AMD A10-5800K & A8-5600K Review: Trinity on the Desktop, Part 1
by Anand Lal Shimpi on September 27, 2012 12:00 AM ESTDiRT 3
DiRT 3 is our next DX11 game. Developer Codemasters Southam added DX11 functionality to their EGO 2.0 engine back in 2009 with DiRT 2, and while it doesn't make extensive use of DX11 it does use it to good effect in order to apply tessellation to certain environmental models along with utilizing a better ambient occlusion lighting model. As a result DX11 functionality is very cheap from a performance standpoint, meaning it doesn't require a GPU that excels at DX11 feature performance.
DiRT 3 shows a relatively small performance advantage compared to Llano - only about 12 - 15% when comparing the two top end parts. More exciting from AMD's perspective is that it can deliver performance similar to the 3870K's 400-core GPU with the 256-core GPU in the A8-5600K.
The advantage over Intel's HD 4000/2500 remains significant.
Total War: Shogun 2
Total War: Shogun 2 is the latest installment of the long-running Total War series of turn based strategy games, and alongside Civilization V is notable for just how many units it can put on a screen at once. Adding to the load is the use of DX11 features such as tessellation and high definition ambient occlusion, which means it can give any GPU a run for its money.
We see similar scaling to DiRT 3 in Shogun: about a 15% improvement over Llano, or flat performance if you compare to the 2nd fastest Trinity GPU configuration.
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kyuu - Friday, September 28, 2012 - link
"What I'm most looking forward to is a tablet of Surface quality with a low-voltage Trinity powering it."I should have said Trinity or, even better, one of its successors.
calzahe - Friday, September 28, 2012 - link
Memory is quite cheap now, you can find good DDR3 2133MHz 4GB 2x2GB modules for around 40usd for current 2 channel memory APUs, so you'll need to add just 40usd for another 4GB 2x2GB modules for the 4 channel memory APUs, but if done properly these APUs will be able to use 8GB of Memory. It means that for extra 40USD the new APU would be able to use 8GB of memory what is much more than 3-4GB in current monster video cards which cost 500-600usd. Also for around 100-150usd you can get DDR3 2133MHz 16GB 4x4GB.Can you imagine the level of next-gen graphics if APUs will be able to fully utilise 8GB, 16GB or even 32GB of 4 channel system memory!!!
Marburg U - Thursday, September 27, 2012 - link
So, Anand, you've just called this a "Review".Yes, you named it "part 1", but the fact is that at the moment you are publishing a review with only what AMD HAS TOLD YOU you are allowed to publish and which they are pleased to read.
How the hell can i trust this site's reviews anymore?
silverblue - Thursday, September 27, 2012 - link
You could always go to TechReport and join in the AMD bashing if you prefer. Whilst I don't completely agree with the idea of partially lifting the NDA in a specific fashion, it's clear that AMD wants to highlight the strengths of Trinity without possibly clouding the waters with middling x86 performance.Piledriver is not AMD's answer to Intel, even Vishera won't be an i7 competitor in most things and might struggle to stay with the i5s sometimes, and Zambezi was definitely underwhelming as a whole, so I can understand why they wouldn't want to focus on CPU performance. Additionally, if Vishera is due out at the same time as Trinity and you get an early idea of Trinity's CPU performance, even though Vishera will be generally faster than Trinity it may be classed at the same performance level.
cmdrdredd - Thursday, September 27, 2012 - link
What's clear is AMD cannot compete in benchmarks that matter to most people who read these sites(how fast does it transcode my video vs an i5). So they try to hide that behind GPU performance charts.It's like Apple misleading people about the performance of their CPUs back in the day.
silverblue - Thursday, September 27, 2012 - link
Amusingly, you'd think it would easily beat an i5 at transcoding... :PTaft12 - Sunday, September 30, 2012 - link
Uhh the benchmarks the readers of this site care about are the ones that ARE here - the gaming benchmarks. AT readers are intelligent enough to know CPUmark, Sandra, etc mean less than nothing.torp - Thursday, September 27, 2012 - link
The A10 65W looks like it has the same GPU and about 10% less CPU clock. Now THAT part could be really interesting for a low cost PC...rarson - Thursday, September 27, 2012 - link
Crossfire? Pairing one of these with a mid-range card in a hybrid Crossfire setup would be pretty awesome in an HTPC setup. Almost like a next-gen console, but much better.RU482 - Thursday, September 27, 2012 - link
looking to upgrade a couple of lower power SSF systems with one of those 65W CPUs. wonder how much an ITX mobo will run