payturr :
AMD APUs are more so on level with the Core i3 family, so, considering that the Core i5 is above Core i3 in performance, the i5 is more powerful than the AMD A10.
In what case is it better? My knowledge tells me that the AMD excels in certain areas such as gaming and DAW's.
I get my knowledge from using a DAW. When it comes to Intel i5 Dual vs AMD APU Quad, the APU smokes the i5 because the DAW likes the 2 extra physical cores. Also, keep in mind that the APU series are way underclocked to save energy. My AMD A6 underclocked was at %50 CPU usage when running my DAW. Using the proper software..... i unlocked it to bump it up to 2.2ghz per core. CPU usage is barely %5. In this state the i5 would probably be in the %25 usage and if i needed more it would turbo boost..(overclock). My AMD A6 can go to 2.4ghz before even being considered overclocked. Most bench test on the AMD APU line are tested with it being stocked underclocked...in which is not a fair test comparing it to a Intel i Series.
Also, we excel the need of any dual core or quad core. Who care if Intel is faster or not. Its still over kill on both ends for any software task. Audio rendering is probably the most core tasking out of all software demands. Even the older Intel Xeon are holding their own with out breaking a sweat with DAWS.
We are only in "overkill" zone now with CPU's and we will not need that much horsepower for awhile.