The AMD A8-5500 was a desktop processor with 4 cores, launched in October 2012. It is part of the A8 lineup, using the Trinity architecture with Socket FM2. A8-5500 has 4MB of L2 cache and operates at 3.2 GHz by default, but can boost up to 3.7 GHz, depending on the workload. AMD is making the A8-5500 on a 32 nm production node using 1,303 million transistors. The silicon die of the chip is not fabricated at AMD, but at the foundry of GlobalFoundries. The multiplier is locked on A8-5500, which limits its overclocking potential.
With a TDP of 65 W, the A8-5500 consumes typical power levels for a modern PC. AMD's processor supports DDR3 memory with a dual-channel interface. The highest officially supported memory speed is 1866 MHz, but with overclocking (and the right memory modules) you can go even higher. For communication with other components in the computer, A8-5500 uses a PCI-Express Gen 2 connection. This processor features the Radeon HD 7560D integrated graphics solution.
Hardware virtualization is available on the A8-5500, which greatly improves virtual machine performance. Programs using Advanced Vector Extensions (AVX) can run on this processor, boosting performance for calculation-heavy applications.