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?

Benchmark Results: Media Encoding

The field is tight in our MainConcept benchmark, with AMD’s dual-module APUs edging out Intel’s dual-core processors. An overclock helps the A10-5800K, which sports a 3.8 GHz base frequency, shave off an additional seven seconds at 4.4 GHz.

HandBrake similarly favors the AMD APUs. Undervolting A10-5800K has no negative performance effect at all, and we enjoy the benefit of reduced power consumption from this taxing workload. Meanwhile, overclocking has a notable impact on performance (so long as you’re willing to tolerate a significant jump in power use).

Chris Angelini
Chris Angelini
Chris Angelini is an Editor Emeritus at Tom's Hardware US. He edits hardware reviews and covers high-profile CPU and GPU launches.