For budget and entry-level systems, the APU — a CPU with an onboard GPU  — is most certainly the future. While AMD’s ambitions in this field won’t turn up until 2011, Intel is priming a selection of Westmere APUs for the winter months. Engineering samples of Westmere APUs are already circulating in the Orient, and HKEPC has one of them on the bench for review.

The roundup pits a Westmere APU (Clarkdale) and a Lynnfield APU (Havendale, more on that in a minute) against a Lynnfield-based Core i3 540 and a Core 2 Duo E8400. In all, the 540 trounces the competitors, but the APUs turn in fairly respectable numbers in computationally-heavy tasks.

There are a few issues with the review, however:

• HKEPC claims it is testing a Havendale, but Havendale was canceled for the 32nm Clarkdale and Arrandale models. Clarkdale serves the dekstop, while Arrandale serves mobile products, respectively. Even Intel’s own roadmaps from April support Havendale’s cancellation.
• HKEPC claims it has the Clarkdale at 3.06GHz in its test platform table, but all subsequent tables indicate 2.4GHz. HKEPC claims that it downclocked the Clarkdale part to match the maximum Havendale frequency of 2.4GHz.
• HKEPC regularly provides the incorrect spelling of “Havendale” as “Havandale.”

Does HKEPC really have an engineering sample of the ill-fated 45nm Havendale? The world may never know, but it raises enough questions that we must take the benchmarks with a grain of salt.

That said, the APU Intel is definitely launching, the Clarkdale, is within a stone’s throw of the Lynnfield Core i3 with a 600MHz clock deficit. If the benchmarks are at all legit, it appears Westmere has some significant bounce in its step.

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