174 Comments

View All Comments

• creed3020 - Wednesday, October 03, 2012 - link

  My current HTPC uses an A8-3850 with 1866 memory so I am aware of the benefits, my question is more about getting an understanding of this phenomenon with Trinity. I am curious if it was has become less important or perhaps even more so.
  
  I'm not gaming on my APU so there is no concern to squeeze every drop of FPS out of the GPU. I am more curious from a research and review standpoint. Reply

• Moizy - Tuesday, October 02, 2012 - link

  Anand, you mentioned several times that Trinity holds the integrated graphics and overclock
  advantage, while Intel holds the single-threaded and power consumption advantage. To me, though, the A10-5700 attempts to address the power consumption advantage by offering a lower tdp without cutting down the clocks too much (while sacrificing overclockability though).
  
  Throwing in the A10-5700 at some point in the future, assuming you can get your hands on one, would provide an interesting comparison for those interested in Trinity's gpu and competitive power consumption. Reply

• ewilliams28 - Tuesday, October 02, 2012 - link

  apologies if it's been covered but i would like to know exactly which cards work in this mode. I have heard that if you go too high they don't work together. it's my understanding that 7670 are OEM only and i can't believe that the 6670 that i can buy is still the best i can do. i plan to use 1080p since 1920x1200 has basically gone the way of the dodo bird. but i do like to crank up the settings. luckily the most complicated game i play is World of Warcraft. i will probably fold with this box though.
  
  Reply

• creed3020 - Tuesday, October 02, 2012 - link

  http://www.amd.com/us/products/technologies/dual-g... Reply

• halbhh2 - Tuesday, October 02, 2012 - link

  Overall, a Trinity laptop would do fine during idle, which *is about 85%* of what 90% of laptops do when they are on.
  
  That matters.
  
  So, an interesting test for real-world use for *most* consumers (wife, kids, most of the people most of us know) would be a run-time battery life test for leaving the computer on, and surfing to 25 web pages, and playing a couple of modest games for 45 minutes, and then watching a streamed movie.
  
  That would be real world use for 90% of laptops.
  
  In view of that, for people that aren't using their laptop in a demanding way, a good question is how much does it cost, and how long does it run until you need to plug in. That's all. Reply

• jfelano - Tuesday, October 02, 2012 - link

  Why does Anandtech still use 1280x1024 and 1680x1050 as their bencmarks? Is this still 2008? Reply

• Beenthere - Tuesday, October 02, 2012 - link

  Answer: Because most people still use these screen resolutions. This review is for a desktop APU, thus the appropriate screen resolutions. Reply

• silverblue - Tuesday, October 02, 2012 - link

  Hehe... you try playing anything remotely recent at a higher resolution on an IGP... Reply

• mattgmann - Tuesday, October 02, 2012 - link

  I still don't understand where these CPUs fit in the market. Sure, this line of CPUs has made some advances, but the features it relies on to succeed aren't good enough in real world applications.
  
  1. Gaming. It's still not fast enough to run modern games. Not to argue, but lowest possible settings and super low frame rates aren't good enough.
  
  2. Content creation. In certain points in your day you may run a short program that's optimized to work well. But the rest of the day, you'll be wishing you had a quad core intel.
  
  3. Casual home/office use. A pure waste of electricity. The intel chip decodes HD video fine and provides a quicker user experience with a much lower energy cost (and is dead silent)
  
  The "upgrade path" argument doesn't make a ton of sense either. In reality, not many people actually follow upgrade paths on platforms, because, in reality, you end up spending today's prices for yesterdays technology. Low end systems just aren't meant to be upgraded; they're meant to be replaced.
  
  I REALLY want AMD to give intel a kick in the but. I miss the days of low end, unlocked intel processors. Think of what those little i3's could probably do with unlocked multi's, 1.4V vcore and some fast memory!
  
  At least this is a step in the right direction for amd....sort of Reply

• Hubb1e - Tuesday, October 02, 2012 - link

  I'm sorry but your answers to your own question are inaccurate.
  
  1. Gaming. For many people who are not on this forum low / medium settings are fine and older games are cheaper to buy and are still fun. Wow and Diablo play very nicely on this APU at medium / high settings and that is where the vast majority of casual gamers are buying.
  
  2. Content creation. If you are wishing you had a quad core intel then you're in need of a real workstation, not an i3 competitor. I work fine on a mobile i5 -540 at 2.5ghz. 90% of the time it is idle.
  
  3. Casual home office use is all idle and if you go back and look Trinity idles lower than Ivy so I don't see your point about it being a waste of electricity. A quicker user experience is about the SSD and not the CPU. Users will not notice a 12% difference in CPU performance.
  
  4. Agree with the upgrade path, though as a builder for my family FM1 being a dead end made it a socket that I didn't want to touch. Reply