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We first laid hands on AMD's Fusion series last February when we reviewed the 18W dual-core Zacate APU, formally known as the E-350. Designed for netbook-like applications, the Zacate APUs brushed aside existing Intel solutions with ease, providing an affordable yet powerful to the then common Atom/Ion combo.
Shortly after Zacate's release, we had an opportunity to test AMD's A8-3850 desktop APU, codenamed Llano, which featured "Husky" CPU cores that were essentially the mobile Phenom II architecture along with Redwood-class integrated graphics (WinterPark for the dual-core variants and BeaverCreek for the quad-core).
Like Zacate, we felt Llano was going to be a success for AMD, and for the most part, it has been a hit among certain users. Granted, Intel still dominates the processor market and its products are generally the way to go if you want the fastest CPU possible. However, AMD's APUs provide an attractive alternative for folks who don't need the horsepower of Ivy Bridge or a discrete GPU, but still want more graphics power than Intel's IGPs.
AMD has continued refining its Fusion offerings, launching its Trinity series four months ago on mobile platforms -- arguably where its APUs provide the most value. Now, the company is finally prepared to offer a desktop version of Trinity, which brings a new socket and a new high-end chipset. Given that Piledriver improved Bulldozer's power consumption, we expect Trinity to be more efficient than Llano, while Cayman's VLIW4 architecture should boost the GPU's speed -- or so we hope.
User Comments: 35
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Polaco said:
Do you think a person may notice if the system opens office in 10 or 12 seconds? or if editing an image takes a few millisecond more to perform a task? however I do think you will notice a game running at 12fps or at 30. This is why I think A8 and A10 AMD products are great for people that wants to have a decent pc that can allow them to play games at avg settings and pc daily office/work tasks at a low budget.
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One test it would be very interesting to do is to create a task list that simulates an average person using the pc daily. Use some office programs, image editing, video conversion and play a bunch of games. Pick a few persons and let them do those tasks first with an intel cpu and then with an AMD one, don't telling them which one is which.
For the majority of people, the differences wouldn't be deal breakers, or possibly discernible. The problem with that line of reasoning is that most people aren't going to notice the difference if the blind/double-blind comparison includes a 4-5 year old system. A Core 2 Duo/Quad or Athlon II still gets the job done, so if the criteria is end-user experience what's the point of upgrading?
Do you think a person may notice if the system opens office in 10 or 12 seconds? or if editing an image takes a few millisecond more to perform a task? however I do think you will notice a game running at 12fps or at 30.Same deal I noted earlier in the thread.
Quad Core AMD: A10-5800K + A75/A85 board (A55's have no SATA 6GB) w/ reasonable onboard sound = ~$220
Dual Core Intel: G850 + H77 board + passive HD 6770 = ~ $215
Similar compute performance, and the Intel setup for the same money will give a much superior gaming experience.
You could go with a 65w dual core Trinity ( imo a better bet for HTPC), but likewise it's then competing against Sandy Bridge Celeron's
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This APU could be the right choice for building my new slim HTPC
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Polaco said:
Can't talk about the Celerons, but a few month ago I had to build a pc for a friend, an architect. He uses autocad (2d mostly), office, some photo editing software, etc and occasionally games. I can say that with the A8 3850K he has been able to play CODMW, CODMWII, Prototype, Battlefield BC2, and a few others at medium settings. The Intel contender CPU at the moment was the i3-2120, with bad gpu, lame video drivers and 10% more expensive. With the difference I bought more high performance ram and in case he wants to go further in gaming he can add an inexpensive AMD6670 and do crossfire, that's not even a remote option for Intel. I really think it's way more possible that he needs more GPU than CPU since all the software he uses for work just fly on that CPU.
AMD won that budget hands down, I truly believe this APUs are a nice component for a budget pc.
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Polaco said:For the majority of people, the differences wouldn't be deal breakers, or possibly discernible. The problem with that line of reasoning is that most people aren't going to notice the difference if the blind/double-blind comparison includes a 4-5 year old system. A Core 2 Duo/Quad or Athlon II still gets the job done, so if the criteria is end-user experience what's the point of upgrading?
Well, from my point of view for people that has a pc that still get it's job done and that performs the same a new budget build there would be almost no reason to upgrade, would be better to wait for another hardware generation, except they want to go for a more expensive build.
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You dont buy APUs for hardcore processing, you buy them for budget gaming.
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I AGREE! A silent PC is important -JL
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cmorticum said:
I don't think people, including reviewers, really understand how to interpret power consumption figures. The stress test involved running Crysis which taxes the GPU, and the AMD system, while drawing 90% more power than an Intel Core i3 system, is performing more than 90% faster. So the figure that really matters, namely the performance/power ratio, is better on the AMD system. I think the performance-per-watt of AMD and Intel is pretty close.
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This is a nice cpu with great video I own one and its sweet for 459.67 I pay for it.
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At the end of the day, if you have run this cpu 24/7 with say 20% loading, and 50W excess peak power you'll average 10W/hr extra over the i5 (for less performance).
In the course of a year that'll be about 88kW-hr in utility bills ( at say $0.2 ) so $18 extra/year.
So the extra power would only justify buying the Intel after 5 years or more, (or if you ran it at 100% loading for a year :-) ).
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