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Socket Compatibility And The A85 FCH

AMD Trinity On The Desktop: A10, A8, And A6 Get Benchmarked!
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Want Trinity? You Need A New Motherboard

Perhaps the biggest downer for early adopters of AMD’s Fusion initiative is the quickness with which the company is deprecating support for the Socket FM1 interface used to enable desktop-class Llano APUs. In much the same way that Intel replaced LGA 1156 with a very similarly-sized LGA 1155, AMD’s existing 905-pin socket is giving way to a 904-pin one.

Presumably, changes to the FM2 interface came about due to power delivery, since the PCIe and DDR3 I/Os shouldn’t be any different. Whatever the reason, though, Llano-based APUs won’t drop into FM2-equipped boards, and Trinity-based APUs won’t work in platforms with Socket FM1. As you can see in the image above, Socket FM2, on the left, and FM1, on the right, are keyed completely differently.

Meet The New A85 FCH

Although Trinity-based APUs are not socket-compatible with Llano, there’s nothing precluding motherboard vendors from attaching existing Fusion Controller Hubs to the new processor’s four-lane UMI interface. We actually have two FM2-equipped motherboards in the lab: ASRock’s FM2A75 Pro4 and a platform based on A85, formerly referred to as Hudson-D4.

In reality, the two chipsets are pretty hard to tell apart. Basically, A85 gives you eight SATA 6Gb/s-capable ports, RAID 5 support, and the ability to divide the APU’s 16 lanes of PCI Express 2.0 into a pair of x8 links.

Otherwise, you’re looking at the same combination of USB 2.0 and 3.0 ports (4 + 10), the same four-lane Unified Media Interface, four lanes of second-gen PCIe, and four-channel audio (along with FIS-based switching, mSATA support, legacy PCI, and so on). AMD has not yet added PCI Express 3.0 support to any of its platforms, and isn’t expected to for some time.

More than likely, you’ll look to A75-based boards with Socket FM2 interfaces to save a little money, or A85-based platforms as a more feature-complete step up.

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  • -3 Hide
    Steveymoo , 14 June 2012 18:19
    Very disappointing, not at all surprising. Especially with such high power consumption.
  • 0 Hide
    tranzz , 14 June 2012 20:09
    way is spelt way not ways
  • -3 Hide
    Anonymous , 14 June 2012 20:17
    Why is there no comparison to ivy bridge at all? I guess the performance is that bad?
  • -4 Hide
    aje21 , 14 June 2012 21:11
    If only AMD would market the number of modules against the number of hyper-threaded cores in Intel chips - a module (bulldozer or piledriver) isn't really 2C, but is better than 1C/2T.
  • 0 Hide
    milofo , 14 June 2012 21:17
    Did I miss something, or is the actual single thread performance of the Llano, at 2.9GHz considerably more impressive than Trinity at 3.6Ghz+. Looks like Piledriver might be a bit better than Buldozer but neither is any real improvement on the old Phenom II.
  • 1 Hide
    bah_humbug76 , 16 June 2012 06:54
    I'm pleased with the progress of PD against BD, if the clock for clock performance is up 15% that is a good thing, its looking good for the FX-8350, take into acount a 20% higher stock clock than Thuban and add it to the + 15% over Bulldozer and what you should get is 10% or more better performance (core for core) than Thuban, that actualy will close the gap to the i5 3570K to 10% per core.

    The remaining question is how high will it overclock?

    Add to that, i read somewhere that the IGPU is 50% of the APU's TDP, so take the IGPU off the 100w TDP 4 core, add another 25w to the TDP, add another 4 core to give you 8. Your left with a 25w TDP to play with.

    All of this is rough speculation off the top of my head, please no one take it as me stating facts, i am not.
  • 1 Hide
    abitoms , 24 June 2012 22:31
    the igpu in the a10 trinity can't be as high as 50% of the total APU TDP. 50% will make the igpu 50W, which is almost as much as the 7750. no, i would put the igpu in the a10-5800k at around 30-35w
  • 1 Hide
    markem , 6 July 2012 09:06
    Wow, Trinity is awesome, I bet Intel is scared shirtless of AMD and what AMD IS upto... already we are having EX AMD VP paid by Intel!, coming online and saying AMD should stop chasing the Nanometre race because Intel will win... lol...what bs

    Intel have already slowed down with the jump from 32nm to 22nm and its going to get worse and Intel and AMD know this... AMD has a real good chance to catch up on performance; even the 28nm will give Intel a run for its money.

    Keveri is going to kick Intel into the Stone Age if AMD can keep IGP domination
  • 1 Hide
    General_Terror , 8 July 2012 16:32


    WinRAR - No AA ? :??: