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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leexgx - Saturday, October 6, 2012 - link
T** Hardware i have made sure i never goto there web site again (even saying there website name as google counts that towards stats)most stuff on there cant be trusted
blackmagnum - Thursday, September 27, 2012 - link
I hope AMD aim their products for first place in the best price/ performance race with Intel. This seems the only way they will be bought other than for the health of competition or nostalgic sense of pity.duploxxx - Thursday, September 27, 2012 - link
pity for what? do you really think you need more CPU perfromance then a Piledriver core deliver? Do you really think that the Trinity isn't good enough power consumption wise.Its fools who believe they need an i7 to run daily desktop usage. spend the wasted money of an i7 on a fast disc (SSD) and your overall platform experience and performance will be much higher then your so called fixed brand name.
daos - Thursday, September 27, 2012 - link
are you serious? people use computers for more than "daily desktop usage". Video editing, graphics design, multi-threaded apps, benchmarking, even gaming...Every bit counts the larger the scale. CPUs can make a huge difference in all of the above mentioned except for maybe gaming unless at an enormous resolution like I am.
And you have to remember that everything is relative. You are concerned with wasting your money whereas the next guy could care less about an extra 2 or 3 hundred dollars for the best. Thats a drop in the bucket for him. Hell, thousands more can be a drop in the bucket if the best is what your after...its simple. Go Intel.
dagamer34 - Thursday, September 27, 2012 - link
When the average selling price of a computer is $450 in the US, I don't see how that really includes any of the things you listed above.Alexvrb - Thursday, September 27, 2012 - link
Heck, for most people, a Tegra 3 or similar in a tablet is enough computing power. A lot of people just stroll into a store and buy the advertised on-sale laptop for $300-400. For these people an APU might not be a bad choice, given that the lower-end Intel chips all have horribly crippled GPUs.lwatcdr - Thursday, September 27, 2012 - link
"Video editing, graphics design, multi-threaded apps, benchmarking, even gaming..."Some do but more and more of those tasks really benifit from a GPU boost. Most Adobe products now use openCL so they can take advantage of the GPU. That will cover Video editing, graphics design and gaming. multi-trheaded apps benifit more form core count than raw cpu and most multi-threaded apps will do just fine on th A10.
Benchmarking? Really that is called a hobby unless you are doing it to test systems for a living. You do not buy hardware just to bet a higher benchmark score you Benchmark hardware to find the cheapest way to get a task done in a reasonable amount of time. Anything else is a hobby and while that is all fine and good it is a tiny fringe element of a fraction of a percentage of the PC market.
Denithor - Thursday, September 27, 2012 - link
But this is the desktop market. It's simply too easy to install a discrete GPU that is tons faster than any iGPU, even this new Trinity. Integrated GPU just doesn't cut it for most of those applications.Maybe for an HTPC. But that's honestly the only place I'd even consider pointing anyone toward an APU over a CPU+GPU.
chrnochime - Thursday, September 27, 2012 - link
There are always people who make stupid blanket statements like yours. "People" would mean everyone. You not writing "some" in there basically means you think everyone think the way you do. If that were not the case your sentence would not have been written that way.Don't like my nitpicking? Don't write stupid blanket statements then.
mikato - Monday, October 1, 2012 - link
what do you mean "you people"?