Holiday 2012 AMD Trinity Buyer's Guide
by Zach Throckmorton on November 29, 2012 12:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Guides
- Systems
- AMD
- Trinity
- Holiday 2012
Final Words
To be blunt, AMD has seen better days than today. Its higher-end CPUs (the FX series) have difficulty competing with Intel's Core i5 and Core i7 CPUs in many regards, though Piledriver has helped narrow the gap. Up until recently, AMD competed with Intel's lower end CPUs (Celerons and Pentium Dual Cores) with older, power-hungry processors (Athlon II X2s, X3, and X4s). This situation was especially untenable in the mobile market. If you've followed my guides over the last two years, you've seen fewer and fewer systems based on AMD processors.
But the first-generation Llano APUs and especially the current-gen Trinity APUs fare well against Intel's low- and mid-range CPUs. From a consumer standpoint, competition is always good, and I'm glad to see AMD competing well in the mainstream market segment. Most of the computers I build are mainstream systems, and it's great to be able to reduce power consumption, system complexity, and cost by simply cutting out the discrete GPU—while still allowing my computers' users to play new, popular video game titles. Trinity is especially well-suited to the small form factor, and I hope motherboard manufacturers start to make more models available!
While Black Friday and Cyber Monday have come and gone, holiday sales will continue to present compelling prices to potential parts buyers. If you're patient and do your homework, you'll be able to put together systems like the ones outlined in this guide for as little money as possible. AnandTech's own Hot Deals Forum is a great place to find and share what are often ephemeral, flaming prices on hardware. And of course, AnandTech's General Hardware Forum is a great place to ask any questions you might have and share your expertise with fellow enthusiasts.
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zilexa - Thursday, November 29, 2012 - link
I disagree with the HTPC setup, it's definitely NOT an HTPC.HTPC should be small and completely silent (fanless) and use very, very little energy since it will be online all the time (so you can access your media in any room, your tvshows will be downloaded via rss or other system automatically etc).
The A10 uses little power when idle but way too much for an HTPC under load.
I understand you NEED to add a HTPC to this guide, and AMD simply doesn't have a Trinity-based HTPC solution for desktop because they lack mITX motherboards and they don't bring the 25watt and 17 watt mobile Trinitys to the desktop (BIG MISSED OPPERTUNITY!). But al least elaborate on that a bit more.
Medallish - Thursday, November 29, 2012 - link
I agree an HTPC should be small, but saying it has to be 25-17W is overdoing it, I have a mATX based HTPC and I'm using a 3870k, which works with the fanless design of my Streacom case, but obviously a 65W APU would be a better choice, and you could even go with mITX case from Streacom. The Trinity is superb as a HTPC processor.Another thing you're simply wrong, there is HTPC's that uses Mobile APU's ranging from the 19W APU (Sapphire VS8) to 35W A10-4600.
zilexa - Thursday, November 29, 2012 - link
@Medallish, Streacom case is just 1 solution (only works if you buy an expensive Streacom case). No choice in cases.I Just want to buy a cheap ass small case such as this one:
http://www.lc-power.de/index.php?id=122
No need for expensive passive case. Just need a low power APU.
The HTPC's you mention using Mobile APUs like the ones from Arctic or the miniplayers from Zotac are complete solutions (and Arctic is VERY expensive with €400. You cannot buy these mobo's with FP2 sockets (for mobile) and you cannot buy the Mobile APUs. So these solutions are not for people who want to build their own HTPC! Therefore not even related to this article.
Medallish - Thursday, November 29, 2012 - link
You said you wanted it to be fanless, If you want a fanless design then I'm afraid you've limited your choices, and currently there's basically no one who has the solution you ask for unless you look at Brazos or Atom solutions.Buying any Mobile motherboard and mobile processor tends to be hard to find, as a system builder and if I wanted what you're asking for I'd probably get a A10-5700 and downclock and undervolt it like crazy, although I doubt you'd get any cooler big enough to be fanless, and that goes for the 25W APU idea too.
You're original claim was that Trinity simply wasn't a viable HTPC solution, and I just want to point out that's false, also there is several Mini-ITX boards for FM2, from Asus, Asrock and MSI.
zilexa - Thursday, November 29, 2012 - link
Can't argue that. It's just soo sad AMD doesn't bring mobile Trinity to the desktop, would be the perfect basis for my HTPC. I am waiting for Brazos E2-1800 to arrive but I doubt it will ever arrive as motherboard (Sapphire announced the Pure White Mini E2-1800 6 months ago, I doubt they will ever release it to the market) .Hubb1e - Thursday, November 29, 2012 - link
You can reach the same wattage limits on a desktop Trinity if you are willing to underclock and undervolt. Drop that multi as low as you are comfortable with the performance, and then find the lowest voltage that makes it stable and bam, you've got your mobile trinity.ThomasS31 - Thursday, November 29, 2012 - link
If you noticed usually the low TDP part are underclocked and speed cap binned.Who told you, that you can't reduce the multiplier to get a low power part with a K series Trinity?
Also in case you might need processing power (like 10-bit high bitrate videos) you can alwas put it back...
Especially if your motherboard has a good management software for this. (Or use AMD's own "oc" app.)
cjs150 - Thursday, November 29, 2012 - link
Totally agree.Ideally an HTPC should be in a passive case (both Hdplex and wesena are good) that means the CPU needs a low TDP and should be frugal even at load (for example ripping a blu ray disc).
HTPCs are meant to be on permanently so should be sipping not gulping energy at load.
I would argue that an HTPC needs only a Mini-ITX board - preferably with MSata (can we have sata3 on the Msata please!) if only to reduce cable clutter in the case.
I would also strongly recommend Samsung green low profile memory. Not only are they memory sticks potent overclockers but when they said low profile they really meant it, if you must have a CPU cooler the samsung memory will never interfere with it.
AMD could easily take over the HTPC market, just bring the mobile CPUs to a mini0itx desktop board
zilexa - Thursday, November 29, 2012 - link
Thanks for the HDPlex tip, I love the H3 case, absolutely beautiful, simple and small. But including power its $300!!! damn.. thats just an empty case. Anybody will just buy a Zotac for €230 you have complete system :(If the H3 would be €100 or less I would definitely go for this solution..
Still would want a below-65watt APU.
BPB - Thursday, November 29, 2012 - link
I actually let my HTPC sleep a lot. I realize that when booting into WMC you may lose what was on the last half hour, but that's no biggie to me. WMC will wake the PC up to record shows, so I am good with letting it sleep at night. This helps save on cost when using a setup that isn't as low in wattage as you'd like. I do reboot it now and then because I find that after so many times going to sleep Windows gets messed up. Rebooting cleans that up. So if you're worried about electrical costs, let the PC sleep, it doesn't need to run 24/7. Just my 2 cents.