AMD A10-5800K & A8-5600K Review: Trinity on the Desktop, Part 2
by Anand Lal Shimpi on October 2, 2012 1:45 AM ESTPower Consumption
Intel has a full process node advantage when you compare Ivy Bridge and Trinity, as a result of that plus an architectural efficiency advantage you just get much better power consumption from the Core i3 than you do with Trinity. Idle power is very good but under heavy CPU load Trinity consumes considerably more power. You're basically looking at quad-core Ivy Bridge levels of power usage under load but performance closer to that of a dual-core Ivy Bridge. AMD really needs a lot of design level efficiency improvements to get power consumption under control. Compared to Llano, Trinity is a bit more efficient it seems so there's an actual improvement there.
Of course on the processor graphics side the story is much closer with Trinity being a bit more power hungry than Ivy Bridge, but not nearly by this margin.
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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.