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AMD's Trinity APU Efficiency: Undervolted And Overclocked

AMD's Trinity APU Efficiency: Undervolted And Overclocked
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We've been playing with AMD's Trinity APUs for four months, and they're just now being rolled out to the channel. This time, we take a look at the architecture's efficiency compared to a pair of Ivy Bridge-based Core i3s. Can A10 and A8 stand up to Intel?

By now, you’ve read all about AMD’s unconventional approach to introducing its Trinity APU architecture, peeling back the embargo on gaming-oriented performance first, and then granting permission to talk about pricing, overclocking, and alacrity in x86-based apps a few days later.

I warned the company that splitting Trinity’s debut into two days made it look like AMD wasn’t particularly proud of its showing in productivity and content creation apps—and it had no reason to do this, in mind. As far back as June, we had already shown that a Piledriver module was performing about 15% better than Bulldozer in single- and multi-threaded apps at the same clock rate.

AMD went ahead with its plan. But because we got our hands on Trinity-based A10, A8, and A6 processors right after they launched at Computex, the performance data that AMD wanted to keep under wraps until now was already available in AMD Trinity On The Desktop: A10, A8, And A6 Get Benchmarked! and AMD Desktop Trinity Update: Now With Core i3 And A8-3870K. If you want to know how Piledriver does at the same clock as Bulldozer, how memory bandwidth affects graphics performance, how effective Dual Graphics is, and how power changes from one generation to the next, all of that information is available between those two links, and was up in our top carousel last week.

But back in June, I was missing performance data from Intel’s Ivy Bridge-based Core i3s. They weren’t available yet. So, as I was trying to come up with an interesting angle for today’s story, I knew we needed results from the Core i3-3220 and -3225, at least.


Radeon HD
GPU (MHz)
Shaders
TDP
Cores
Base CPU
Turbo Core
L2 Cache
Price
A10-5800K
7660D
800
384
100 W
4
3.8 GHz
4.2 GHz4 MB
£100
A10-5700
7660D
760
384
65 W
4
3.4 GHz4.0 GHz4 MB
£95
A8-5600K
7560D
760
256
100 W
4
3.6 GHz3.9 GHz4 MB
£80
A8-5500
7560D
760
256
65 W
4
3.2 GHz3.7 GHz4 MB
£80
A6-5400K
7540D
760
192
65 W
2
3.6 GHz3.8 GHz1 MB
£55
A4-5300
7480D
724
128
65 W
2
3.4 GHz
3.6 GHz
1 MB
£43


Also, it was apparent that a lot of work went into improving Trinity’s idle power consumption compared to Llano. But the APU’s 100 W TDP is still significantly higher than Core i3’s 55 W ceiling. Almost certainly, Trinity can’t be made to outperform and under-consume Ivy Bridge. We're nevertheless testing our A10-5800K at lower voltages and higher clock rates to see if it can be made to shine more brightly against Intel’s entry-level chip, which is far less flexible.

As a result, we get to add overclocked and undervolted performance to our existing library of Trinity-based data, along with a comparison to Intel’s Core i3 competition. And with pricing information in our hands, it becomes pretty easy to set AMD and Intel up head-to-head and declare one company’s solution better than the other’s. Are you ready for the big judgement?

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  • 0 Hide
    Despot96 , 2 October 2012 19:02
    When they will benchmark games?
  • -3 Hide
    da22 , 2 October 2012 20:27
    "enthusiasts on a strict budget" surely enthusiasts don't have a strict budget...if so they are not enthusiasts.

    Also if they are an enthusiasts they would have a discrete video card with some nice GDDR5 so these on-board video chips are null and void for enthusiasts.
  • 0 Hide
    mactronix , 3 October 2012 16:02
    @ da22 enthusiasts are not al daddy funded college boys or girls with loads of money and hardware you know.
    There are plenty of enthusiasts in other areas who have no hope at all of attaining the highest levels within the given area so why should PC's be any different ?
    Its like saying you cant be a car enthusiast without owning a super car or a boating enthusiast without owning a huge sail boat or a expensive power boat.

    Anyway. I agree we need gaming benchmarks. Specifically benchmarks that pair these chips with serious discrete graphics cards.
    Yes I realise that these chips are meant to be an all in one solution, however that's not how everyone will want to use them.
    How does the A10-5800K stack up against the i3 when running a HD 7850 or a GTX 660 ? or higher performing GPU ?
    Its cheaper so is it as good ? is it a viable alternative for a budget gamer that wants a little more than the on-board GPU can muster ?
  • 0 Hide
    da22 , 3 October 2012 16:06
    Firstly i'm an adult with a job but that's besides the point and you missed my point!

    taking your examples:

    A car enthusiasts would buy the new back box or intake that makes his car go faster, he/she wouldn't stick with stock stuff

    A boating enthusiasts would buy an outboard motor instead of using oars

    I'm not saying an enthusiasts would have the most expensive machine but they wouldn't have integrated graphics when a semi decent discrete card cost around £70
  • 0 Hide
    mactronix , 3 October 2012 18:38
    You said an enthusiast cant be someone with a budget. That tends to suggest an income that is not restricted by something like say a job and having household bills to pay.

    By default not having a budget would in fact mean they would have the best hardware.

    That's where you went wrong my friend with your blinkered view of what makes an enthusiast.

    The examples were just that. Not meant to be picked over by someone who has just made a crass error in judgement and is now back peddling because they got called on it.

  • -3 Hide
    da22 , 3 October 2012 19:01
    wtf...dude get a life