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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ananduser - Thursday, September 27, 2012 - link
ARS ? Please... it's insulting to Anand to compare it to Ars. You're also insulting of Tom's. Techreport is better than them all as they've "innovated" in the benchmark area via microstuttering tests. You should read more and stop being so high strung about your fav sites.coder543 - Thursday, September 27, 2012 - link
don't know what side of the Internet you're from, but Ars Technica has some of the highest quality reviews of anywhere on the net. Anandtech is good, but they're heavily biased against both Linux and OpenGL, so that bothers me about them.Please, show me some of this low quality Ars material you speak of. I would also have you note that Ars and Techreport cross-post on occasion... so, praising one and not the other is a strange concept.
Tom's does *okay* reviews... but compared to Anandtech, their stuff is usually lacking.
ananduser - Thursday, September 27, 2012 - link
Oh please...Ars only knows mainstream. They cite more than they review. The only exception is Siracusa's yearly 100 pages OSX review which every Apple fan reads religiously and extensive Apple related coverage. Anand's, Tom's and Techreport are in a league of their own. Techreport recently impressed me with their "into the second" approach to benchmarking.Wolfpup - Friday, September 28, 2012 - link
Biased against Linux and OpenGL? How so? There's not much stuff USING OpenGL anymore, but that doesn't mean they're biased, and most people, even enthusiasts like most people here, aren't running Linux, sooo again doesn't mean they're baised against it.rarson - Wednesday, October 3, 2012 - link
Ars Technica is a freaking joke in everything that they do.medi01 - Thursday, September 27, 2012 - link
No other site uses 1000 Watt power supplies when testing HTPC CPUs either....damianrobertjones - Thursday, September 27, 2012 - link
...Unless it's Apple hardwaremattlach - Thursday, September 27, 2012 - link
I don't trust Tom's Hardware as far as I can throw them.After they were caught taking kick backs from hardware vendors for better reviews, and caught stealing content for their articles from other review sites, anyone who still reads that website is either a moron or ignorant.
Tomshardware wasn't bad back when Tom Pabst still ran it in the late 90s, but these days its a shell of its former self and completely and totally unreliable.
For me it's all HardOCP and Anandtech.
Homeles - Thursday, September 27, 2012 - link
You're going to have a very biased view of hardware if you only check two sources. I personally don't care for [H]ardOCP (I don't like their site design and the way they present their data), but AnandTech does try to keep things objective.Still, you can't pretend that AT is infallible and 100% trustworthy. If you do, then you deserve to be misled.
Like all media, it's best to check as many sources as possible before developing an opinion of something.
mikato - Monday, October 1, 2012 - link
Please link for the kickbacks! After reading this, I just searched Google for "tom's hardware kickbacks" and your comment was 3rd and the most relevant, lol. Need the info.