AMD A10-5800K & A8-5600K Review: Trinity on the Desktop, Part 1
by Anand Lal Shimpi on September 27, 2012 12:00 AM ESTFinal Words
On average, Trinity's high-end 384-core GPU manages to be around 16% faster than the fastest Llano GPU, while consuming around 7% more power when active. Given that Trinity is built on the same process node at Llano, I'd call that a relatively good step forward for AMD's equivalent of a "tick". From AMD's perspective, the fact that it can continue to deliver a tangible GPU performance advantage over Intel's latest and greatest even with its die harvested APU (256-core Trinity) is good news. For anyone looking to build a good entry level gaming PC, the Trinity platform easily delivers the best processor graphics performance on the market today. If you're able to spend an extra $100 on a discrete GPU you'll get better performance, but below that Trinity rules. The trick, as always, will be selling the GPU performance advantage alongside the presumably lower x86 CPU performance. We'll have to wait another week to find out the full story on that of course, but if you're mostly concerned about GPU gaming performance, Trinity delivers.
Ivy Bridge was a good step forward for Intel, the problem is that only the high-end Ivy Bridge graphics configuration borders on acceptable. The HD 2500's performance is really bad unfortunately. It's easy to appreciate how far Intel has come when we look at improvements from one generation to the next, but when you start running benchmarks on Trinity it really compresses the progress Intel has made. When Haswell shows up it may be a different game entirely, but until then if you're interested in a platform with processor graphics (with an emphasis on the graphics part), Trinity is as good as it gets.
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coder543 - Thursday, September 27, 2012 - link
It's just a marketing strategy. The CPU performance is fine -- and look at the Starcraft 2 benchmarks in this very article if you want further confirmation of that. Anandtech was subtly hinting that the CPU performance is a step in the right direction.ganeshts - Thursday, September 27, 2012 - link
The HTPC oriented review is coming up at 11:00 AM ESTjwcalla - Thursday, September 27, 2012 - link
Hopefully there will be some commentary on Linux driver support for those of us who take an interest in XBMC as an HTPC platform. :)In particular, hardware-accelerated video decoding.
Taft12 - Thursday, September 27, 2012 - link
Linux driver support will be the same as it always has been for brand new platforms. Non-existant. Give it a few months.coder543 - Thursday, September 27, 2012 - link
that's simply not true. The proprietary graphics drivers for Linux use the same code that their Windows brethren do. Open source drivers? yeah, that's months away... but Linux does have support.coder543 - Thursday, September 27, 2012 - link
Check Phoronix -- they'll be posting some stuff soon.coder543 - Thursday, September 27, 2012 - link
I'm also with jwcalla -- can we see some Linux stuff?MrSpadge - Thursday, September 27, 2012 - link
Did you see the frame rates at low resolution and detail? Game performance will absolutely tank at 1080p, no need to test this. And other HTPC duties haven't been tested here anyway.JNo - Thursday, September 27, 2012 - link
+11080p benchmarks are essential for a desktop part.
Also, whilst you're at it, you may as well make quality a minimum of 'medium' for 1377 and poss also include medium for 1680.
juampavalverde - Thursday, September 27, 2012 - link
Well maybe im biased by the view of Scott, but read by yourself:http://techreport.com/blog/23638/amd-attempts-to-s...
AMD is telling what can be shown and what not... F off AMD, this aint a review, its a preview tailored by AMD Marketing, far of a whole fully product review, and the tailoring its exactly to offer a biased view of the product. Please make it clear Anand, the quality of your site is better than this AMD marketing bs.