AMD Trinity On The Desktop: A10, A8, And A6 Get Benchmarked!

Test Setup And Benchmarks

Swipe to scroll horizontally
Test Hardware
ProcessorsAMD A10-5800K (Trinity) 3.8 GHz (19 * 200 MHz), Four Cores, Socket FM2, 4 MB Total L2 Cache, Turbo Core enabled, Power-savings enabled
Row 1 - Cell 0 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
Row 2 - Cell 0 AMD A6-5400K (Trinity) 3.6 GHz (18 * 200 MHz), Two Cores, Socket FM2, 1 MB Total L2 Cache, Turbo Core enabled, Power-savings enabled
Row 3 - Cell 0 AMD A8-3850 (Llano) 2.9 GHz (14.5 * 200 MHz), Four Cores, Socket FM1, 4 MB Total L2 Cache, Power-savings enabled
Row 4 - Cell 0 AMD FX-8150 (Zambezi) 3.6 GHz (18 * 200 MHz), Eight Cores, Socket AM3+, 8 MB Shared L3 Cache, Turbo Core enabled, Power-savings enabled
Thermal PasteZalman ZM-STG1
MotherboardASRock FM2A75 Pro4 (Socket FM2) AMD A75 FCH, Beta BIOS
Row 7 - Cell 0 ASRock A75 Extreme6 (Socket FM1) AMD A75 FCH, BIOS v.2.00
Row 8 - Cell 0 Asus Sabertooth 990FX (Socket AM3+) AMD 990FX/SB950, BIOS 1208
MemoryG.Skill 16 GB (4 x 4 GB) DDR3-1600, F3-12800CL9Q2-32GBZL @ 9-9-9-24 and 1.5 V
Row 10 - Cell 0 Kingston 4 GB (2 x 2 GB) DDR3-2800, KHX2800OCC12D3T1K2/4GX @ 1.5 V
Hard DriveIntel SSD 510 250 GB, SATA 6 Gb/s for gaming tests
Row 12 - Cell 0 Intel SSD 520 240 GB, SATA 6 Gb/s for productivity/content creation tests
GraphicsAMD Radeon HD 7660D
Row 14 - Cell 0 AMD Radeon HD 7560D
Row 15 - Cell 0 AMD Radeon HD 7540D
Row 16 - Cell 0 AMD Radeon HD 6670
Row 17 - Cell 0 Nvidia GeForce GTS 450
Power SupplyCooler Master UCP-1000 W
System Software And Drivers
Operating SystemWindows 7 Ultimate 64-bit
DirectXDirectX 11
Graphics DriverHD Graphics Driver For Windows 7 (15.26.8.64.2696)

ASRock sent us its upcoming FM2A75 Pro4 to use a test platform. As its name suggests, the FM2A75 employs the older A75 FCH, which will likely become an approach some manufacturers use to maintain lower prices on FM2-equipped motherboards. We also have an A85-based board in the lab from another vendor, but its BIOS wasn't quite as far along.

You'll have to pardon the lack of comparison data. AMD never sent an A8-3870K to our SoCal lab, and my closest Intel-based competition is a Core i3-2105, which sells for quite a bit more than the A8-3850 in the charts on-hand. So, I took to Newegg and ordered an A8-3870K and a Core i3-2100, which make for a more balanced match-up. Both are on the test bench behind me right now, and we'll be publishing a video in the next few days with our findings. Not knowing how much the A10-5800K will cost, I'll try to get the Core i3-2105's HD Graphics 3000 included as well.

Swipe to scroll horizontally
Game Benchmarks And Settings
Batman: Arkham CityGame Settings: Lowest Quality Settings, Anti-Aliasing: Disabled, V-sync: Disabled, DirectX 11 Mode, 1280x720 / 1680x1050 / 1920x1080, Built-in Benchmark
The Elder Scrolls V: SkyrimGame Settings: Medium Quality Settings, FXAA disabled, V-sync: Disabled, 1280x720 / 1680x1050 / 1920x1080, 25-second playback, Fraps
World of Warcraft: CataclysmGame Settings: Good Quality Settings, Anti-Aliasing: 1x AA, V-sync: Disabled, 1280x720 / 1680x1050 / 1920x1080, Demo: Crushblow to The Krazzworks, DirectX 11, 64-bit Binary
Diablo IIIGame Settings: Low Quality Settings, Anti-Aliasing: Disabled, V-sync: Disabled, 1280x720 / 1680x1050  / 1920x1080, The Siege Of Bastion's Keep, 120-second playback, Fraps
Audio Benchmarks and Settings
iTunesVersion: 10.4.10, 64-bit Audio CD ("Terminator II" SE), 53 min., Convert to AAC audio format
Lame MP3Version 3.98.3 Audio CD "Terminator II SE", 53 min, convert WAV to MP3 audio format, Command: -b 160 --nores (160 Kb/s)
Video Benchmarks and Settings
HandBrake CLIVersion: 0.9.5Video: Big Buck Bunny (720x480, 23.972 frames) 5 Minutes, Audio: Dolby Digital, 48 000 Hz, Six-Channel, English, to Video: AVC Audio: AC3 Audio2: AAC (High Profile)
MainConcept Reference v2.2Version: 2.2.0.5440 MPEG-2 to H.264, MainConcept H.264/AVC Codec, 28 sec HDTV 1920x1080 (MPEG-2), Audio: MPEG-2 (44.1 kHz, 2 Channel, 16-Bit, 224 Kb/s), Codec: H.264 Pro, Mode: PAL 50i (25 FPS), Profile: H.264 BD HDMV
Application Benchmarks and Settings
WinRARVersion: 4.11 RAR, Syntax "winrar a -r -m3", Benchmark: 2010-THG-Workload
WinZip 16.5Version: 16.5 WinZip GUI, Benchmark: 2010-THG-Workload
7-ZipVersion 9.22 beta LZMA2, Syntax "a -t7z -r -m0=LZMA2 -mx=5", Benchmark: 2010-THG-Workload
Adobe Premiere Pro CS 5.5Paladin Sequence to H.264 Blu-rayOutput 1920x1080, Maximum Quality, Mercury Playback Engine: Software Mode
Adobe After Effects CS 6Version: CS5.5Tom's Hardware Workload, SD project with three picture-in-picture frames, source video at 720p, Render Multiple Frames Simultaneously
Adobe Photoshop CS 6 (64-Bit)Version: 11 Filtering a 16 MB TIF (15 000x7266), Filters:, Radial Blur (Amount: 10, Method: zoom, Quality: good) Shape Blur (Radius: 46 px; custom shape: Trademark sysmbol) Median (Radius: 1px) Polar Coordinates (Rectangular to Polar)
ABBYY FineReaderVersion: 10 Professional Build (10.0.102.82) Read PDF save to Doc, Source: Political Economy (J. Broadhurst 1842) 111 Pages
3ds Max 2012Version: 10 x64 Rendering Space Flyby Mentalray (SPECapc_3dsmax9), Frame: 248, Resolution: 1440 x 1080
Adobe Acrobat X ProfessionalPDF Document Creation (Print) from Microsoft PowerPoint 2010
SolidWorks 2010PhotoView 360Render 01-Lighter Explode.SLDASM (SolidMuse.com)Image Output Resolution: 1920x1080, Render: Preview Quality “Good”, Final Render Quality “Best”
Visual Studio 2010Compile Chrome project (1/31/2012) with devenv.com /build Release
Synthetic Benchmarks and Settings
PCMark 7Version: 1.0.4
3DMark 11Version 1.0.3
SiSoftware Sandra 2012 SP4aCPU Test=CPU Arithmetic/Multimedia, Memory Test=Bandwidth Benchmark, Cryptography, Cache Latency
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.
  • mayankleoboy1
    Nice scoop, Chris!
    Reply
  • Youngmind
    This is so exciting! AMD is probably going to dominate the lower-end and give the poor gamers like me more bang-for-buck as their IGP get better and better :)!
    Reply
  • dudewitbow
    depending on how its priced, its a really nice alternative for bare budget gaming that opens up a quad core as well
    Reply
  • I can't WAIT for this, HAIL AMD!!!!
    Reply
  • So this means that a 'Crossfired' Trinity APU would beat ANY similarly-priced Intel (CPU+discrete GPU) ???
    Well at least in gaming
    Reply
  • dudewitbow
    JiggerByteSo this means that a 'Crossfired' Trinity APU would beat ANY similarly-priced Intel (CPU+discrete GPU) ???Well at least in gaming
    really the question is what gpus are able to hybrid crossfire with it. the information was never public. not all amd gpus will hybrid crossfire with it.
    Reply
  • Well, where are the Ivy/Sandy i5's and i3's???

    Once they are pitted against each other, that will be A TRUE measure of the APU Trinity's marketability
    Reply
  • mayankleoboy1
    in the OpenCL Winzip benchmark, when openCL is enabled the workload is done only by the iGPU or the CPU as well ?

    i mean what is the processor usage during the benchmark ? are all CPU cores used? or only one?
    Reply
  • cangelini
    mayankleoboy1in the OpenCL Winzip benchmark, when openCL is enabled the workload is done only by the iGPU or the CPU as well ?i mean what is the processor usage during the benchmark ? are all CPU cores used? or only one?Good question--I'll take a look for you.
    Reply
  • monkeymonk
    This is awesome. Glad to hear pile driver is making improvements.
    Reply