AMD A8-6600K vs Intel Core i7-3540M

Compare AMD A8-Series APU for Desktops 2 core CPU vs Intel Core 2 core processor, specs and benchmark score. Which is the better CPU for gaming?

Benchmark Score
Other Benchmarks
Specifications
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Intel Core i7-3540M

Price

The cheapest price from our partner retailers

$ 118.02

$ 108.02

$ 10.00 slightly less expensive

Benchmark Score

Overall Score

A combined score of all workloads

1366 points

1405 points

2% slightly better overall score

Gaming Score

The raw gaming performance with a fast GPU

2599 points

2845 points

9% slightly better gaming score

Multitasking Score

Performance in workloads using up to 8 cores

1031 points

1034 points

0.29% slightly better multitasking score

Heavy Workload Score

Performance in workloads using up to 16 cores

989 points

993 points

0.40% slightly better heavy workload score

Free CPU Benchmark

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Other Benchmarks

Blender score

Cycles Render (Samples per minute)

18.74 points

19.50 points

4% slightly higher Blender score

Geekbench 5 (multi) score

Multi threaded benchmark

1128 points

40% slightly higher Geekbench 5 (multi) score

803 points

Geekbench 5 (single) score

Single threaded benchmark

468 points

5% slightly higher Geekbench 5 (single) score

442 points

Geekbench 6 (multi) score

Multi threaded benchmark

1081 points

1163 points

7% slightly higher Geekbench 6 (multi) score

Geekbench 6 (single) score

Single threaded benchmark

453 points

569 points

25% slightly higher Geekbench 6 (single) score

Specifications

Cores

Number of physical processing units

Identical

Threads

Number of logical processing units

Identical

Clock Speed

Base frequency at which the chip operates

3.9 GHz

30% slightly higher clock speed

3 GHz

Turbo Speed

Higher frequency used for heavy workloads

4.2 GHz

13% slightly higher turbo speed

3.7 GHz

TDP

Thermal Design Power: Measure of heat generated by the CPU

65 W

35 W

85% significantly lower TDP

Memory Channels

Lanes for simultaneous memory access

Identical

Other details

Rank

Ranking in the hardwareDB database

870th of 1,118

856th of 1,118

Family

The product line

A8-Series APU for Desktops

Core

Release date

The official date of release of this chip

2013 February

Memory Type

The type of memory used by this chip

DDR3

DDR3-1333

Is Unlocked

Can this CPU can be overclocked

Yes

Supports ECC memory

Does this CPU support error correcting memory

A8-6600K vs Core i7-3540M comparison

Our benchmark analysis concludes that the Core i7-3540M performs better than the A8-6600K. Furthermore, our gaming benchmark shows that it also outperforms the A8-6600K in all gaming tests too.

When comparing these CPUs we notice that they have the same number of cores and the same number of threads. These CPUs have different clock speeds. Indeed, the A8-6600K has a slightly higher clock speed compared to the Core i7-3540M. Also, the A8-6600K has a slightly higher turbo speed. The Core i7-3540M outputs less heat than A8-6600K thanks to a significantly lower TDP. This measures the amount of heat they output and can be used to estimate power consumption.

Modern CPUs generally have more logical cores than physical cores, this means that each core is split into multiple virtual cores, improving efficiency for parallel workloads. Indeed, the A8-6600K has more threads than cores. Each physical core is split into multiple threads.