AMD A10-5800K & A8-5600K Review: Trinity on the Desktop, Part 2
by Anand Lal Shimpi on October 2, 2012 1:45 AM EST
General Performance
SYSMark 2012
Although not the best indication of overall system performance, the SYSMark 2012 suite does give us a good idea of lighter workloads than we're used to testing.
AMD does surprisingly well here in SYSMark 2012. The Core i3 3220 manages a 12% advantage over the 5800K, but that's not as much as we'd normally expect given the significant single threaded performance deficit we pointed out earlier. Once again, whether or not Trinity makes sense for you depends on how much you value processor graphics performance.
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creed3020 - Wednesday, October 03, 2012 - link
Thanks so much for posting that. I've been looking for this exact testing of Trinity. AT did this previously with Llano but forgot this crucial test with Trinity.It really helps system builders to set expectations for performance if a client doesn't want to pay for faster memory, or if they do want more performance we can quantify how much an improvement faster memory will have. Reply
mikato - Wednesday, October 03, 2012 - link
Holy moly Replyvozmem - Wednesday, October 03, 2012 - link
Keep encouraging AMD, guys. Replyrarson - Wednesday, October 03, 2012 - link
Why in the world did you not mention which video card you were using on this page? I see that it's mentioned in the test bed, but why the heck do I have to go back and check that when you could have easily mentioned it on the discrete test page?Also, why are you using a 5870 with this? Who the hell is going to pair a new A8 or A10 Trinity with a 5870? That's completely illogical. Couldn't you have tried something newer, perhaps something within the same architecture? Extremely puzzling. Reply
etamin - Wednesday, October 03, 2012 - link
And why was an FX-8150 thrown into the DISCRETE PROCESSOR GRAPHICS benchmark? ReplyHardcore69 - Wednesday, October 03, 2012 - link
HA! Glad I went with an i3 3220 for this office box. Look at the power consumption at load, look at the single threaded benchmarks, even look at the multi threaded benchmarks. AMD is crap. It still hasn't caught up. And there are very few upgrade options compared to Intel. If you want to play games, a dedicated GPU is still vastly better. For other basic tasks, FAIL. Replyrarson - Wednesday, October 03, 2012 - link
You paid more money.They're called trade-offs. That's reality. Reply
Nil Einne - Friday, October 05, 2012 - link
Has anyone come across real world power consumption figures for either the A8-5500 vs A8-5600K or the A10-5700 vs A10-5800K. These have different TDPs, 65W vs 100W and slightly different clocks. But I'm wondering whether the K ones are really that bad in general or it's partially that they wanted more headroom since the K ones are to some extent designed to be overclocked. Of course the different ratings means that you may get unlucky and get a fairly high consumption K processor because of binning but still may be relevent. I'm somewhat out of date and not familiar with how turbo works, but I'm guessing the higher binning means it will stay at turbo for longer so a proper test should also try limiting the K to be the same as the non K just to see if that's the primary reason for any differences. (Ideally also limit the frequencies.)Most reviews including this one seem to be of the Ks I presume because that's what AMD sent out for testing.
Cheers Reply
Kaggy - Saturday, October 06, 2012 - link
It would be nice to see some benchmarks on HTML5 and video playback load on the browsers, since nowadays people spend lots of time on their browsers. ReplySilverbuckle - Saturday, October 06, 2012 - link
It looks to me that we are seeing a race to the bottom, and Intel isn't playing. After seeing the results, if I have to start with entry level computer (what ever that means today) the best course would be Intel, i3 with a z77 chip set and a modest card.I have to update one of two computers. The older one will be replaced by this one running the Athlon IIx4 630, stock (It didn't OC worth a damn). It runs CS6 very well. So for my seat, I'll build a new box. I've been waiting to see what to follow. I have two cards available Ati 5670 and Ati 7750. So I can with no additional cost, run the 7750. That makes Intel the only game, because even if I have to lo ball the price, the i3 will equal or surpass the Trinity, using the card. I can upgrade any time all the way to i7 K series.
Given the price of the card if you must include it, you are still positioned well to upgrade the computer with a simple exchange of the processor. Not so for several years with AMD, (best guess here).
Waiting was ok, even though my gut was to go Intel. What I learned is to not be afraid to include the lowly i3. Reply