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Triple-core Llano CPU caught in the wild

Cyril Kowaliski
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Well, it looks like all that talk about a triple-core A-series APU wasn’t just idle speculation. A fellow by the name of bminggann on Chinese forum ZOL has posted pictures and details about a purportedly genuine triple-core Llano processor. He’s run 3DMark on the thing and even tried his hand at a little overclocking.

The part has "A6-3500 Series" and "AD3500" laser-etched on its heat spreader. According to the forum dweller, the silicon beneath has a 65W TDP, a 2.1GHz base clock speed, a 2.4GHz Turbo speed, and Radeon HD 6530D integrated graphics with 320 stream processors running at 443MHz. In other words, it sounds like an A6-3600 with one core disabled, pretty much confirming what we heard last week.

The 3DMark scores aren’t terribly exciting, but Mr. bminggann apparently managed to push the CPU to about 3.6GHz… with a little help in the voltage department, since his CPU-Z screenshot reports a 1.552V core voltage. We’re talking about a 65W chip, though, so there could be some overclocking headroom for folks who don’t mind sacrificing energy efficiency.

More exciting, as the forum post points out, is the possibility that some motherboard BIOSes will let users unlock one of the A6-3500’s cores, as they do today with triple-core Athlon II and Phenom II offerings. Those are all quad-core chips with one core disabled, so there’s always a chance one ends up with a perfectly functional fourth core—without paying full price for it.