AMD A10-5800K & A8-5600K Review: Trinity on the Desktop, Part 2
by Anand Lal Shimpi on October 2, 2012 1:45 AM ESTTrinity CPU Performance: The Good and the Bad
We're going to start our performance investigation a little out of order. The big question on everyone's mind is how much single threaded performance has improved over Bulldozer, and whether it's enough to actually make Trinity faster than Llano across the board. We'll use Cinebench 11.5 as it has both single and multithreaded test options:
The good news is that single threaded performance is definitely up compared to Llano. Piledriver likely has some to do with this, but so does the fact that the A10 can run at up to 4.2GHz (~4GHz typically) with one of its cores active compared to the 2.9GHz clock speed of the A8-3850. Compared to the Bulldozer based FX-8150 there's a slight (~6%) increase in single threaded performance. Although I don't expect anyone will be cross shopping a Trinity APU and a FX CPU, it's important to keep an eye on progress here as we'll eventually get a high-end quad-module/eight-core Piledriver CPU.
Note that compared to even previous generation, low-end Intel CPUs without turbo there's a huge gap in single threaded performance. If we look at the gap AMD has to make up vs. Ivy Bridge it's not pretty. Intel's Core i3 3220 manages a 27% performance advantage over the A10-5800K. Even if Steamroller is able to deliver a 15% increase in performance at the same clock speed, there will still be a gap. And we're not even talking about how Haswell will grow this gap. For the foreseeable future I don't see AMD closing the single threaded performance gap. Jim Keller's job is to fix this problem, but it'll probably take 2 - 3 years to get there.
The multithreaded test shows the other end of reality: in heavily threaded foating point workloads it's possible that we'll see a regression compared to Llano. Remember the Bulldozer/Piledriver architecture prioritizes integer over floating point performance. Truth be told this regression is pretty rare in our tests, but until we get to Steamroller we will still see these types of situations.
Throw more threads at the problem and even with a floating point workload Intel can't pull ahead however. The A10 offers similar performance to the Core i3 3220 at a lower price. Your decision here would come down to the rest of the factors: single threaded performance, processor graphics performance, overclocking capabilities and power consumption. Intel and AMD both win two of those each, it's really a matter of what matters most to you.
A heavily threaded FP workload doesn't really play to AMD's advantages though, what happens when you get a heavily threaded integer workload however? The 7-zip benchmark gives us just that:
Here AMD manages a 16% performance advantage over the Core i3 3220. I'd even go as far as to say that Trinity would likely beat any dual-core Intel machine here. The performance advantage is somewhat artificial as Intel purposefully removes turbo from its dual-core desktop CPUs. This should be AMD's best foot forward, but once again it'll likely take Steamroller for this design to start to make sense.
Speaking of artificial product segmentation, one major feature Intel takes away when you get down to the dual-core desktop i3 level is AES-NI support. Hardware accelerated AES support is something that you get only with the more expensive Core i5/i7s. With Trinity, you get AES-NI support for the entire stack. The result is much better performance in those applications that depend on it:
Like most of the advantages we've talked about thus far, there are really very specific use cases where Trinity makes sense over a similarly priced Intel CPU.
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Jamahl - Tuesday, October 2, 2012 - link
According to kitguru, the 5800K + 7970 GHz edition beats the i3 2105 in every single game at 1080p.mikato - Wednesday, October 3, 2012 - link
lolwut? is that using i3's integrated graphics? Please extend your comment a little more to the point it makes sense.CeriseCogburn - Tuesday, October 9, 2012 - link
AMSheep fanboys tell themselves and everyone else lies, then they go buy the crap and the live the life of a slow and still poor dullard.Next chance they get they rinse and repeat.
kshong - Thursday, October 11, 2012 - link
Your comments add nothing to the conversation and take up space. I wish people could ban trolls like you.bill4 - Tuesday, October 2, 2012 - link
Just looked on newegg and the G850 is $70. The 5800 is supposed to MSRP for $122. I realize Obama is destroying our schools but where is 70 half of 122? Also, that leaves $50, what dedicated GPU worth a crap costs 50 dollars? Even a $100+ 7750 would not be much improvement I'm assuming.Somehow I knew before I checked the prices your comment would be an exaggeration, as I've seen the same type of wrong pricing on other comments like this already. Fanboys, get your facts straight.
Plus, I dont know the exact motherboard situation, but typically AMD motherboards are cheaper as well.
Oh and you pick out one single benchmark, what's the point of that? Looking at all the benches, what do you know, 5800 is faster than G850 easily the vast majority of times. Many times it's not even close, or 5800 can close to double G850 speed (3DSmax39, page 4 lol).
Usually the way it works in computers is, better performing parts cost more.
Usually the Trinity parts compare well with the similar priced Intel part, which is the i3 3220. Case closed.
I dont even necessarily disagree with you, that it might do better to spend a few more bucks on a g850+discrete card combo if you're a gamer (and, I'd need to see actual benchmarks with that combo to be sure) just pointing out a few things. Then again, if you're a gamer you really shouldn't spend less than 700 on a rig anyway, anything less you're buying outside the sweet spot and you just bought a piece of crap. Way PC gaming works, very well defined "sweet spot", buying above or below that spot is usually stupid for gaming.
ac2 - Tuesday, October 2, 2012 - link
Well I guess the reading comprehension is no better...I said "the G850 costs a little more than HALF the A10 suggested price"
69.90 is a little more than half of 122, i.e. 61
Unless we start quibbling how much a 'little more' is...
Lets look at the 3dsmax scores on pg 4 you talk about:
A10 - 11.5
A8 - 11.1
Pentium - 8.6 (double of which is 17.2 but anyway)
My elementary maths tells me its a 33% gain, which is generally the A10's gain over a CPU that costs 42% less... And that too only on the embarassingly parallel tasks..
ac2 - Tuesday, October 2, 2012 - link
Oh and Anand has benched G850 + discrete cards, see here:http://www.anandtech.com/show/4524/the-sandy-bridg...
Looks 'good enough' for me...
And I guess I'm just frustrated with AMD for completely dropping the value for money ball here, except for some highly threaded integer tasks...
eanazag - Tuesday, October 2, 2012 - link
Remember that once you add a discrete part for GPU the power benefits disappear.Roland00Address - Tuesday, October 2, 2012 - link
If you are adding a discrete card do not get the a10, get the Athlon X4 750K (remember it is unlocked) for $81 dollars. It is the trinity fm2 processor but it does not have the iGpu (which you don't care about since you are adding dedicated).It runs 600 mhz less on stock, and 400 mhz less on turbo but guess what you have an unlocked multiplier so you can easily set it at the same frequency as the a10.
It does cost 15 dollars more (g850 goes for 66 the Athlon X4 750k goes for $81) but you will get much better multithread performance than the pentium (in exchange for higher load power consumption)
Some games are going 4 cores (such as Battlefield 3) so the Athlon X4 750k will be better for gaming.
rarson - Wednesday, October 3, 2012 - link
Yeah, because single-threaded performance is so forward-thinking. Intel excels at what everyone is trying to move away from, great.