Intel i3-2328M vs AMD A6-3420M

i was just wondering which is the better cpu out of the two listed in the title

thank you

 

At stock, the i3 will have a faster CPU and the A6 will have a faster iGPU. But the A6 can be overclocked so an OC'd A6 will be faster in terms of both CPU and iGPU.

 

And the A6 is a quad core, versus dual core for the i3. Some may or may not find that beneficial. It's hard to say which is "better". Is battery life important to you? Single threaded performance? Gaming performance? It's hard to answer such a generic question without more information.

 

The A6 will be nowhere as fast as the i3 - even overclocked.

But as invisigoth states; we need more info regarding the usage model of the OP to determine which processor is 'better'.

If the goal is the fastest, most responsive system and longest battery life for light/medium web surfing along with some office productivity thrown in; the Intel solution is current while the AMD A6 is still living in circa 2010 (aka below Arrandale 380m levels).

 

yes, it would be for some light web work with some office productivity

 

Actually the A6 is pretty on par with the i3. In my honest opinion if you want battery life the i3 is the way to go, if you can find it cheaper and want to save some money, the A6 would be your best bet.

 

Proof? Please don't post passmark results. Here are some benches of an A6 and an i3 (they are both the pre-refresh models so each are .1ghz slower than the refreshed ones). A stock A6 can match the i3 in multithreaded scenarios and falls behind by 80%-90% single threaded. The same A6 OC'd to a conservative 2.4ghz would still be behind by about 15-20% single threaded but would beat the i3 by about 40% multithreaded. An OC'd A6 will be as fast as an i3 for most scenarios.

A properly tuned Llano quad (i.e. overclocked and undervolted) is very competitive with Sandy Bridge in terms of battery life. Even at stock settings, a Llano A8 is very competitive with a Sandy Bridge i5 in terms of battery life (scroll to the bottom of the respective reviews for battery life). As for performance, see my first paragraph. i5s are where Intel starts pulling away from AMD in terms of CPU performance, but AMD can still compete with the i3s reasonably well.

 

Well there was one that I can't find for the life of me, but here's another. AnandTech - Bench - CPU It shows that while the i3 does beat out the a6 in a lot of benchmarks, they are generally pretty comparable, especially with media encoding. Unfortunately those are with desktop cpus.
I really wish I could find that benchmark. But I remember seeing one that had them even closer together in general performance. In my honest opinion, for general office work and web stuff, you will not notice a difference in performance, and in that case I'd be more concerned with price or battery life, whichever is more important to you.
The core i line of processors does have superior battery life, while the amd line is typically cheaper.

 

Okay so i'm looking at these two laptops

Dell 2420: 370
14 inch
i3-2328M @ 2.2ghz
4gb sdram at 1600mhz
500gb 5400 rpm
4.83lbs

Asus A53Z-NB61: $377
15.6
AMD A6-3420M 1.5GHz
4GB Memory 320GB HDD
AMD Radeon HD 6520G

What we do and what we want from our laptop:
Long battery life
Microsoft Word
Tons of browsing
Tons of streaming youtube videos and movies
14inch is better than 15.6 in our opinion

So which is the better deal for us?

 

No one can make your decision for you, but all things being equal, considering you would rather have a 15 inch display, I would go for the Asus. Will it be mostly desk bound? If so, battery life shouldn't be an issue for you.
Without knowing exactly what batteries they come with I couldn't even begin to speculate which may get better battery life. The decision is ultimately up to you.

 

He wrote that he would rather have a 14" display. Those 2 notebooks should be about equal for your needs. I would get the Dell just because you prefer 14", though.

 

I read it wrong.

 

princeth, No doubt the Dell will save you $7, give you the size (14") screen you prefer and give you the best performance and battery life possible with your intended primary uses for this system.


As to the others giving the links of how the i3 is not really better... ???

These entry level Intel solutions wipe the floor with the poor AMD offering - especially in the uses the OP has for this purchase.

Why would I buy a more expensive (okay $7 is not that much more, lol...), bigger (and probably heavier...) system than I want/need to get a platform that needs tweaking just to catch up if possible (I can't believe it would ever surpass the i3, overall), the system that offers me a larger HDD and the size and performance that is ideally suited to my workflow (and obviously; budget)?

Answer: I wouldn't. I would buy the Intel based solution and forget AMD till the next time I'm in need of a system (and hopefully, they might have a real competitor at that time...).

princeth, I hope you picked the right system (you have left a lot of important details off the table here...) for your needs - but with all the info you have indicated the Intel is still the best fit for your needs atm.

Good luck.

 

Looks like the Dell is a Vostro 2420. Battery is a 6-cell Lithium Ion (48WHr).

Dimensions & Weight:
Width:13.5”/342mm
Height:1.24 – 1.37” / 31.5-34.7mm
Depth:9.6”/244mm
Starting weight:2.19kg (4.8 lbs) with 6-cell battery and DVD+/-R


The Asus A53Z-NB61 discussed here. I couldn't find out what the battery capacity is.

Edit: Few extra details:
- 1x USB 3.0, 2x USB 2.0
- 1x 4GB stick + 1x free slot
- Proper US Keyboard
- Weighs 5.7lbs


That Dell should serve you well.