AMD A10-9700 Bristol Ridge Quad-Core 3.5 GHz Socket AM4 65W AD9700AGABBOX Desktop Processor Radeon R7

Pros: Performance is good for the price. There's never noticeable heat coming out the back of the PC even under a full load (eg. parallel linux kernel compiles.) The stock cooler is perfectly adequate, if a bit whiny sounding. You might want aftermarket cooling but you won't need it. This "65 watt" part uses the same die and runs at similar clock speeds as the 35 watt A10-9700E processor. Differences between that part and this one are minor, so I suspect its worst case power dissipation is not much more than 35 watts! The AM4 socket gives you an upgrade path to Raven Ridge. Raven Ridge will be a much more capable APU. It's likely to cost more than a Bristol Ridge, and it's not likely to be available as a boxed desktop processor until the middle of 2018. Meanwhile Bristol Ridge is your only option for APUs on the AM4 socket, and this part is the best value among the Bristol Ridges. I had no trouble using the integrated graphics in Linux with the older 'radeon' driver. The newer 'AMDGPU PRO' driver doesn't seem to support Bristol Ridge yet, as of this writing. But the older generations of AMD drivers are still able to run the integrated GPU on Linux, at least for basic desktop stuff. I haven't tried gaming.

Cons: Performance could be better if this APU had 4MB of on-die L2 cache. Older APUs like Kaveri and Trinity had 4M available, but the Bristol Ridge parts top out at 2M of L2 cache. AMD claims the L1 caches are improved and that 2M is adequate, but it feels like a step backward. Maybe AMD is worried that if they make this part too good it will cannibalize Ryzen sales, so it's crippled a bit. And that's a shame. It would be more future-proof and could handle difficult workloads better with a 4M cache, or more! C'mon AMD! The cheap A8-9600 and the top-of-the-line A12-9800 are equally crippled in terms of L2 cache, so you might as well save the cost difference between them if you are looking at any Bristol Ridge. The lowly -9600 is just as good as the -9800 in every respect except for core clock rates. Unless you game, you'll never notice that difference.

Pros: -it's fantastic for 4k video/photo editing -you can play games at 1366 x 768 with pretty decent frame rates and graphics settings. I tested Skyrim and at high settings (shadows and radial blur were low, no AA, AF x4, view distance was medium) I was getting 42 fps on average. Tomb Raider 2013, I got 33 fps on average with High settings (shadows low, hair normal, no tesselation) -great for play games from 2012 and back, with decent graphical settings. - This processor IS OVERCLOCKABLE! I got it up to 4 ghz. no problem! Granted I have tried 3 different motherboard manufacturers and only Asus Prime-B350m mobotherboard would overclock. I tried MSI B350 Pro VDH and Gigabyte AB350 and neither of those motherboards would overclock the processor. -Great for home theatre

Cons: -Wish it could wash my laundry for me, oh well.

Overall Review: -Make sure you use ONLY 2400 mhz ddr4 ram. I tried using 3000 mhz ram and downclocking it 2400 mhz but the PC would crash every time. I tried this on 3 different B350 motherboards!

Pros: - Great bang for the buck - Does a reasonable job at nearly any general computing task - Games well as long as expectations are within reason

Cons: Runs a tad warm for a 65w processor with stock heat sink and fan. Idles around 35c, 40's to 50's for moderate usage, low 70's when stressed. Max operating temp for this processor is 90c so it's within limits - just makes me cringe a little. The processor speed doesn't throttle and everything is very stable.

Overall Review: I had a need for a light gaming computer and some gift card money at my disposal. Was trying to stay under the gift amount and this did the trick. For just over a hundred bucks you'd be hard pressed to find a processor/graphics card combo that beats this. With AM4, I have a route to upgrade later if I want to. Does everything I need it to - no problem. Software development, general office use and light gaming. My main title, BeamNG Drive plays with sufficient frame rates at 1080p on medium settings. Video encoding isn't particularly fast, but if you're not in a hurry it gets the job done. For web browsing, Windows 10 apps and media playback it won't seem any different than a much more expensive CPU. Feels like a slight step up from another machine I have with A10-7870k. Overall, very happy with the purchase

Pros: I got this to build my girlfriends budget HTPC in hopes it may have some gaming capabilities. Play Wow 1080 medium settings beautifully, GTA5 @720 low, Tomb Raider 2013 @720 high settings. Very playable not to mention I have it OCd to 4ghz, its a quite snappy little CPU. Even had ok results out of Unigine Heaven. Overall I'm very impressed and for 60 bucks you get some awesome performance out of this thing. Its especially ideal for am4 setups you know you'll be upgrading later.

Cons: None at the basic needs level

Overall Review: If you're going to OC this little guy I'd recomend an aftermarket cooler as the one provided is a little underwhelming.

Pros: Worked with no issues on Linux Mint 18.2 Cinnamon and Manjaro 17.1.1. Autologin issues with Cinnamon Mint 18.3. Entire build from ground up took less than an hour. Not a gamer, streaming, browsing, and office applications only.

Cons: None

Overall Review: Long time linux user always concerned with potential video adapter conflicts. There were none using Mint 18.2 and Manjaro 17.1.1. Also installed Windows 10 Pro with no problems. mobo - Asrock AB350 Pro4 Promontory ram - Gskill Ripjaws 4 series, 8 gig, DDR4 2400 psu - Seasonic S1211

Pros: Budget building doesn't mean that you are using cheap products that may or may not do the job, it means you are building within your means utilizing the best pricing available for the best products. This AMD A8-9600 will not let you down. The quad core shows up delivering every bit the 3.1 GHz you need. Now, I'm not a big gamer, but I will say that its processing speed took care of my call of duty games I play frequently. I didn't use my on board graphics because I had a 1060 on hand from several months ago. You seriously cannot go wrong with this chip.

Cons: Wish it came with the Ryzen fan, but hey, the fan works. This isn't really a con. Most of us buy other cpu coolers anyways for looks at some point, but buy this chip, use the fan, then upgrade as your budget allows for the fan.

Overall Review: I definitely would recommend this product to everyone. I have another build that was a Ryzen 1600 build 6 core, to be brutally honest, i couldn't tell much difference. I just don't do as much as the enthusiast do out there. But i can say you will be happy with this APU.

Pros: Good Bang-for-the-Buck. The CPU is plugged into a BIOSTAR mobo, and the OS is Linux Mint 18.2 64-bit. Everything runs great, installation was easy. My build is economy to mid-range. For this application the CPU is great.

Cons: none

Overall Review: would buy again

Pros: Budget friendly, speedy, can do lite gaming.

Cons: Thermal grease on heatsink wasnt protected and got smeared.

Overall Review: Wish i could of waited for 2400g