Power ConsumptionWe have already measured Llano’s power consumption in a system with a discrete graphics card. Now time has come to check out an integrated system on A8-3800. The testing conditions and methodology remained exactly the same.
In idle mode A8-3800 is extremely energy-efficient. A system built on it consumes significantly less power than a similar system with Intel Core i3 inside.
As soon as x86 workload hits, things change. Core i3 is not only faster, but also consumes less power. In defense of our A8-3800 processor I have to say that the system based on it also looks very good and has moderate power appetite.
Graphics load makes the difference in power consumption between Core i3 and A8-3800 very noticeable, and it is not in Llano’s favor. But do not forget that Radeon HD 6550D graphics core is about twice as fast as Intel HD Graphics 3000.
At the same time, A8-3800 seems to be a pretty decent choice for a media center PC. During video playback its power consumption is just as good as that of Core i3 processors. It indicates that power-saving technologies implemented in Llano processors are very effective in case of small partial loads.
