Review: AMD A10-7860K

Conclusion

It's long been understood that you needn't spend a small fortune on a new PC to gain adequate performance in today's applications and games. This point is reinforced if we look at what are considered budget CPUs and mainstream graphics cards.

Available at retail at below the £100 mark are competent processors from AMD and Intel. The latest of the APU line is characterised by the A10-7860K - a quad-core CPU armed with, arguably, a best-in-class GPU. Intel, on the other hand, has a stronger CPU component but a weaker GPU that, for most, is hidden if using a discrete video card.

Yet purchasing a processor also requires thought into the supporting components such as motherboards, and this is where a raft of newer Intel chipsets steal a small march over their AMD rivals.

AMD has wrung all it can out of the existing Kaveri APU architecture, streamlined to 65W TDP in this case, so the A10-7860K remains a competent processor for the mainstream PC market. If you plan to use it alone, without a separate video card, for budget reasons, it's a good a bet as any APU available. For those who want budget systems with a quality add-in video card would probably do better with the Intel solution.

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The AMD A10-7860K is available from Scan Computers.

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