AMD A6-9500 Review

The A6-9500 is one of AMD's entry-level Desktop processors. It was released in 2016 with 2 cores and 2 threads. With base clock at 3.5GHz, max speed at 3.8GHz, and a 65W power rating. The A6-9500 is based on the Bristol Ridge 28nm family and is part of the A6 series.

AMD's Excavator+ series has landed, upping the ante with Intel in its high-stakes game for desktop PC market dominance with a well-rounded lineup of new chips that push mainstream platforms to higher core counts and more raw compute than we've ever seen. As a result, Intel's commanding presence in the enthusiast space is threatened in a way we haven't seen in over a decade.

As we've seen, gaming remains an advantage for Intel, so if squeezing out every last frame is all you care about, Intel's processors are a good choice. Much of that performance advantage will be less noticeable when gaming at higher resolutions, or if you pair the processors with a lesser graphics card.

Moving beyond games, it’s an easy win for the Core i3-7350K. The Core i3 upgrade path on B150, B250, B360, B365, C232, C236, C246, H110, H170, H270, H310, H370, Q170, Q270, Q370, Z170, Z270, Z370, Z390 motherboards, all support upcoming Kaby Lake-S processors. So if you buy a nice B150, B250, B360, B365, C232, C236, C246, H110, H170, H270, H310, H370, Q170, Q270, Q370, Z170, Z270, Z370, Z390 board now with the Core i3-7350K, you’ll be able to slap a Bristol Ridge processor on there later in the year, or whenever you deem it necessary.

One of the nice things about the AMD A6-9500 processors is that the retail boxed models come with a CPU cooler. So, you can pick something like the AMD A6-9500 up for $64 and don’t need to spend any extra money on CPU cooling.

The AMD A6-9500 retail boxed processor comes with the traditional ‘pancake’ CPU cooler. Nothing fancy, but it gets the job done on this processor which is rated at 65W TDP. You do not need to have an aftermarket cooling solution unless you want to.

The AMD A6-9500 seems to be a decent performing chip that is readily available for $64 at your favorite retailer. The main competition for this processor is the Core i3-7350K 2-Core unlocked desktop processor with Intel HD Graphics 630 graphics ($179 shipped).

Bottom Line, the AMD A6-9500 does not get much media attention since it is entry-level 7 Gen Core Bristol Ridge processor, but it is a very capable processor that still delivers a good computing experience for entry-level users.

The A6-9500 clocks up to 3.8Ghz just as it promises on the box, and with AMD’s software you can take one of the cores all the way up to 3.9GHz. However, don’t expect to get much beyond that without seriously upgrading your cooling solution and manually tweaking voltages behind the operating system level.

That said, to squeeze out all the potential of this surprisingly potent entry-level chip, you’ll want (and need) to splurge on an enthusiast-grade X370, X470, X570 motherboard.

Fresh from a successful roll-out of mainstream A6 CPUs, AMD's attack on Intel now extends down into the entry-level with its A6-9500 processors, which the company is making available as of Dec 2016.

AMD arms A6-9500 with a 3.5 GHz base frequency that jumps as high as 3.8 GHz under lightly-threaded tasks. The A6-9500 also offers a 3.5 GHz clock rate with all cores active. Meanwhile, Intel keeps its Core i3-7350K operating at a static 4.2 GHz clock rate.