The A8 is currently the top of the line llano, it runs at 2.9GHz at around a tdp of 100W. It does not have a shared L3 cache like the Phenom ii X4 955. The only good point of the A8 3850 is that it has 400 Radeon Cores at 600MHz [Radeon HD 6550D]. Basically the A8 3850 is like Athlon II juiced with graphic powers. This is like entry level stuff, you have to wait for bulldozer for performance. If you're not getting a discrete graphic card then A8 is a good choice to start off your AMD build.