AMD A8-3870K and Sapphire HD6450 FleX Review

1. Introduction2. AMD A8-3870K & Asus F1A75-M PRO3. AMD A8-3870K & Asus F1A75-M PRO (Super High Res Gallery)4. Sapphire HD6450 FleX5. Sapphire HD6450 FleX (Super High Res Gallery)6. Bios and Overclocking the A8-3870K7. Testing Methodology8. Synthetic: SiSoft Sandra9. Synthetic: Cinebench R11.5 64 bit10. Synthetic: PCMark 711. Real World: BluRay Playback with PowerDVD 1112. Real World: MKV 1080p Performance13. Real World: Flash HD Performance14. Real World: Media Encoding15. Image Quality: HQV Benchmark 2.016. Gaming: Resident Evil 517. Gaming: Far Cry 218. Gaming: Just Cause 219. Gaming: F1 201120. Gaming: Dead Island21. Technical: System Power Consumption22. Closing Thoughts23. View All Pages

AMD met with a positive reception for their Llano based A series APU's – targeting customers working on a relatively tight budget who want an ‘all in one' chip design for a media center PC or low cost workhorse machine.

We are looking at the latest flagship A8-3870K Black Edition today, a minor upgrade to the A8-3850, which we reviewed some time ago. Additionally we also review Sapphire's HD6450 FleX Edition graphics card, which should make for an ideal, low cost pairing with the 3870K for multiple screen support in a work based environment.

The A8-3850 was a capable design, but a portion of the enthusiast sector didn't really warm to it, as it was locked. Fear not, for the 3870K has redressed this problem … meaning we now have more options at hand when it comes to overclocking.

We have already looked at the on die HD6550D graphics performance in our previous review, however I still believe that the enthusiast audience generally interested in building a media center or versatile, enthusiast grade system will opt for a full discrete solution. This isn't just my view – Intel have the same idea, with a handful of updated processors targeting the enthusiast sector without IGP support.

Therefore, instead of retreading old ground, we felt a pairing up with Sapphire's passively cooled, multi screen capable HD6450 FleX would make for more interesting reading.

Sapphire already make a series of FleX edition graphics cards, and we have reviewed them all before, but the HD6450 is an ideal partner for the A8-3870K. It consumes very little power, doesn't require any PCI power connectors, and supports multiple screens without the need for a complex system configuration.

Will a system based around these two components be a good choice for a general all round workstation, with an option for casual 720p gaming?

Our sample arrived in a green engineering box, as shown above.

The A8-3870K is the replacement for the 3850, and is clocked 100mhz higher @ 3ghz. As we mentioned in the introduction, the ‘K' moniker indicates that this is an unlocked processor, otherwise known in AMD terms as a ‘Black Edition'. The CPU multipliers, GPU and memory multipliers are also unlocked which will prove useful. In the past, the user had to overclock the 3850 via base clock increases, which was less than ideal.

This time around, overclocking is possible by raising the multiplier, making it much easier and less dependent on other components in the system.

We never seem to be able to get validation with these processors, even at reference clock speeds, however the link is here for those interested.

The AMD A8-3870K has four x86 cores which are equipped with 128kb of Level 1 cache, comprising 64kb Data and 64kb Instruction set. It also has 1MB of Level 2 cache per core and no Level 3 cache. This is an APU design so also is equipped with a Direct X 11 capable Radeon HD6550D GPU core. This core runs at a default clock frequency of 600mhz and has 400 Shaders configured in an array of 5 SIMDs. We really aren't focusing on the onboard graphics today as this is basically the same as our previous review detailing the A8-3850.

We were also supplied with an ASUS F1A75-M Pro motherboard for this review today, which is ideal for a small form factor chassis. We didn't receive a retail sample, so we can't comment on the packaging, manual or accessories. It is a Micro ATX board measuring 9.6 inch x 9.6 inch ( 24.4 cm x 24.4 cm ). It is fully loaded with Crossfire, SATA 6 Gb/s and USB 3.0 support.

Asus use a dark PCB with blue ports and accented heatsinks, which is appealing enough to look at. We like the ‘wave' design on the heatsinks, but this will assuredly be personal taste. The board also features ASUS DIGI+ VRM, which has been a long standing implementation on many of their products over the last year. Without quoting too many buzz words, this basically means that the board should be stable under overclocked load, with higher than normal thermal dynamics. We can't imagine a wide audience will be pushing this board to the limit, but it looks as if it should handle some abuse.

The board is equipped with four memory slots which support DDR3 sticks, up to 1866mhz with a total count of 64GB. Next to the DIMM slots is a MemOK! button which assures a successful boot in case of memory related bios problems.

There is also a TPU switch which is an independent microprocessor which will optimise the system for high performance settings, without instability. Voltage and monitoring can then be handled via the supplied TurboV software. Users who don't want to play with a bios, should see a performance increase from simply flicking this switch.

The EPU switch next to it is a power saving option, which can also be enabled via the AI Suite II software. This will help lower power demand depending on the load.

The board has six SATA III ports to accommodate the fastest Solid State Drives. At the far left in the image above is the front header panel for connection to the case. The F1A75-M Pro has two PCI express slots. The top slot is a full x16 bandwidth port for a graphics card and the bottom slot is x4, ideal for an OCZ solid state drive, or sound card. Asus have also included a legacy PCI slot, which may prove useful for some people.

Along the bottom of the board are all the connectors we would expect for AUDIO, USB 2.0 and USB 3.0.

The Back I/O panel supports:

• 1 x PS/2 keyboard/mouse combo port(s)
• 1 x DVI-D
• 1 x D-Sub
• 1 x HDMI
• 1 x LAN (RJ45) port(s)
• 4 x USB 3.0
• 2 x USB 2.0
• 1 x Optical S/PDIF out
• 6 x Audio jack(s)

On this page we present some super high resolution images of the product taken with the 24.5MP Nikon D3X camera and 24-70mm ED lens. These will take much longer to open due to the dimensions, especially on slower connections. If you use these pictures on another site or publication, please credit Kitguru.net as the owner/source.

Sapphire love taut, well defined women and we can't knock them for that. The front of the box features a flame haired rendered lass, armed with dual pistols and an attitude. Lovely.

Inside, the bundle is extensive for a budget model discrete card. Sapphire include video converters, a passive cable adapter, a software disc and literature on the product. Sapphire also include a low profile backplate which may be needed for some small form factor chassis designs.

The HD6450 FleX is built around a deep blue PCB with black heatsink.

The card is passively cooled, and doesn't require a PCI E power connector for operation. It is a very slim design as we would expect and will fit perfectly into physically cramped cases without a problem.

The card has connectors for a Dual Link DVI (for up to 2560×1600 resolution on 30 inch screen), 1 HDMI (with 3D support) and a single link DVI-D.

The SAPPHIRE HD 6450 FleX can support three DVI monitors in Eyefinity mode and deliver a true SLS (Single Large Surface) work area. The first two monitors are connected to the DVI outputs, as usual. A third DVI monitor can be connected to the HDMI output with the passive cable adapter supplied.

Using a system across three screens can totally transform your experience. If you want to see more, then head over to one of our previous reviews discussing the FleX EyeFinity setup.

The Sapphire HD6450 Flex Edition is clocked at 625mhz on the core and 800mhz via the GDDR3 memory. This 1GB of memory is connected across a 64 bit memory interface. The card has 160 unified shaders with 4 ROPs. It certainly won't be a gaming powerhouse, but 720p gaming at modest image quality settings should be possible.

On this page we present some super high resolution images of the product taken with the 24.5MP Nikon D3X camera and 24-70mm ED lens. These will take much longer to open due to the dimensions, especially on slower connections. If you use these pictures on another site or publication, please credit Kitguru.net as the owner/source.

As with many of the ASUS motherboards that we have reviewed recently, the F1A75-M Pro is fully loaded with a UEFI bios. Both easy to navigate and fully featured.

Even though we are using 1600mhz Corsair memory, the bios defaults to 1333mhz. This can be manually overridden without much effort however.

The AI tweaker section has many settings for voltage and calibration tuning, much like the higher end enthusiast level boards targeting the Core i5 and i7 users.

The Advanced panel allows for adjustment over the onboard devices, including the CPU and SATA drives. The Monitor panel shows temperatures and voltage settings, and additional control can be set for Q fans.

The boot menu gives options to enable or disable the full screen image, and to select the boot drive, including optical and USB drives.

The ‘tool' panel can be used to flash the bios, and to store and load overclock profiles.

The system didn't ‘validate' at reference clock speeds, so we wouldn't expect validation at 3.6ghz either …. and we weren't disappointed. You can see it here however.

Overclocking this processor really is simple, and we could get the machine posting at 3.6ghz without a problem. The only issue is the reference cooler we are using which couldn't handle the 1.45volts we needed for complete stability. This would mean that the processor would throttle, lowering the overall performance. Pretty pointless.

Backing down to 3.5ghz meant we could lower voltage to 1.4, and the processor didn't throttle back, maintaining the correct performance level. On a side note, we did get the 3870K posting at 3.7ghz at 1.49volts, but better cooling would certainly be needed. The potential with the 3870K is clearly much better than from the previous 3850 model.

As we mentioned earlier in the review, we are partnering the AMD A8-3870K with Sapphire HD6450 FleX. We will be publishing some results at both 3ghz and in the overclocked state at 3.5ghz. Our gaming results are all taken with the system running at 3.5ghz. Game tests will be limited to 720p resolution (1280×720).

We already know the A8-3870K will hammer the last generation of ATOM processors we reviewed some time ago so we will compare against the Intel Core i5 2500k and Core i3 2105. To round out the results, we thought it would be interesting to compare against some of the latest Intel Core i5 and Core i7 mobile processors. We don't often compare desktop and mobile chips, so lets give it a shot today.

Main testing System:
Processor: AMD A8-3870K.
Motherboard: ASUS F1A75-M Pro.
Memory: 8GB Corsair 1600mhz (9-9-9-24).
Power Supply: ADATA 650W.
Graphics: Sapphire HD6450 FleX.
Storage: Patriot Pyro 120GB & 500GB Samsung HDD.

Comparison Systems (for specific synthetic test compares):
Intel Core i5 2500k desktop processor.
Intel Core i3 2105 desktop processor.

Additional compares with mobile Intel processors:
AlienWare M18X (featuring Core i7 2960XM Extreme Edition).
MSI GT780DXR (feature Core i7 2630QM).
Dell XPS 14z (featuring Core i7 2640M processor).
MSI CX640 (featuring Core i5 2410M).

Software:
PCMark 7
Cinebench 11.5 64 bit
FRAPS Professional
Cyberlink PowerDVD Ultra 11
Cyberlink MediaEspresso
HQV Benchmark V2

Games:
Resident Evil 5
F1 2011
Far Cry 2
Dead Island
Just Cause 2

Technical Monitoring and Test Equipment:
Asus BluRay Drive
Lacie 730 Monitor (Image Quality testing)
Thermal Diodes
Raytek Laser Temp Gun 3i LSRC/MT4 Mini Temp
Extech digital sound level meter & SkyTronic DSL 2 Digital Sound Level Meter
Kill A Watt Meter
Nikon D3X with R1C1 Kit (4 flashes), Nikon 24-70MM lens.

SiSoftware Sandra (the System ANalyser, Diagnostic and Reporting Assistant) is an information & diagnostic utility. It should provide most of the information (including undocumented) you need to know about your hardware, software and other devices whether hardware or software. Sandra is a (girl) name of Greek origin that means “defender”, “helper of mankind”. We think that’s quite fitting.

It works along the lines of other Windows utilities, however it tries to go beyond them and show you more of what’s really going on. Giving the user the ability to draw comparisons at both a high and low-level. You can get information about the CPU, chipset, video adapter, ports, printers, sound card, memory, network, Windows internals, AGP, PCI, PCI-X, PCIe (PCI Express), database, USB, USB2, 1394/Firewire, etc.

Native ports for all major operating systems are available:

• Windows XP, 2003/R2, Vista, 7, 2008/R2 (x86)
• Windows XP, 2003/R2, Vista, 7, 2008/R2 (x64)
• Windows 2003/R2, 2008/R2* (IA64)
• Windows Mobile 5.x (ARM CE 5.01)
• Windows Mobile 6.x (ARM CE 5.02)

All major technologies are supported and taken advantage of:

• SMP – Multi-Processor
• MC – Multi-Core
• SMT/HT – Hyper-Threading
• MMX, SSE, SSE2, SSE3, SSSE3, SSE 4.1, SSE 4.2, AVX, FMA – Multi-Media instructions
• GPGPU, DirectX, OpenGL – Graphics
• NUMA – Non-Uniform Memory Access
• AMD64/EM64T/x64 – 64-bit extensions to x86
• IA64 – Intel* Itanium 64-bit

Performance falls in line with what we would expect from the A8-3870k at the given clock speeds. The Intel Core i5 and Core i7 mobile chips are generally faster, although the A8-3870K puts in a good showing with the multimedia float test, scoring more than the i3 2105 and the i5 2410m.

CINEBENCH R11.5 64 Bit is a real-world cross platform test suite that evaluates your computer’s performance capabilities. CINEBENCH is based on MAXON’s award-winning animation software CINEMA 4D, which is used extensively by studios and production houses worldwide for 3D content creation. MAXON software has been used in blockbuster movies such as Spider-Man, Star Wars, The Chronicles of Narnia and many more.

CINEBENCH is the perfect tool to compare CPU and graphics performance across various systems and platforms (Windows and Mac OS X). And best of all: It’s completely free.

The A8-3870K is faster than the Core i3 2105, even at standard clocks. It wouldn't be an ideal first choice for a rendering station, but it could handle some lighter duties on the move.

PCMark 7 includes 7 PC tests for Windows 7, combining more than 25 individual workloads covering storage, computation, image and video manipulation, web browsing and gaming. Specifically designed to cover the full range of PC hardware from netbooks and tablets to notebooks and desktops, PCMark 7 offers complete PC performance testing for Windows 7 for home and business use.

The 500mhz overclock increases the PCMark 7 score by a couple of hundred points, from 3,160 to 3,350.

Cyberlink PowerDVD 11 is one of the finest solutions for the BluRay experience on Windows and we found this software to work perfectly with this chipset. We tested with the new extended Bluray Disc of Lord Of The Rings.

No modern processor has a problem handling Blu-Ray content, especially with help from a discrete graphics solution. This system averages around 12 percent CPU time, leaving plenty of CPU cycles free for other duties.

The Matroska Media container is a very popular, open standard Multimedia container which is usually found as .MKV files. It is a very popular format in enthusiast circles and can be played directly in Windows Media Player with suitable codecs installed. We use the Combined Community Codec Pack (CCCP).

We ripped our BluRay disc of Sniper Reloaded to 1080P MKV and use Windows Media Player to playback the file.

The system averaged around 37 percent CPU time, which is higher than we might expect, however MKV contained files can be demanding depending on how they are encoded.

Many people using this system will be enjoying Flash related content so we feel it is important to test with some of the more demanding material available freely online. Full hardware acceleration is enabled.

Absolutely no concerns raised in regards to handling high definition flash media. As shown above, the system only demands an average of 14 percent CPU time.

CyberLink MediaEspresso 6 is the successor to CyberLink MediaShow Espresso 5.5. With its further optimized CPU/GPU-acceleration, MediaEspresso is an even faster way to convert not only your video but also your music and image files between a wide range of popular formats.

Now you can easily playback and display your favourite movies, songs and photos not just on your mobile phone, iPad, PSP, Xbox, or Youtube and Facebook channels but also on the newly launched iPhone 4. Compile, convert and enjoy images and songs on any of your computing devices and enhance your videos with CyberLink’s built-in TrueTheater Technology.

New and Improved Features

• Ultra Fast Media Conversion – With support from the Intel Core i-Series processor family, ATI Stream & NVIDIA CUDA, MediaEspresso’s Batch-Conversion function enables multiple files to be transcoded simultaneously.
• Smart Detect Technology – MediaEspresso 6 automatically detects the type of portable device connected to the PC and selects the best multimedia profile to begin the conversion without the need for user’s intervention.
• Direct Sync to Portable Devices – Video, audio and image files can be transferred in a few easy steps to mobile phones including those from Acer, BlackBerry, HTC, Samsung, LG, Nokia, Motorola, Sony Ericsson, and Palm, as well as Sony Walkman and PSP devices.
• Enhanced Video Quality – CyberLink TrueTheater Denoise and Lighting enables the enhancement of video quality through optical noise filters and automatic brightness adjustment.
• Video, Music and Image File Conversion – Convert not only videos to popular formats such as AVI, MPEG, MKV, H.264/AVC, and FLV at the click of a button, but also images such as JPEG and PNG and music files like WMA, MP3 and M4A.
• Online Sharing – Conversion to video formats used by popular social networking websites and a direct upload feature means posting videos to Facebook and YouTube has never been easier.

For our testing today we are converting a 3.3GB 720p MKV file (2h:12mins) to Apple Mp4 format for playback on a portable device. This is a common procedure for many people and will give a good indication of system power. We are using the newest version which has been optimised for Sandybridge processors.

Hardware acceleration is disabled.

The A8-3870K completes this task in just over 18 minutes, which is a decent result especially when considering an ATOM processor takes 1 hour and 15 minutes for the same process. When overclocked to 3.5ghz, the 3870K is around 1 minute and 50 seconds faster … taking 16 minutes and 24 seconds to complete the same encode.

As an additional reference point, the fastest desktop processors such as the Intel Core i7 3960X Extreme Edition can complete this encode in less than 9 minutes.

HQV Benchmark 2.0 is an updated version of the original tool and it consists of various video clips and test patterns which are designed to evalute motion correction, de-interlacing, decoding, noise reduction, detail enhancement and film cadence detection.

There are two versions of the program, standard definition on DVD and high definition on Bluray. As our audience will be concentrating on HD content so will we.

This has a total of 39 video tests which is increased from 23 in the original and the scoring is also up from a total of 130 to 210. As hardware and software gets more complicated, the software has been tuned to make sure we can thoroughly maximise our analysis.

Read our initial analysis over here

	Sapphire HD6450 FleX
Dial	4
Dial with static pattern	5
Gray Bars	5
Violin	5
Stadium 2:2	5
Stadium 3:2	5
Horizontal Text Scroll	5
Vertical Text Scroll	5
Transition to 3:2 Lock	5
Transition to 2:2 Lock	0
2:2:2:4 24 FPS DVCAM Video	5
2:3:3:2 24 FPS DVCam Video	5
3:2:3:2:2 24 FOS Vari-Speed	5
5:5 FPS Animation	5
6:4 12 FPS Animation	5
8:7 8 FPS Animation	5
Interlace Chroma Problem (ICP)	5
Chroma Upsampling Error (CUE)	5
Random Noise: Sailboat	5
Random Noise: Flower	5
Random Noise: Sunrise	5
Random Noise: Harbour Night	5
Scrolling Text	5
Roller Coaster	5
Ferris Wheel	5
Bridge Traffic	5
Text Pattern/ Scrolling Text	5
Roller Coaster	5
Ferris Wheel	5
Bridge Traffic	5
Luminance Frequency Bands	5
Chrominance Frequency Bands	5
Vanishing Text	5
Resolution Enhancement	15
Theme Park	5
Driftwood	5
Ferris Wheel	5
Skin Tones	7
Total	196

196 points is as good as it gets today and is the reference figure to beat.

Resident Evil 5, known in Japan as Biohazard 5, is a survival horror third-person shooter video game developed and published by Capcom. The game is the seventh installment in the Resident Evil survival horror series, and was released on March 5, 2009 in Japan and on March 13, 2009 in North America and Europe for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. A Windows version of the game was released on September 15, 2009 in North America, September 17 in Japan and September 18 in Europe. Resident Evil 5 revolves around Chris Redfield and Sheva Alomar as they investigate a terrorist threat in Kijuju, a fictional town in Africa.

Within its first three weeks of release, the game sold over 2 million units worldwide and became the best-selling game of the franchise in the United Kingdom. As of December, 2009, Resident Evil 5 has sold 5.3 million copies worldwide since launch, becoming the best selling Resident Evil game ever made.

These settings proved perfect for the system, averaging 36 frames per second and delivering a perfectly smooth gaming experience.

Far Cry 2 (commonly abbreviated as “FC2 or “fc2″) is an open-ended first-person shooter developed by Ubisoft Montreal and published by Ubisoft. It was released on October 21, 2008 in North America and on October 23, 2008 in Europe and Australia. It was made available on Steam on October 22, 2008. Crytek, the developers of the original game, were not involved in the development of Far Cry 2.

Ubisoft has marketed Far Cry 2 as the true sequel to Far Cry, though the sequel has very few noticeable similarities to the original game. Instead, it features completely new characters and setting, as well as a new style of gameplay that allows the player greater freedom to explore different African landscapes such as deserts, jungles, and savannas. The game takes place in a modern-day East African nation in a state of anarchy and civil war. The player takes control of a mercenary on a lengthy journey to locate and assassinate “The Jackal,” a notorious arms dealer.

Far Cry 2 is still a popular game and the open world environment can be taxing on even the latest hardware available today.

Settings: 1280×720 (60Hz), D3D10, Fixed Time Step(No), Disable Artificial Intelligence(No), Full Screen, Anti-Aliasing(None), VSync(No), Overall Quality(Optimal), Vegetation(High), Shading(High), Terrain(High), Geometry(High), Post FX(High), Texture(High), Shadow(High), Ambient(High), Hdr(Yes), Bloom(Yes), Fire(Low), Physics(Low), RealTrees(Low)

At these settings we achieved playable frame rates throughout the test environment, averaging over 30 frames per second.

Just Cause 2 employs the Avalanche Engine 2.0, an updated version of the engine used in Just Cause. The game is set on the other side of the world from the original Just Cause, on the fictional island of Panau. The island is located in the south-east of Asia. Panau has varied terrain, from desert to alpine to rainforest. Panau seems to be based on the island Palau. Rico Rodriguez returns as the protagonist, aiming to overthrow the evil dictator Pandak “Baby” Panay and confront his former mentor, Tom Sheldon.

At our chosen settings, the engine remains playable, only dropping once below the sweet spot of 25 frames per second.

F1 2011 is the newest Direct X 11 racing game from industry pioneers CodeMasters. The 2011 Formula One season is the 62nd FIA Formula One season. The original calendar consisted of twenty rounds, including the inaugural running of the Indian Grand Prix before the cancellation of the Bahrain Grand Prix. Pirelli returns to the sport as tyre supplier for all teams, taking over from Bridgestone. Red Bull Racing are the reigning Constructor’s Champions. Red Bull Racing’s Sebastian Vettel is the defending Drivers’ Champion, one of five World Champions appearing on the grid.

F1 2011 is a great, fun racing game and we managed to tune the settings at 720p to maintain a smooth frame rate throughout, averaging 32 frames per second. There isn't much frame rate fluctuation with this particular engine, hovering generally around 30 frames per second.

Dead Island is a first person horror action-adventure video game developed by Techland and published by Deep Silver for Microsoft Windows. It is centered on the challenge of survival on a zombie-infested open world island with a major emphasis on melee combat. It is rather good fun, for a short while, but it becomes repetitive.

By dialing down some of the image quality settings we were able to get smooth frame rates throughout.

On this page, we are measuring the overall performance of the system at the socket and comparing against the Core i5 2500k system. Both systems include the Sapphire HD6450 FleX graphics card. We clock the Intel Core i5 2500k system to the same 3.5ghz speed.

The AMD system demands more power at the socket at these speeds, both when idle and when under load.

It is hard not to like the A8-3870K especially when you factor in the modest asking price of £100 inc vat in the UK today. It certainly isn't going to set the performance world alight with benchmark results, but I like the design and it is fun to overclock and capable in real world terms.

The Black Edition status means the 3870K is very easy to overclock, achieving 3.5ghz with a modest reference air cooler. I am confident that better results are possible if more money was spent on cooling. That said, I can't help but feel that using a very high end cooler on such as processor is a waste of money, as you could be basically paying 30-50% of the chip price, just to cool it. £130-140 is a little over the odds for a 3870K and cooler, because Intel's Core i5 2550k for example is only £169.99 now.

In reality it is hard to complain about the 3870K at this price, after all there are very few unlocked processors around £100, so AMD deserve a little pat on the back for breaking the mould. In regards to performance the A8-3870K is actually able to outperform the Core i3 2105 when rendering via Cinebench.

If you are in the market for a new, low cost system build, perhaps for a business environment, then the A8-3870K is worth a serious look. With a basic cooler, it is easily overclocked to 3.5ghz and has enough horsepower for general duties, and even more serious requirements such as video and photo editing.

The Sapphire HD6450 FleX is an interesting product, being the least expensive Sapphire FleX solution on the market today. For 720p gaming duties, it is adequate, although this is somewhat missing the point. The card only costs £50 inc vat in the UK, meaning for £150 you have the guts of a system (with 3870k) which can support three high definition monitors for general work and entertainment duties.

If you haven't used a three screen Eyefinity setup and have no interest in playing Direct X 11 games, then this card is an ideal solution. It is silent, requires no PCI E connectors and generates little heat while demanding only a few watts of power.

Both AMD A8-3870K and Sapphire HD6450 FleX deserve our ‘WORTH BUYING' award, as they are competitively priced and make an ideal foundation for a low cost entertainment center/three screen work system.

Kitguru says: If you need a second system/media center, or want a work oriented platform with multiple screens then both of these products deserve serious consideration.

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