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Gaming At 1920x1080: AMD's Trinity Takes On Intel HD Graphics
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1. Can The Latest Integrated Graphics Engines Game At 1080p?

Seemingly, the only number that matters in the living room today is 1080. Practically every TV sold now must handle 1080p. Blu-ray content is obviously 1080p. So are the HD facets of Vudu, Netflix Watch Instantly, and YouTube. The Xbox 360 and even Apple TV output at 1080p.

We love the way content looks running at a native 1080p from the couch. But video is only half of the living room entertainment equation. What about gaming? That becomes a surprisingly tricky question.

When we talk about an enjoyable gaming experience at 1920x1080, be it in a home theater environment or on a 24" desktop monitor, we have to discuss the titles themselves and the hardware running them. In the past, achieving playable frame rates in a modern game at 1920x1080 almost necessitated discrete graphics. But when you start veering off into the realm of HTPCs and other more compact form factors, an add-in upgrade might not be an option, particularly if you're also looking for quiet acoustics.

If we continue adding on to our wish list of what a capable machine should be able to do, excelling at video playback and accelerating the encode pipeline have to be included as well. We've simply been spoiled by Intel's Quick Sync technology. But there's no question we need to see compelling gaming performance at 1920x1080. And that's in modern, best-selling games, not Bejeweled or mahjong.

Would it be too much to expect all of that for less than $500? In the past, it would have at least been challenging. Paul Henningsen demonstrated to us that it was possible to construct a competent gaming machine in our most recent System Builder Marathon (System Builder Marathon, August 2012: $500 Gaming PC). But that certainly wasn't something we'd want sitting in an entertainment center, nor was it meant to be. 

But what if it was possible to get decent results from an on-die graphics engine? AMD was close with its Llano-based platform (AMD A8-3850 Review: Llano Rocks Entry-Level Desktops), though we've had to conclude on multiple occasions that it's just not fast enough for most mainstream games. Chris Angelini delivered an exclusive preview of the company's next-gen APUs in AMD Trinity On The Desktop: A10, A8, And A6 Get Benchmarked! that showed gaming performance improving notably.

In a follow-up (AMD Desktop Trinity Update: Now With Core i3 And A8-3870K), Chris added benchmark results from Intel's HD Graphics 3000 and 2000 engines, which trailed hopelessly in every gaming workload he threw at them. Clearly, the Sandy Bridge generation simply wasn't cut out for the quality settings and resolutions we were looking for. Unfortunately, Intel wasn't yet selling price-comparable CPUs with either HD Graphics 4000 or 2500, so Chris couldn't gauge the progress of its Ivy Bridge architecture. That situation changed recently, though, when Core i3 CPUs started surfacing with both new graphics configurations.

With both AMD and Intel beefing up the graphics horsepower on their respective processors, are we finally at a point where it's finally possible to game at 1920x1080 in the living room without needing a chunky chassis with room for an add-in card?

Sorting Through Chip Choices

Let’s be clear. We know that it’s possible to get amazing 1080p performance from discrete graphics, and you don't even necessarily need to add fan noise. A card like Sapphire’s Ultimate Radeon HD 6670 1 GB can do the job passively. But it also tacks an additional $85 or so onto your system price. Today's story asks if the latest built-in graphics engines deliver playable performance at 1920x1080 without the help of a PCI Express-based upgrade.

In one corner, we have Intel’s Ivy Bridge-based Core i3 CPUs. As of this writing, the only desktop Core i3 shipping with the HD Graphics 4000 engine is the company's -3225 with 3 MB of shared L3 cache, a 3.3 GHz clock rate, a 55 W TDP, and a $144 price tag. The Core i3-3220, which sells for $125, is essentially the same chip, except that it has HD Graphics 2500 instead. Both processors are manufactured using 22 nm lithography and feature two physical cores with Hyper-Threading enabled. Reflecting Intel’s segmentation strategy, these mainstream Core i3s lack features like Turbo Boost and AES-NI.

Make
Model
Cores / Threads
CPU Freq.
Max. Turbo
GPU
Memory Support
TDP
AMD
A8-5600K
4 /4
3.6 GHz
3.9 GHz
HD 7560D
DDR3-1866
100 W
AMD
A10-5800K
4 /4
3.8 GHz
4.2 GHz
HD 7660D
DDR3-1866
100 W
Intel
Core i3-3220
2 /4
3.3 GHz
N/A
HD Graphics 2500
DDR3-1600
55 W
Intel
Core i3-3225
2 /4
3.3 GHz
N/A
HD Graphics 4000
DDR3-1600
55 W


AMD’s A-series APUs are priced similarly, aiming at the same entry-level demographic. What AMD lacks in manufacturing technology (Trinity continues to leverage the company's 32 nm node) it remedies with a much more potent graphics architecture.

Simply put, our emphasis here is on the highest-end models in each product family, hoping that we're able to achieve playable performance at our desired resolution using nothing but a CPU with integrated graphics.

The image above illustrates AMD's gaming message as it prepares to roll out its Trinity-based APUs. Those look like pretty incredible gains, don't they? A quick glance at the fine print, however, reveals that these internally-run benchmarks put the A10-5800K against Intel's last-gen Core i3-2120 with HD Graphics 2000, which amounts to a worst-case scenario for Intel. Not only are there Sandy Bridge-based Core i3s with HD Graphics 3000 available, but also Ivy Bridge-based chips with HD Graphics 2500 and 4000. 

Our goal is to set up a fairer fight. And just as we elected to pit the new HD Graphics 4000-equipped Core i3-3225 against its less-endowed -3220 cousin, we also decided to throw the A10 in the ring with AMD's A8-5600K, another Trinity-based part running at 3.6 GHz and armed with fewer shader units running at a slightly slower clock rate.

We do have to point out, though, that both Intel chips feature a 55 W TDP. AMD's Trinity-based parts maintain Llano's status quo with 100 W thermal ceilings. Under load, AMD's reference cooler is noticeably louder, a factor we have to take into account when we consider putting this hardware in the living room.

2. Professional Opinion: Gaming On Integrated Graphics

Jon Bach started Puget Systems in 2000, a time when small, local system builders could wage war more successfully against the big brands through specialization and experimentation. Over the years, Puget Systems gained a reputation for high-end performance, including with HTPCs. By 2009, the company had its Serenity line, which relied on considerable design testing to achieve a finished product significantly more quiet than most competitors. Few, if any, system builders left in America have Puget’s experience in crafting fast PCs with the acoustics someone in a theater environment would demand. This is why we sought out Bach for his thoughts on gaming in the living room on an integrated graphics engine.

Puget Serenity 3Puget Serenity 3

Tom's Hardware: Let’s start with the big question: Are today’s HTPCs ready to tackle 1920x1080 gaming?

Jon Bach: There are all types of gaming, of course. There are those who are very casual gamers—a little Angry Birds here, a little The Sims 3 there. Integrated graphics today will handle those titles just fine. Even at 1080p, no problem. But then there’s higher-end gaming. Steam’s Big Picture is bringing a lot of attention to this space. I play some Battlefield 3 myself, and I wouldn’t even think of running that on integrated graphics, even at lower resolutions.

That isn’t to say HTPCs can't meet those needs. We build PCs for home theaters that can handle intense gaming. They just need a mid- or high-range discrete video card. We can build PCs like that and keep them quiet too. Even better, modern video cards have such low idle power draw that they work out very nicely, becoming nearly silent during movie and TV playback, and then spinning up as needed during intense gaming. Where we’ve hit more of an obstacle is actually in making sure the cabinet the PC is inside is cooled well. Not many people think about that, so we have to be very careful to bring it up, and help each client plan accordingly.

Tom's Hardware: Our initial gaming results with Core i3 and A8/A10 are pretty encouraging. We’re seem to be "getting there," assuming that integrated hardware evolves more quickly than the games over time. Do you see this happening? Will on-die logic accommodate ever more of the gaming field as we go forward?

Jon Bach: It’s all relative. Our customers wouldn't be happy with 30 FPS at medium settings. They want 60 FPS at Ultra settings. A big reason why people go to the PC platform for gaming is for the quality improvement. At Puget Systems, it is rare for us to sell a gaming-oriented PC with anything less than a GeForce GTX 560 Ti (now probably the GTX 660). People just want more. Of course, we serve the distinct niche of high-performance, high-quality PCs. To us, integrated chipset graphics are still a long ways off—even the new platforms coming up.

However, I will say that it is definitely moving in that direction. Back in 2008, you needed to spend $1000 in multi-GPU setups to run games at their highest quality settings. Today, a single GeForce GTX 670 does it with ease. You can see the trend. I think that, for the casual gamer, we’re getting very close. For the hardcore gamer, they’re going to be looking for more performance for quite some time to come.

In a way, isn’t this a microcosm of the PC versus tablet talk? Some people say, "Tablets are getting so powerful now, they can do almost everything I need." Then you have the other camp saying, "No way. I need a lot more processing power." Both are true. There is just a huge variation in the kind of performance that people want and need.

Puget Serenity 2Puget Serenity 2

Tom's Hardware: In building our test system in a SilverStone HTPC case, we had to make special consideration for the heat sink height, and our Blu-ray drive was too long to fit. Those are pretty obvious snafus once you’ve run into them. What are some of the less obvious design concerns that DIYers should watch out for when building HTPCs?

Jon Bach: The physical compatibility of the CPU cooler is a common issue, for sure. Proper airflow is another concern, especially for gaming. If you run a discrete video card, many HTPC chassis are not very good about getting fresh air to that part of the chassis. Height of the video card is another common issue. Many video cards now run the heat sink higher than the PCI Express slot, which conflicts with the top panel many times. Some motherboards have right-angle SATA ports coming off the side of the motherboard, and many HTPC chassis do not leave adequate room for this, leaving you only able to use one SATA port per row, and only with right-angle SATA connectors.

3. Professional Opinion: Gaming On Integrated Graphics, Cont.

Tom's Hardware: Noise is clearly critical in HTPCs. Are there some general strategies that you employ most often when trying to dampen the decibels?

Jon Bach: Keep the noisy parts away from the front of the chassis. If you can mount the hard drive further back, do it. Make sure you need all of the fans. Many times, there are fans blowing to a region of the chassis that does no good. If that’s the case, turn down (or off) that fan—just be careful! This is especially important for fans near the front of the chassis.

The nice thing about HTPCs is they sit back into a recess in your cabinet, which helps deaden the sounds coming from the rear of the unit. If you can, mount any mechanical disk drives horizontally. Vertically-mounted drives will transfer their vibration down into the shelving, which will amplify the sound like the head of a drum. Depending on the joints in your shelving, it can also cause a noisy buzz. Run an SSD for your operating system drive if possible, for this same reason. Consider running a utility to limit the speed of your optical drive to keep noise down while watching a movie.

Puget Serenity 1Puget Serenity 1

Tom's Hardware: Excellent point about cabinet cooling. What are a couple of your most common approaches to handling this?

Jon Bach: Often, it just needs an opening—one at the top and one at the bottom—to let fresh air convect through. Sometimes an active fan needs to be installed. We can provide a Molex connector on the rear of our PCs, allowing the fan to be powered by the PC, and only run when the PC is on. Most often though, it just means we take care to use low-wattage CPUs and video cards, keeping heat generation down in the first place.

Puget Serenity 4Puget Serenity 4

Tom's Hardware: Some of us have long been fans of Creative’s X-Fi line, finding integrated audio lackluster in comparison. With that said, we haven’t delved much into integrated audio over the last few years. Especially in this article’s gaming context, what are your thoughts about integrated audio for small HTPC platforms?

Jon Bach: I’d say 95% or more of our HTPC customers use the integrated audio. Part of it is that it is so easy to just run one HDMI cable. For those using a separate audio receiver, the optical audio out integrated into the motherboard is commonly used. Since Windows 7 and the widespread use of digital audio, we see less and less demand for discrete sound cards every day. There’s still a quality edge there, but even with our enthusiast clients, we haven’t seen a demand.

Tom's Hardware: You’ve probably done some “celebrity-class” HTPC deployments. Any chance you could name drop a couple and maybe comment on what the budget-friendly HTPCs of today might have in common with those high-profile systems?

Jon Bach: The best ones are covered by NDA agreements, but boy do I wish I could talk about them! I can at least speak generally. There is one client to which we have deployed literally hundreds of home theater-oriented PCs over the last seven years. What impresses me most is how much the technology has changed over that time. In the beginning, we had to use PCs that cost over $3000. Their builds started without GPU acceleration, then moved into a time when very specific Nvidia cards were required for GPU acceleration. We were constantly watching CPU and GPU loads, making sure that we had the headroom necessary for consistent, smooth playback. Today, we don't even have to think about it. These PCs are playing 1080p content with almost no perceptible CPU load, using GPU acceleration found right there on the CPU. It’s amazing how easy modern technology has made what seven years ago was a huge challenge.

4. Test Setup And Benchmarks

The first question we asked ourselves was what a sub-$500 HTPC should look like. In the age of Netflix and Hulu, we were willing to let tuners go by the wayside. As Jon Bach indicated, discrete audio was also another easy omission. Part of our mission here was to only examine integrated graphics, so add-in cards were out, and we were also willing to assume that most media would be streamed in across the LAN, not stored in a local hard drive. We ended up with this:

Test Hardware
Processors
AMD A10-5800K (Trinity) 3.8 GHz (19 * 200 MHz), Four Cores, Socket FM2, 4 MB Total L2 Cache, Turbo Core enabled, Power-savings enabled

AMD A8-5600K (Trinity) 3.6 GHz (18 * 200 MHz), Four Cores, Socket FM2, 4 MB Total L2 Cache, Turbo Core enabled, Power-savings enabled

Intel Core i3-3225 (Ivy Bridge) 3.3 GHz, Two Cores, LGA 1155, 3 MB Shared L3 Cache, Power-savings enabled

Intel Core i3-3220 (Ivy Bridge) 3.3 GHz, Two Cores, LGA 1155, 3 MB Shared L3 Cache, Power-savings enabled
Thermal Paste
SIIG Ultra-Chill
Motherboard
Asus F2A85-M Pro (Socket FM2) AMD A85 FCH

Gigabyte Z77M-D3H-MVP (LGA 1155) Z77 chipset
Memory
AMD/Patriot 16 GB (4 x 4 GB) DDR3-1600, AP38G1608U2K @ 8-9-8-24 and 1.65 V
Storage Drive
Intel SSD 330 120 GB, SATA 6 Gb/s
Graphics
AMD Radeon HD 7660D

AMD Radeon HD 7560D

Intel HD Graphics 4000

Intel HD Graphics 2500
Power Supply
Antec EarthWatts 380 W
System Software And Drivers
Operating System
Windows 7 Professional 64-bit
DirectX
DirectX 11
Graphics Driver
HD Graphics Driver For Windows 7 (15.26.8.64.2696)

Intel VGA Driver For Windows 7 (9.17.10.2792)


What was the final bill? Apart from the processors and Asus board supplied by AMD, we went shopping at Newegg. Here’s what we figured:

  • AMD or Intel integrated graphics CPU/APU: $135
  • Supporting microATX HDMI SATA 6 Gb/s motherboard: $120
  • 2 x 4GB AMD Performance Edition DDR3-1600: $50
  • SilverStone ML03B HTPC case: $55
  • Antec EarthWatts EA-380D PSU: $45
  • Intel 120 GB 330 Series SSD: $95
  • LG 12X Blu-ray drive: $45
  • Total Cost: $545

The BuildThe Build

What the heck, right? Paul built his System Builder Marathon machine for $500 with a GeForce GTX 560 in it. Clearly, we could have saved a lot of money by buying a more affordable motherboard, scrapping the SSD, and buying a cheaper optical drive. But this wasn't to be a dedicated gaming machine; it needed to succeed in a living room environment. In the end, had we been willing to settle for a DVD drive, a 1 TB hard drive, and a lower-end PSU, we could have easily shaved $100 off the price—enough to cover an OEM copy of Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit.

Given the focus on gaming for this article, we selected ten currently popular titles:

  • Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3
  • Metro 2033
  • The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
  • Deus Ex: Human Revolution
  • Battlefield 3
  • Crysis 2
  • The Witcher 2
  • DiRT Showdown
  • Batman: Arkham City
  • World of Warcraft: Cataclysm

All of these were tested at 1920x1080 resolution, but with the lowest graphics settings. We took the last three on this list as a fair cross-section and reran them a couple of times under more strenuous settings, just to see how they’d hold up. After all, we're not willing to call integrated graphics a good solution if it forces you into the lowest available graphics options. Along the way, we’ll show you screen shots taken during testing so you can see how the image quality looked at these performance levels.

5. Benchmark Results: Call Of Duty: MW3 And Metro 2033

While console versions of Modern Warfare 3 remain far more popular than PC, keep in mind that the Xbox 360 edition plays at a significantly lower resolution.

Unless otherwise noted, we benchmarked our titles using Fraps, grabbing 60 seconds of action at the first playable level.

Modern Warfare 3Modern Warfare 3

The good news here is obvious. All of our configurations are easily able to average more than 30 FPS. Even the humble Core i3-3220 sustains more than a 44 FPS minimum. Given the modest image quality settings, there's plenty of headroom to push better-looking detail settings or apply anti-aliasing. Call of Duty is a DirectX 9-based title famous for its lightweight engine.

Interestingly, while the Core i3-3225's average frame rate is 8.9% higher than the -3220's (we would have expected more, suggesting some sort of processor bottleneck), Fraps records a lower minimum frame rate. This could simply be a consequence of the suspected platform limitation and a brief hiccup, though.

Also notable is that the results from our two AMD chips are virtually identical. This is further proof of a processor bottleneck, since both APUs sport dissimilar graphics hardware, and really should be performing differently.

Metro 2033Metro 2033

Metro 2033, one of the most demanding games we test, gives us some good news, but mostly bad.

The good news is that each of these processors now scales the way we'd expect. Metro's graphics workload is much better able to expose the various execution unit and shader configurations used by Intel and AMD.

Unfortunately, even at the game's lowest-end DirectX 11 settings, none of our four chips come anywhere close to demonstrating playable performance at 1920x1080.

6. Benchmark Results: Skyrim And Deus Ex: HR

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim employs DX 11 support to enhance performance. The Creation Engine used by Bethseda is the same one used for Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, and there’s been little to no visual improvement between generations. However, the faster implementation pays dividends for our purposes.

SkyrimSkyrim

In AMD Desktop Trinity Update: Now With Core i3 And A8-3870K, we benchmarked with The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim and discovered that the Medium quality preset simply was not playable on any of the processors we tested at 1920x1080 (the A10 and A8 were arguably pretty fluid at 1280x720, though).

Dropping quality all the way to the Low preset does give AMD's new APUs a lot more room to breathe at our target resolution. It's just a bummer that the graphics quality is so terrible down there. Our benchmarks suggest this game is accessible to Trinity, but we'd strongly suggest an upgrade to discrete graphics and a step up to at least the Medium quality preset.

Intel's Core i3s, on the other hand, cannot muster playable performance, even at this game's most entry-level settings.

Deux ExDeux Ex

As we’ve described in the past, Deus Ex: Human Revolution excels in two key points: amazing story quality and excellent use of anti-aliasing modes made available through DX 11. Fortunately, Eidos Montreal made sure the game was GPU-friendly, even without DX 11 assistance. Our earlier testing with discrete graphics showed that Human Revolution is playable at 1920x1080 with medium details and 8x AF enabled across a broad spectrum of last year's graphics cards. So, it comes as no surprise that three of our four integrated engines turn in average frame rates in excess of 30.

The AMD A10-5800K averages close to 50 FPS, and its minimum dips to 37 FPS. That might leave a little bit of headroom for more demanding settings, but we wouldn't push this title much further. Intel’s Core i3-3225 is barely able to deliver an average in excess of 30 FPS, but its 23-frame minimum is a little low for our liking. You can expect frequent stutters, even with all detail settings as low as they go.

7. Benchmark Results: Battlefield 3, Crysis 2, And Witcher 2

Battlefield 3Battlefield 3

Battlefield 3 has a couple of different anti-aliasing settings: Anti-Aliasing Post, which is FXAA, and Anti-aliasing Deferred, which is MSAA. The former is fairly performance-inexpensive, while the latter can have a huge impact on frame rates. When we isolated no AA versus 4x MSAA at 1920x1080 (with 16x AF and Ultra details enabled), the feature clobbered frame rates between 30 and 40%—and that was with high-end discrete GPUs.

Even with anti-aliasing effects disabled altogether, our integrated graphics engines didn't stand a chance at 1920x1080. AMD's new Trinity-based flagship, the A10-5800K can't get anywhere near 30 FPS, and its sub-20-frame minimum performance level is simply unacceptable. Intel's HD Graphics 4000 solution similarly fails to impress.

Crysis 2Crysis 2

The situation is even worse in Crysis 2. There’s no point in belaboring this. The DX 11-based title is famous for its massively taxing load. Even AMD admitted going in that the game would crush any of the integrated graphics solutions we threw at it. So, we knew it would be bad. But how bad? Let’s just say we’d like to revisit this test in three or four years. Perhaps by then, Crysis won’t crash on its first load attempt under Intel’s integrated CPUs, as it did on both chips for us.

Witcher 2Witcher 2

The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings is a newcomer in our benchmarking line-up, added after receiving feedback from you, our readers, that it was something you wanted to see. With its admirable RED engine-fueled graphics, we wanted to find out if this medieval fight-fest would lean more toward Skyrim or Battlefield 3 in its weight on graphics hardware. Clearly, the answer carries the weight of a boat anchor. We played the Day of the Assault (Morning) battle and found that The Witcher 2 isn’t as demanding as Crysis 2, but it’s not far off.

8. Benchmark Results: DiRT Showdown

For us, DiRT Showdown was one of the most informative tests in this round-up. Three of our four processors were able to play this modern graphics-rich racer at quite playable rates, with even the Core i3-3225 turning in a fair showing with barely perceptible drops.

Moreover, unlike WoW, the difference in detail levels isn’t glaringly obvious. Even on Ultra Low, with everything turned off, DiRT Showdown looks impressively gritty.

Showdown Ultra LowShowdown Ultra Low

In contrast, we also generated benchmark results and screen shots using two more demanding presets. Yes, the higher settings are more impressive, but we didn’t feel much difference between Medium and High.

Showdown MediumShowdown Medium

Showdown HighShowdown High

What sort of impact do these higher settings have on performance? At the Medium preset, both Intel processors become unplayable, and the A8-5600K barely skates by. The A10-5800K still has some headroom left, though its 30 FPS minimum is about as low as we're willing to go.

Although it lies outside the parameters of this article, we will point out that this is the kind of situation where a system memory overclock makes a lot of sense. A quick bump to 1833 MT/s might be all the A8 needs to keep it fully playable. Unlike a hard push to the main processor, a memory overclock can yield an easy 5% to 10% performance boost without an appreciable increase in heat or system noise. If you want evidence, just check out Chris Angelini's early look at Trinity's memory scaling.

Stepping up to High detail settings blows even the A10 out of contention. Worse, Showdown locks up with a black screen on both Intel chips until we kill it with Windows Task Manager. Perhaps we should be impressed that only one of our ten games forced a failure in this processor category, and even then only at our highest settings. Still, it’s hard not to look critically at Intel’s graphics and ask, “Really?”

9. Benchmark Results: Batman: Arkham City

From dirt track to dirty skyscrapers, let’s shift to the latest Batman installment, Arkham City.

Both AMD APUs deliver a playable experience at the lowest settings, albeit with minimums that dip below where we'd like to see them. Intel takes a Batarang in the back here.

For all of this heavy load, what do you get in return (if you can play at all)?

Batman AC LowBatman AC Low

Batman AC MediumBatman AC Medium

Batman AC HighBatman AC High

There are definite texture quality advantages in moving from Low to Medium settings. With DX 11 engaged, we see the High settings do a better job with light dispersion, which is particularly handy in a dark game like Batman. The shadows that appear in Medium offer an obvious upgrade to our Low settings. So, clearly, there are good reasons to want more horsepower. The problem is that you’re not going to get it from today’s integrated processors.

It’s arguable whether AMD gets a pass at Medium settings with minimum frame rates dropping into the teens. At High, everyone gets obliterated. But, given that we see the jump from Low to Medium being most significant here, we find this a promising case for AMD and another instance in which we’d lean on a little overclocking to help boost those minimum rates without sacrificing our other HTPC priorities.

10. Benchmark Results: World Of Warcraft

As usual in our WoW testing, we used Fraps to measure frame rates on an automated trip from Crushblow to The Krazzworks, changing graphics quality presets between flights and leaving MSAA at 1x.

We saved some good news for last. The nine million or so WoW subscribers may be relieved to know that all four of our platforms can play their favorite MMORPG at low settings. Even the Core i3-3220 averages more than two times the average FPS requirement. The trick with WoW, though, is that the game adds a pretty sizable processing load as you step up the preset chain. This is obvious as you fly over the landscape. In Low settings, the trees are largely denuded and fog obscures a lot of ground detail. WoW reveals quite a bit even in stepping up to Medium detail.

WoW LowWoW Low

WoW MediumWoW Medium

WoW HighWoW High

Again, WoW delivers the most visual punch in stepping from Low to Good settings. The vibrancy of scenes really pops as you lose a lot of that obscuring mist. Textures gain more depth and shadows more realism at higher settings, but if you only have enough overhead for one or two steps up the quality scale, AMD’s Trinity will get you there while the latest Core i3 chips will not.

World of Warcraft's Good quality preset gives you the best balance of graphics quality and performance on AMD's A10-5800K. The High quality setting is just too demanding, particularly if you find yourself in busy raids.

Still, let’s not lose sight of the fact that all four of these chips deliver excellent playability at Low settings. If you’re more concerned about enjoying the game and its community and less worried about the look of it all, your barrier to entry in a high-def setting remains low.

11. Second-Generation APUs: Playable, If You Compromise Detail

Have we grasped the Holy Grail in our quest to achieve playable performance from integrated graphics at 1920x1080? Yes and no.

If you had asked us one year ago whether we thought it was possible to play current-gen games on an HDTV or 24" monitor's native resolution using AMD's Llano or Intel's Sandy Bridge architecture, we would have shot back a decisive "No." In most of the tests we were running, even 1280x720 was a stretch for those designs. Today, Trinity and Ivy Bridge get us a lot closer to 1920x1080, which is where both AMD and Intel need to be if they hope to convince gamers that their on-die graphics engines are actually viable for gaming. And while both companies cautiously steer customers toward fairly mainstream titles, they're both clearly looking to a day when they can count more demanding games amongst those playable on integrated graphics.

This generation, it's fairly safe to say you won't be playing Crysis 2, Witcher 2, or Battlefield 3 at 1920x1080, even at the lowest detail settings those games offer, and that'll almost certainly remain the case until both AMD and Intel introduce the next generation of hardware. But the other seven titles give us something to look forward to. Intel’s Core i3-3225 can get a foot in the door on three or four of them, and AMD can now transcend the lowest detail settings in a few titles with its fastest Trinity-based APU. This is a huge improvement. For the folks trying to build into compact form factors without room for discrete graphics, this may even come as a revelation. And it probably goes a long way in explaining why so many folks wanted to see what an APU could do in Take That, iMac?: Build Your Own All-In-One PC. We can only hope that AMD is exploring the potential of all-in-ones able to cope with its APU's 100 W thermal ceiling.

As we continue moving forward, we expect AMD and Intel to both take advantage of the fact that their respective processors support OpenCL to empower ISVs. There are many more applications supporting OpenCL today than there were when we first looked at AMD's Llano architecture, but OpenCL-enabled games are proving slower to materialize. It remains to be seen if developers utilize the API to improve performance or add visual effects that might have been too expensive to implement in software previously. Depending on the approach that games take, we may see this latest batch of CPUs with on-die graphics make even deeper inroads to mainstream gaming.

AMD is officially lifting the veil on pricing, overclocking headroom, and application performance of its Trinity-based APUs next week. For now, though, we remain encouraged by what we've seen here today (even more so since we published the first preview of Trinity's performance almost four months ago in AMD Trinity On The Desktop: A10, A8, And A6 Get Benchmarked!).

Both companies are making a concerted effort to shift focus from their components to the experience you get from a total solution built using their respective technologies. In a sense, that’s what we’ve tried to assess here. Can you have a satisfying gaming experience with integrated graphics today? Undoubtedly, some folks will find that the titles they enjoy play well enough to get by without discrete graphics. And that's something we discerning enthusiasts have never felt comfortable admitting before. For others, the idea of dialing settings down as low as they go just to avoid a three-dimensional slide show is going to be enough to spring for the cheap add-in graphics card it'd take to get smooth performance at 1920x1080, form factor be damned. We cannot deny, however, that each generation we progress takes us closer and closer to a place where innovation in hardware enables compelling software. And, even as AMD struggles to catch Intel in more general desktop application performance and efficiency, graphics is one segment where Intel plays follow-the-leader.