This story, an update to our AMD Trinity-based A10, A8, and A6 family preview, was originally published on July 2, 2012. It was not condoned, supported, or sponsored in any way by AMD. The piece appears here, unchanged, with the same information presented nearly three months ago.
Shortly after wrapping up our first look at AMD’s Trinity-based desktop APUs, I ordered an A8-3870K and Core i3-2100 from Newegg. Each chip was $120 bucks at the time, and promised to add much needed comparison data to our Trinity-based desktop APU preview.
The A8 is important because it’s AMD’s flagship APU built on the Llano design. Although it only operates 100 MHz faster than the A8-3850 originally used for testing, an unlocked multiplier ratio commands a bit of a price premium. Expect the unlocked Trinity-based parts to cost extra, too.
Intel’s Core i3 is, by far, a more interesting comparison point. Its two Hyper-Threaded cores employ the Sandy Bridge architecture, which we know to be very efficient. But can it stand up to AMD’s twin Piledriver modules in the Trinity-based A10 and A8? Really, that was the question we wanted to answer most.
Core i3-2100 is armed with HD Graphics 2000, so we knew it’d get slaughtered by AMD’s forthcoming APUs. However, the i3-2105 employs HD Graphics 3000—a more capable implementation with two times the number of execution units (12, rather than six). Operating at the same 3.1 GHz core clock rate as the i3-2100, the only reason to buy -2105 over -2100 is built-in graphics. And for that, you’ll pay $135.
How do our results look after adding the A8-3870K and Core i3-2100 to our x86-based tests, along with the Core i3-2105 to our gaming tests?
- Following Up With More Test Data
- Test Setup And Benchmarks
- Benchmark Results: Sandra 2012
- Benchmark Results: Adobe CS5 And 6
- Benchmark Results: Content Creation
- Benchmark Results: Productivity
- Benchmark Results: Media Encoding
- Benchmark Results: File Compression
- Batman: Arkham City
- World of Warcraft: Cataclysm
- The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
- Diablo III
- If Trinity Showed Up Today...
And it still doesn't make sense to only reserve the best graphics for the high-end chips. People who want such performance in a desktop or notebook may likely have a dedicated GPU anyway.
The i3' should have HD graphics 3500/4000.
I'd like to see her doing some more short videos on various products.
She has improved with each new video too.
Good move Chris and team.
I made myself read the entire article. I consider myself a literate person, but I still cannot find words to properly (and respectfully) express just how physically Beautiful your announcer is.
And it still doesn't make sense to only reserve the best graphics for the high-end chips. People who want such performance in a desktop or notebook may likely have a dedicated GPU anyway.
The i3' should have HD graphics 3500/4000.
if Intel cant run those, then technically its a loss for intel and win for AMD, right?
I made myself read the entire article. I consider myself a literate person, but I still cannot find words to properly (and respectfully) express just how physically Beautiful your announcer is.
Apart from that, i think Trinity is clearly a win if AMD prices it the same as Llano.
I'd like to see her doing some more short videos on various products.
She has improved with each new video too.
Good move Chris and team.
Agreed, but she is also now completely covered up do to people "complaining". Would a low v-neck really be too much? She is overly covered compared to news anchors
Still amazing that a Core i3 with 1100mhz disadvantage (if you count turbo of 4.2Ghz) can beat Trinity.
What a world we live in.
Interesting to see how Ivy Bridge Core i3 performs. Will Intel ramp up the clockspeed and risk cannibalising the Core i5 series? Given this turn of events, I wouldn't be surprised if Intel decides to make HD 4000 standard, or at least a cheap upgrade from HD 2500.
For desktop Piledriver, Trinity competes well with Intel's Core i3 but I have a few concerns for Piledriver AM3+, mainly that there are unlocked Core i5s and i7s which may be able to negate the clockspeed advantage AMD has here.. Depending on how well Piledriver for AM3+ overclocks, AMD will need quite a hefty stock clock and OC ability to beat or match Intel.
More likely than not, desktop AM3+ Piledriver won't be K8 to P4, but if it's just PhII to Core i5/i7 (bloomfield, lynnfield), I'll be happy.
When I look at $100 CPUs for a budget user, I have to think: Is this an office/typical work or a low-cost gaming PC. If they are getting a dedicated card, the GPU part of the AMD CPU becomes useless. if its a biz PC that won't play 3D games... then the HD2000~3000 is overkill.
The Trinity platform is FM2, so any AMD lovers (snif) are going to have to buy FM2 motherboards. Things that won't be on the market soon, and doesn't matter so much as people who are building their own PCs are going intel anyways.
For AMD to compete, their A10 CPU needs to cost as much as an i3 class CPU... you get about the same performance + gaming abilities, if needed. Selling the FX at i5~i7 pricing didn't help at all.
I don't consider any of the AMD dozer/driver CPUs to be true 4/6/8 CORE CPUs... they are not complete enough to be so and their performance against TRUE dual and quad core CPUs shows it.
With that said... I think I can go with FM2 with a $100 quad core *IF* AMD had such a CPU for clients who need a good office PC. I can't go with FM1 or AM3 since those are EOL... and there are no FM2 products for us to choose from yet.
Can you make a quick decoding round up with the HD2k and HD3K against Trinity and Llano? Specially the HD2k, since mos of the Intel lineup in that segment has that.
Cheers!