A4-Series APUs characteristic a brawnier L2 enshroud to recoup. Whereas the Phenom 2 range is equipped with a massive 6MB L3 cache, each core is only supported by 512KB of L2 cache. Discarding the circuitous and power hungry L3 cache allowed AMD to double the L2 cache capacity per core.

Equally a result, the quad-core A8-3850 received a 4MB L2 cache which significantly boosted functioning compared to a similarly clocked Athlon 2 processor. With improved general processing and graphics power, the Llano range represents exceptional value equally the A8-3850 costs a mere $140, while the A6-3650 can exist had for $120 equally of writing.

In addition, the Llano platform offers a plethora of affordable AMD A55 and A75 motherboards. A75 products are particularly appealing as they boast of extensive support for USB iii.0 and SATA 6Gb/s (up to four and six ports, respectively). Past comparison, Intel'south H67/P67/Z68 merely back up two SATA 6Gb/s ports and no USB three.0.

Although AMD A75 boards start at around $lxx, nosotros've decided to check out iii more attractive, and inherently pricier options. Some of the best-equipped A75 motherboards include the Asrock A75 Extreme6 ($130), Asus F1A75-V Pro ($130) and Gigabyte A75-UD4H ($123). Currently, the Asus F1A75-V Evo is the most expensive A75 board at $140.

At that price, AMD is clearly targeting -- and in our stance, commanding -- the upkeep marketplace. The underdog's new flagship desktop platform can exist had for $300 or less, and when factor in 4GB of RAM ($25), a 1TB hard drive ($55), and a decent case/ability supply combo ($55), y'all take the making of an entry-level gaming computer for roughly $500.

Although a rig like that won't shatter whatever benchmarks, but yous'll have complete flexibility to add 6Gb/s SSDs, USB 3.0 devices and multiple high-end GPUs as you desire. The Llano platform is an excellent way for budget gamers to get their foot in the door with room to aggrandize in the future. With that in mind, let'south carry on with our expect at three of the platform'due south finest...