AMD A10-5800K & A8-5600K Review: Trinity on the Desktop, Part 1
by Anand Lal Shimpi on September 27, 2012 12:00 AM ESTCrysis: Warhead
Our first graphics test is Crysis: Warhead, which in spite of its relatively high system requirements is the oldest game in our test suite. Crysis was the first game to really make use of DX10, and set a very high bar for modern games that still hasn't been completely cleared. And while its age means it's not heavily played these days, it's a great reference for how far GPU performance has come since 2008. For an iGPU to even run Crysis at a playable framerate is a significant accomplishment, and even more so if it can do so at better than performance (low) quality settings.
Crysis sets the tone for a lot of what we'll see in this performance review. The Radeon HD 7660D on AMD's A10-5800K boosts performance by around 15 - 26% over the top end Llano part. The smaller, Radeon HD 7560D GPU manages a small increase over the top-end Llano at worst, and at best pulls ahead by 18%.
Compared to Ivy Bridge, well, there's no comparison. Trinity is significantly faster than Intel's HD 4000, and compared to HD 2500 the advantage is tremendous.
Metro 2033
Our next graphics test is Metro 2033, another graphically challenging game. Like Crysis this is a game that is traditionally unplayable on many integrated GPUs, even in DX9 mode.
Metro 2033 shows us a 6 - 13% performance advantage for the top end Trinity part compared to Llano. The advantage over Intel's HD 4000 ranges from 20 - 40% depending on the resolution/quality settings. In general AMD is able to either deliver the same performance at much better quality or better performance at the same quality as Ivy Bridge.
The more important comparison is looking at the A8-5600K vs. Intel's HD 4000 and 2500. AMD is still able to hold onto a significant advantage there, even with its core-reduced GPU.
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mczak - Thursday, September 27, 2012 - link
If early listings at merchants are any indication, they should be available. I think though the problem is that the top 65W parts seem to cost as much as the top 100W parts (so a A10-5800k costs the same as A10-5700, same story for the A8), which probably makes them a hard sell at retail (quite similar to intel, and I don't think the low power parts exactly fly off the retail desks there neither).But I agree the 65W parts are nice. On the cpu side you lose around 10% but the gpu actually has the same clocks. Of course if you tinker with it manually it should be easily possible to undervolt/underclock the 100W parts to the same level as the 65W parts.
medi01 - Thursday, September 27, 2012 - link
Oh yeah. Comparing it to nVidia 640 makes so much more sense...Of course nobody would think about Anand finding yet another way to piss on AMDs cookies...
dawp - Friday, September 28, 2012 - link
I believe that was included for a comparison to a low end discreet card. it could have just as easily been an hd7750 or hd7770.Aone - Friday, September 28, 2012 - link
Good point. I've reached the same conclusion.shin0bi272 - Tuesday, October 2, 2012 - link
its a 100 dollar gpu beating the pants off of amd's latest and greatest APU.You could buy an intel celeron g530 for 48 dollars (with free shipping) and an asus gt640 (or galaxy 650 with MiR for the same price) and beat the living snot out of AMD's amazing new APU that everyone just has to love because its brand new from AMD and all the fan boys have to fall all over themselves to get it... sounds like apple. Hell if you hate nvidia so much you can get an amd 7750 for 99 bucks on newegg.
Either way you go the price is between 30 and 50 dollars more than the APU and it will get about twice the FPS... who's going to buy an APU with stats like that? Oh yeah fanboys...
CeriseCogburn - Thursday, October 11, 2012 - link
They never respond when the truth hurts too much.Just think, without them, amd is double epic fail and already gone. I bet that statement made their hearts so warm, and feel so heady, they "saved competition".
But you know what they really saved ? Saved the world from real innovation and forward movement, as all those resources and programmers and engineers were wasted on amd crap. Saved us all from the truth and reality. Saved us from sanity and believing fellow human beings had a clue.
I'm going to go find a trinity w discrete bench so I can LMAO as soon as the overlord control freak in fear of their own life amd releases the death grip on the nda bench rules.
You just know all the little pliable as ruibber amd fanboys gonna get their new squeeze trinity - they're looking in the mirror now saying "My name is not Mr. Anderson!"
Watch we'll get an HTPC article now, or maybe it's already posted. Hope I don't have to laugh and shake my head about how cracked and crap and functionless and problematic it turns out to be. Flash will probably rip it a new one. LMAO
Devo2007 - Thursday, September 27, 2012 - link
That article was dated yesterday....just like the Anandtech one.Wolfpup - Friday, September 28, 2012 - link
Yeah, I have no idea what that's supposed to mean. They're giving performance data for a product that hasn't launched yet and they're three months late?chowmanga - Thursday, September 27, 2012 - link
Same could have been said about Tom's when Anandtech had the Sandy Bridge preview before anyone else.r3loaded - Thursday, September 27, 2012 - link
Really? No other site does such in-depth analysis of new chip architectures and such rigorous testing and benchmarking (though Ars comes close). This is the wrong site if you want tech tabloid journalism.