Amd A10-series A10-5800b 380ghz / Quad Core / Socket Fm2 / Cpu Processor Review

AMD Trinity for Desktops. Part ii: Socket FM2 Platform and AMD A10-5800K Processor Review

Terminal update 28 Apr 2021

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Trinity demonstrated some very inspiring performance in graphics tests concluding week. Notwithstanding, AMD's traditional weakness is its x86 cores. Allow'south come across if the company engineers managed to resolve this problem in the new Piledriver microarchitecture that constitute its fashion into promising hybrid processors.

A few days ago we started getting acquainted with the AMD Trinity processors that have finally come up into desktops. The first review we posted on our web-site talked exclusively near the graphics components of these promising products. By posting the first review before the official launch date, we agreed to sure conditions: nosotros had to carefully avoid any mention of the traditional processor operation. The manufacturer's logic behind this approach to the product launch was quite transparent. Every product has its strengths and its weaknesses, and the company manifestly wanted to have advantage of the strengths of their new product, which we did our best to embrace in our first article. Compare with the previous generation Llano APU, the graphics core in the new Trinity processors has become near thirty% faster, which allowed the newcomers not simply to knock downward the newest integrated competitor offerings in 3D performance tests, but also to question the need for the discrete graphics accelerators in the sub-$60-$70 cost range.

However, AMD tin't delay revealing the residual of the features of their new products indefinitely. And today, on the official launch day of the first group of desktop AMD Trinity processors, nosotros are ready to discuss their other aspects, such every bit specifics of the new Socket FM2 platform, performance of the x86 cores and overclocking potential.

• Closer Wait at Socket FM2 Platform
• Socket FM2 Processors
• Meet Socket FM2 Platform: Closer Look at Asus F2A85-V Pro
• Piledriver Microarchitecture: Is Information technology Really Better Than Bulldozer?
• Testbed Configuration and Testing Methodology
• Performance
  • General Operation
  • Gaming Operation
  • Performance in Applications
• Power Consumption
• Overclocking
• Conclusion

Closer Await at Socket FM2 Platform

The get-go problem resulting from the introduction of AMD Trinity processors into the desktop segment is the appearance of another new platform – Socket FM2 (codenamed Virgo). Every bit a upshot, the number of currently active AMD sockets has surpassed Intel, which has traditionally been criticized for lack of unification. Of course, AMD claims that now they have a very clear and understandable product structure. And this is partially true: enthusiasts using high-operation detached graphics accelerators get the Socket AM3+ platform and FM-series processors, mainstream solutions (in AMD'southward vision) are represented by new Socket FM2 and A-series processors, while compact systems should use mainboards with integrated East-series processors.

Withal, the aforementioned ranking has already existed before, and the launch of Socket FM2 didn't really add any new guild to the AMD processor line-up. On the opposite, since Socket FM1 and Socket FM2 processors are incompatible neither on electrical nor on the mechanical level, and the products for both these sockets are sold within the same series, this could actually crusade a lot of confusion. At the same time, it is absolutely unclear why they needed to supervene upon Socket FM1 with Socket FM2 at all. Socket AM3+ has proven that AMD processors with unlike microarchitecture tin can conspicuously remain compatible with the same platform, and the introduction of Trinity didn't really add together whatsoever principally new functionality that would require additional pins for any reason. They have the same number of memory channels and PCI Express lanes, as well as the aforementioned bus connecting the APU with the chipset. Moreover, both processor sockets, the new and the old one, look very similar and have virtually the same number of pins: 905 and 904.

Of course, the former chipsets from Socket FM1 platforms could also exist used with Trinity generation of processors. Therefore, a lot of inexpensive Socket FM2 mainboards will exist built around the well-familiar AMD A75 or AMD A55 chipsets. Of grade, with the launch of their new processors, AMD as well released a new A85X Fusion Controller Hub, but in reality it is but another variation of the same thing.

The differences are truly minimal. Unlike previous chipsets, which came out with the Socket FM1, AMD A85X chipset offers two more SATA vi Gbps ports (offering the total of eight ports at present), supports RAID 5 and CrossFireX technology. Actually, the value of these innovations is quite doubtful, to put it mildly, particularly because nosotros are talking almost an inexpensive APU platform, which is primarily intended to use graphics cadre integrated into the processor.

In order to somehow make up for the loss of compatibility betwixt Socket FM1 and Socket FM2, AMD assured us that they would not change the platform during the side by side change of APU generations.

Socket FM2 Processors

By introducing a new platform with a socket that'southward incompatible with the previous products AMD has to ensure that at that place is a multifariousness of Socket FM2 processors available immediately. All these processors are based on Trinity design, which means that they combine one or ii dual-core modules with Piledriver microarchitecture and a Devastator graphics core.

In fact it is a "replica" of the mobile Trinity processors launched earlier this year. Dissimilar the mobile products, limited by the strict thermal requirements, the desktop APU modifications could be sped up to much higher frequencies. In other words, the processor part is presented by a slightly improved Bulldozer, while the graphics function is a Cayman-like graphics core with highly efficient VLIW4 architecture. Nevertheless, it is a significant footstep forward compared with the previous AMD APU, considering Llano used much earlier versions of the components. At the same fourth dimension, AMD didn't change the production procedure and Trinity are yet manufactured using 32 nm SOI engineering science. As a effect, the new processors have very similar transistor count compared with Llano, i.e. the Trinity performance was improved without increasing the transistor budget.

AMD singles out four processor families within Trinity design: A10, A8, A6 and A4. A10 includes quad-core processors with the pinnacle graphics core modification, A8 – quad-core APU featuring fewer GPU streaming processors working at lower frequency, A6 and A4 include dual-cadre models, with merely half the graphics resources. In our previous article we presented a table with the formal characteristics of the APU in the Trinity line-up. Today we would like to complete information technology with pricing information:

As we can meet, the prices are very democratic. AMD positions their A10 processors as competitors to Intel Cadre i3 CPUs, while the products from A8, A6 and A4 families volition obviously be competing against Pentium and maybe even Celeron.

However, it turned out that A10, A8, A6 and A4 were not the only processors coming out within Trinity series. Besides them, AMD volition also offering Socket FM2 Trinity processors with fully disabled graphics cores. They will be marketed under Athlon brand proper noun. at this point nosotros know about iii models like that:

AMD's thought to offer Athlon X4 in Socket FM2 class-cistron is slightly puzzling. In fact, they are analogues to quad-core FX CPUs, just dissimilar their Socket AM3+ counterparts, they cannot be replaced with anything faster in the future, considering of the original platform positioning. Information technology is really difficult to figure out what could be the potential target group for products like that. Of course, these Athlon X4 processors currently boast a more than appealing toll point than about the same FX 4000-serial processors, but the old Athlon Ii X4 or Phenom Two X4 for Socket AM3 based on Stars microarchitecture go even more than attractive entry-level production. While they feature four fully-functional cores instead of two dual-core modules "bundled" together, they are non any slower than the new Trinity Athlon X4 processors and on superlative of that they piece of work in the same verbal platform as six-core and eight-core Bulldozer/Piledriver processors, i.e. offer a lot of opportunities for system upgrade.

See Socket FM2 Platform: Closer Expect at Asus F2A85-V Pro

AMD presented the mainboard makers with a pretty catchy job. On the one manus, Socket FM2 mainboards should exist quite feature-rich: the functionality of the new AMD A85X and the overclocking potential of the new Trinity processors conspicuously indicate at this. Still, on the other hand, Socket FM2 processors are priced beneath $130, which makes it questionable whether at that place is real need for mainboards, which do not fall into the entry-level category and offering more than just basic functionality. Of course, different manufacturers volition end upward finding their ain residual between manufacturing quality, functionality and low price, and then we should encounter a bang-up variety of Socket FM2 mainboard modifications.

While we were working on this review, we were offered multiple implementation of the new Virgo platform from various mainboard makers. But for our today's tests we selected Asus F2A85-Five Pro.

This mainboard is an excellent illustration of what I have just said above about the residuum between functionality and price, because Asus F2A85-5 Pro is the top Socket FM2 mainboard in the Asus line-up of products, only here we exercise non come across anything excessive or extremely creative. The features of this product are rather reserved: in that location are hardly any additional controllers, and the voltage regulator circuitry and cooling organization are not too complex.

But take a await at the official mainboard specifications:

Well, the list is pretty modest. If you have an thought about the construction of Asus mainboard models, then y'all understand that F2A85-5 Pro doesn't even achieve the "Pro" level compared with the Intel mainboards families. And in that location is a tremendous gap between the functionality of the Asus F2A85-V Pro and the superlative LGA 1155 mainboards from Deluxe or Premium series. Of course, all this results from the positioning of the Socket FM2 platform, which requires Asus F2A85-V Pro to price no more than than $120: a more expensive product would hardly become popular.

Yet, luckily, the hunt for lower price point didn't touch on the quality of this mainboard. From our experience with Asus F2A85-V Pro we can state that it is a well-built product, which made our testing of the new Socket FM2 get smooth and problem-costless.

Moreover, with Asus F2A85-V Pro you lot tin build a arrangement as powerful, every bit the new AMD Trinity processors allow. The expansion capabilities are as good as they can get: Asus F2A85-5 Pro even has iii PCI Express x16 slots, which could be occupied by graphics cards: 1, two or three. Yet, it is important to remember that the first (blueish) slot but works equally x16 if the white slot next to it remains empty. In CrossFireX configurations the start ii slots will work equally x8, and the third black slot e'er works as x4. Moreover, the PCI Express bus works only in 2.0 way, but this isn't Asus' fault: for some reason AMD engineers didn't implement PCI Express 3.0 controller in their new Trinity processors.

However, the focus of the Asus F2A85-V Pro blueprint is not only on the detached graphics accelerators. If you are planning to utilize the integrated graphics core of your processor in this mainboard, so check out its backpanel: y'all will simply love it. In that location you will find all four types of ports for connecting displays: counterpart D-Sub, supporting upwards to 1920×1600@60Hz, Dual-Link DVI-D, HDMI, and loftier-speed Brandish Port supporting resolutions upward to 4096×2160@60Hz. The only thing to keep in mind is that Trinity processors support merely three simultaneously continued monitors, then you won't be able to apply DVI-D and HDMI outs together at the same time.

Among the definite advantages of the Asus F2A85-5 Pro mainboard we should point out their proprietary digital pattern of the processor voltage regulator circuitry. It is capable of setting voltage for all APU units with highest precision, and on top of that tin control the intensity of Vdroop under heavy operational load. Overall, the voltage regulator consists of six phases for the computing function of the APU and two phases for the graphics core. Of form, it doesn't make the due impression against the background of multi-stage voltage regulators of the LGA 1155 mainboards. However, high-quality electronic components fabricated the circuitry exceptionally efficient and prevented it from heating up a lot under heavy loads. Therefore, we accept no complaints most the cooling system implemented on Asus F2A85-V Pro. Yes, it is very simplistic, and they used not very reliable plastic push-pins with springs to spike the heatsinks, but it does practise its job well.

The memory DIMM slots on Asus F2A85-V Pro are powered via special dual-phase voltage regulator, and the slots are connected to the processor socket using their proprietary T-topology design that equals the trace length and therefore information travel time in unlike channels. It provides meliorate stability with high-frequency memory modules, which is important for Socket FM2 platforms, considering the performance of the graphics integrated into the processor depends heavily on the DDR3 SDRAM speed.

We accept always liked Asus mainboards for their attention to various details. The Asus F2A85-V Pro doesn't have that many interesting peculiarities, but its overall layout definitely came out good. At least, we didn't accept whatever problems during system assembly. Yes, enthusiasts will miss the Mail service controller, convenient Power On, Reset and Clear CMOS buttons, and mayhap fifty-fifty voltage control points for the transmission voltage monitoring using a multimeter. All these features are common in expensive mainboards, and a Socket FM2 product cannot be one of them by mere definition. However, in that location was plenty room on F2A85-V Pro for a different type of functionality: the board has a MemOK! push button for fixing retention settings, DirectKey for automatic BIOS access and BIOS Flashback for automatic BIOS updating.

The graphics UEFI BIOS interface is completely flawless. It is typical of all Asus mainboards and therefore is multi-functional, well-optimized and very convenient to work with. This is what the basic section with the settings for the major system knots – processor and memory – looks like:

The users go so many settings and parameters to play with, that we tin regard Asus F2A85-V Pro also equally an overclocker production. Yous can adapt base clock frequency (with 1 MHz increment), every bit well as processor multipliers. If y'all have an unlocked CPU with "K" index in the model proper name, you volition be able to configure multipliers for the processors computing cores, its unified N Bridge and graphics cadre. The memory, however, may be overclocked with any processor. The DDR3-800 through DDR3-2400 with 266 MHz increments are the bachelor and fully operational retentivity modes.

You can besides configure all retention timings. Moreover, the mainboard supports not but the pretty rare AMD Retentivity Profile, only also the widely spread Intel's XMP profiles.

At that place are no limitations in the voltage department. The processor Vcore may exist pushed as far up as one.9 V. the retentivity DIMM voltage may also be raised to 2.1 5. It is also important that you tin set the voltage below nominal values, besides, as information technology allows using DDR3L memory modules or lower the power consumption and heat dissipation of the platform manually.

The board also offers great hardware monitoring options. It allows controlling two temperatures: full general organization temp and processor temp (and since the situation with the thermal sensors inside the AMD processors is still quite messed up, the board uses its ane diode for that thing). It also controls the rotation speeds of all five fans that can be connected to information technology.

Yous can accommodate the rotation speed of these fans in the BIOS, or by using the bundled software utilities. Nonetheless, information technology is important to think that the fans will simply be adjustable if they utilise a 4-pin power connector.

Piledriver Microarchitecture: Is It Really Better Than Bulldozer?

In our previous Trinity review we discussed the compages of the Devastator graphics core and arrived at the determination that the alter towards VLIW4 architecture was a very positive move. Now information technology is time to talk about its computing cores. Compared with Llano, computing cores likewise underwent significant changes. Instead of the x86 Husky cores with Stars microarchitecture, they now use modules with Piledriver microarchitecture, which is yet another iteration in the Bulldozer evolution. As you lot know, with the introduction of Bulldozer AMD changed their priorities dramatically. Unlike Stars, this microarchitecture reduced the number of instructions per clock, but allowed reaching college clock speeds. Notwithstanding, far not everyone was happy nearly this outcome therefore three quarters afterward the first versions of Bulldozer processor shit the streets, AMD prepared a microarchitectural refresh – the "corrected" Piledriver.

Trinity processors use Piledriver cores, which is the kickoff fourth dimension this microarchitecture goes public. AMD believes that the made improvements should be enough to make Trinity noticeably faster than Llano. Does information technology mean that the new computational cores will allow AMD to successfully compete against Intel'due south products? This matter is particularly acute because in about three-four weeks AMD will release new FX processors with similar Piledriver cores inside. And while with Trinity processors it is still possible to claim that their performance is "quite sufficient" past hiding the bodily x86 speed behind the high graphics performance, the same trick will not piece of work with the new FX processors. Therefore, the showtime matter nosotros would like to investigate is how superior the new Piledriver is over the "classical" Bulldozer microarchitecture.

However, do non pivot too many hopes on the new Piledriver. In structural terms, this microarchitecture is exactly the same as Bulldozer, i.e. consists of relatively dual-core modules with two sets of integer execution units, while some of the resources are shared between the two cores. Among these shared resources are cache-memory, instructions fetcher, instructions decoder and floating-signal unit. Equally a outcome, the module tin can procedure two threads simultaneously, merely its peak performance is capped by the throughput of the shared decoder, which can just decode no more than four instructions per clock per ii cores. For your reference: Intel Core processors accept a decoder with comparable functioning, merely it is individual for each cadre in the processor. It ways that the number of instructions Piledriver can process per clock couldn't increase dramatically. The real changes volition occur only in the next generation of the microarchitecture aka Streamroller: supposedly, AMD volition provide an individual instructions decoder for each core of their dual-core modules. So far, all improvements in the new Piledriver are based on optimizations on the operational algorithms in individual internal modules, merely do non bear upon the design as a whole.

Co-ordinate to AMD, the major improvements in the Piledriver design are the following:

• Improved co-operative prediction precision due to the use of Hybrid Predictor augmented with 2nd level predictor;
• 128 and 256-bit FMA3 instructions extensions (fused multiply-add) and F16C SSE5 instructions extensions (half-precision floating-point conversion);
• Optimized schedulers;
• Accelerated division past modifying a corresponding execution unit;
• Increased L1 TLB;
• Improved L1 and L2 pre-fetchers that can work with variable length patterns, including those on page boundaries;
• Improved L2 cache efficiency past more than aggressive removal of the unused data, which the pre-fetcher algorithms loaded into the cache past mistake.

All above listed improvements cannot speed up instructions decoding, but nevertheless, they exercise accelerate things a little chip. In order to estimate how efficient Piledriver is compared with the predecessor, we carried out a curt practical exam session. Nosotros will be comparison the new quad-core A10-5800K processor with Piledriver microarchitecture against a quad-core FX-4170 processor with Bulldozer microarchitecture. For a more illustrative result, both processors were working at four.0 GHz frequency and their Turbo Core engineering science was disabled for the time of tests. Note that unlike A10-5800K with 2-level cache-memory, FX-4170 has an 8 MB L3 cache, which cannot exist disabled. Therefore, we will just proceed in mind that the Bulldozer based processor had a slight advantage. Both systems were equipped with DDR3-1867 SDRAM with nine-xi-9-27-1T timings and Nvidia GeForce GTX 680 graphics menu.

First let's check out the retention sub-system performance in Enshroud & Memory Benchmark from Aida64 suite.

As nosotros can see, A10-5800K processor doesn't do that well hither. Bulldozer provides higher practical bandwidth and lower latencies. However, it is not because of the shortcomings of the Piledriver microarchitecture. In reality, nosotros compare processors working in two unlike platforms. Trinity has been optimized to ensure that the memory can exist shared efficiently between the calculating and graphics cores. More than complex algorithms of the DDR3 SDRAM controller, which crave boosted requests priority arbitration, cause certain delays making Trinity yield to Bulldozer in tests. Unfortunately, fifty-fifty if the Socket FM2 arrangement is equipped with a discrete graphics card and the graphics core integrated in the APU is not used, Trinity'south x86 cores yet do not piece of work with the retentivity fast enough.

Now let's have a look at the calculating performance:

As we tin can see from the obtained results, Piledriver microarchitecture is just a niggling faster than Bulldozer from the practical prospective. The highest performance advantage is simply 7%, and on average the new design is only 1.5% faster in the benchmarks above. Still, it is of import to keep in mind that the Piledriver model we tested didn't take an L3 enshroud and had a slower memory controller. This is exactly why we run into its performance drop in some benchmarks that work intensively with large information volumes. Even so, we practise not recollect that the processors with new microarchitecture for Socket AM3+ grade-gene volition alter this situation dramatically. The number of instructions they can process per clock cannot really increase that is why 5-10% performance boost is probably equally good as it can potentially get when new Vishera processors come out.

Testbed Configuration and Testing Methodology

Our previous Trinity examination session was solely dedicated to the graphics core and its performance. I believe in that location are no unanswered questions left there: the performance of AMD's integrated graphics accelerator is uncommonly adept. Withal, the residual of the hybrid processor is also very important. This will be the primary topic of our today's exam session. Therefore, the majority of benchmarks, which we will discuss hither, have been run with an external graphics accelerator, and the integrated GPU of the Trinity processors had no influence whatsoever on the obtained results. In other words, we are going to find out how x86 cores with new Piledriver microarchitecture tin can piece of work in typical everyday tasks.

In real world we volition bargain with mass production processors, which are not simply based on dissimilar microarchitectures, but as well piece of work at different frequencies, in dissimilar platforms and utilise different automatic overclocking technologies. That is why we selected testing participants for this round of tests based not but on the processor features, merely by and large on their market positioning.

AMD provided u.s.a. with an A10-5800K processor – the summit desktop Trinity model. Moreover, AMD presents the entire A10 family equally an alternative to Intel'south Core i3, equally you tin can conspicuously meet from their recommended pricing. Therefore, our today'south hero will be primarily competing confronting Intel'south dual-core CPUs from the even so pop Sandy Bridge also equally the newer Ivy Bridge generations. However, we have also included the results of the junior Cadre i5 models, which, just like A10-5800K, are quad-core and non dual-core processors. On top of that there are AMD products for other platforms equally well. Of form, Trinity was besides compared against its predecessor – Socket FM1 A8-3870K processor with Llano design, also as confronting two Socket AM3+ products. The first i is a quad-core Bulldozer FX-4170, which is equivalent to A10-5800K in price. The second one is a six-core Bulldozer FX-6200, which is also priced comparably with A10-5800K, although it may seem pretty unusual.

As a consequence, we used the following hardware and software components for our today's examination session:

• Processors:
  • AMD A10-5800K (Trinity, four cores, 3.eight-four.two GHz, 4 MB L2);
  • AMD A8-3870K (Llano, four cores, 3.0 GHz, 4 MB L2);
  • AMD FX-6200 (Zambezi, 6 cores, iii.8-4.1 GHz, half dozen L2 + 8 MB L3);
  • AMD FX-4170 (Zambezi, 4 cores, 4.ii-iv.three GHz, 4 MB L2 + 8 MB L3);
  • Core i3-2125 (Sandy Span, 2 cores + HT, 3.iii GHz, 0.5 MB L2 + 3 MB L3);
  • Core i3-2130 (Sandy Bridge, 2 cores + HT, iii.4 GHz, 0.5 MB L2 + three MB L3);
  • Core i3-3240 (Ivy Bridge, 2 cores + HT, 3.4 GHz, 0.5 MB L2 + iii MB L3);
  • Core i3-3220 (Ivy Bridge, 2 cores + HT, 3.3 GHz, 0.v MB L2 + three MB L3);
  • Cadre i5-2320 (Sandy Span, 4 cores, 3.0-3.iii GHz, i MB L2 + half-dozen MB L3);
  • Cadre i5-3330 (Ivy Bridge, iv cores, 3.0-three.2 GHz, 1 MB L2 + vi MB L3).
• Mainboards:
• ASUS Crosshair V Formula (Socket AM3+, AMD 990FX + SB950);
• ASUS P8Z77-5 Palatial (LGA1155, Intel Z77 Express);
• ASUS F2A85-V Pro (Socket FM2, AMD A85);
Gigabyte GA-A75-UD4H (Socket FM1, AMD A75).
• Memory: ii x four GB, DDR3-1866 SDRAM, 9-11-ix-27 (Kingston KHX1866C9D3K2/8GX).
• Graphics card: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680 (ii GB/256-scrap GDDR5, 1006/6008 MHz).
• Organization disk: Intel SSD 520 240 GB (SSDSC2CW240A3K5).
• Power supply unit: Corsair AX1200i (80 Plus Platinum, 1200 Westward).
• Operating organization: Microsoft Windows seven SP1 Ultimate x64.
• Drivers:
• AMD Catalyst 12.8 Driver;
• AMD Chipset Commuter 12.eight;
• Intel Chipset Driver 9.3.0.1019;
• Intel Graphics Media Accelerator Driver xv.?26.?12.?2761;
• Intel Management Engine Driver 8.?i.?0.?1248;
• Intel Rapid Storage Technology 11.?2.?0.?1006;
• Nvidia GeForce 301.42 Driver.

For our tests of the AMD A10-5800K platform we installed KB2645594 and KB2646060 Os patches, which accommodate the scheduler operation for Bulldozer and Piledriver microarchitectures.

I take to say that Trinity processor lose are no longer hybrid once in that location is a discrete graphics accelerator installed (the aforementioned is truthful for the Intel CPUs). In this configuration the GPU integrated into the processor gets disabled, so it becomes impossible to utilize its resources via OpenCL or DirectCompute. However, the applications that support these interfaces, can always take advantage of the resources of the discrete graphics accelerator.

Performance

General Performance

As usual, we use Bapco SYSmark 2012 suite to estimate the processor functioning in general-purpose tasks. Information technology emulates the usage models in popular function and digital content creation and processing applications. The idea behind this test is fairly simple: it produces a unmarried score characterizing the average computer performance.

If we compare the new Trinity processor against its predecessor, we can't help noticing a tremendous improvement. The newcomer is 25% faster, according to SYSmark 2012. In other words, the transition of hybrid processors to Piledriver microarchitecture is clearly a good thing. As a event, A10-5800K outperforms FX-4170 with almost the same characteristics, but based on the older Bulldozer microarchitecture. However, it is still unable to catch up with Intel Core i3 CPUs. Fifty-fifty Cadre i3-2125 with the previous Sandy Span design works ten% faster than A10-5800K.

Let's take a closer expect at the performance scores SYSmark 2012 generates in different usage scenarios. Office Productivity scenario emulates typical office tasks, such as text editing, electronic tables processing, electronic mail and Internet surfing. This scenario uses the following applications: ABBYY FineReader Pro x.0, Adobe Acrobat Pro 9, Adobe Wink Player x.i, Microsoft Excel 2010, Microsoft Internet Explorer nine, Microsoft Outlook 2010, Microsoft PowerPoint 2010, Microsoft Give-and-take 2010 and WinZip Pro fourteen.5.

Media Creation scenario emulates the creation of a video clip using previously taken digital images and videos. Here they use popular Adobe suites: Photoshop CS5 Extended, Premiere Pro CS5 and After Furnishings CS5.

Web Development is a scenario emulating spider web-site designing. It uses the post-obit applications: Adobe Photoshop CS5 Extended, Adobe Premiere Pro CS5, Adobe Dreamweaver CS5, Mozilla Firefox iii.6.8 and Microsoft Internet Explorer nine.

Data/Financial Assay scenario is devoted to statistical analysis and prediction of market trends performed in Microsoft Excel 2010.

3D Modeling scenario is fully dedicated to 3D objects and rendering of static and dynamic scenes using Adobe Photoshop CS5 Extended, Autodesk 3ds Max 2011, Autodesk AutoCAD 2011 and Google SketchUp Pro 8.

The last scenario chosen System Direction creates backups and installs software and updates. It involves several dissimilar versions of Mozilla Firefox Installer and WinZip Pro fourteen.5.

Note that A10-5800K doesn't always lose to Core i3. It does way improve in 3D Modeling and Organization Management scenarios than in whatever other cases. All the same, practice not forget that although we compare these processors straight, Cadre i3 is dual-core, while A10-5800K is considered a quad-core product. The fact that 2 contemporary AMD cores perform as fast as 1 Intel core (which is not even always the case) makes us over again wish AMD increased the number of instructions per clock for their contemporary microarchitectures.

Gaming Performance

As you know, information technology is the graphics subsystem that determines the operation of the unabridged platform equipped with pretty high-speed processors in the bulk of contemporary games. Therefore, we do our best to make sure that the graphics bill of fare is non loaded too heavily during the examination session: we select the most CPU-dependent tests and all tests are performed without antialiasing and in far not the highest screen resolutions. In other words, obtained results permit us to analyze non that much the fps rate that can be achieved in systems equipped with contemporary graphics accelerators, just rather how well contemporary processors tin cope with gaming workload. Therefore, the results assist us determine how the tested CPUs will behave in the nearest time to come, when new faster graphics carte du jour models will be widely bachelor.

The film here is dramatically unlike from what we saw in our previous test session, when nosotros tested processors with their integrated graphics cores. With a discrete graphics card that doesn't cap the power of the x86 cores Trinity doesn't await so rosy any more than. Of course, it does outperform Llano, just the style it should. However, information technology doesn't bring it any closer to Intel Core i3, which run much faster under gaming load. You lot could object that nosotros are testing Trinity in a non-typical usage scenario, and that they volition primarily be used with activated integrated graphics, for which the x86 cores performance would be quite sufficient. But we disagree. AMD obviously anticipates that their new APU will besides exist used with discrete graphics. Otherwise, why would they roll out A85X chipset with CrossFireX support and add processor models with the GPU disabled on the hardware level to their product line-up?

All in all, every bit nosotros tin can see, a Socket FM2 platform with a pretty fast discrete graphics accelerator is not such a skilful fit for a gaming system. And the main reason for that is the low performance of the Piledriver cores in games. All the same, I would besides like to remind you lot that Trinity processors do not support PCI Express three.0 autobus.

In improver to our gaming tests we would also like to offer you lot the results of the Futuremark 3DMark11 benchmark (Performance contour):

Here the quad-core Trinity APU is very close to Llano, because 3DMark 11 uses floating-point calculations, and each Piledriver module has one shared block for calculations of this type. Therefore, we can't expect information technology to be very fast: this defect was first present in Bulldozer, and Piledriver at present has inherited it, too.

Operation in Applications

To test the processors performance during data archiving we resort to WinRAR archiving utility. Using maximum compression rate we archive a binder with multiple files with 1.one GB full size.

WinRAR is sensitive to the processor speed when working with the memory sub-system, and as we have seen, Socket FM2 platform does have issues here. Likewise, Trinity doesn't have L3 cache memory, therefore it is not surprising that A10-5800K falls behind all competitors except Llano.

The processor performance in cryptographic tasks is measured using a built-in benchmark of the popular TrueCrypt utility that uses AES-Twofish-Serpent "triple" encryption. I have to say that this utility not only loads whatever number of cores with work in a very efficient manner, but also supports special AES instructions.

Encryption is an example of a task where Core i3 processors reveal their weaknesses. Sufficient number of computational cores and AES instructions back up are necessary to ensure that encryption algorithms will work fast. Cadre i3 with Ivy Span microarchitecture doesn't have either of these. However, A10-5800K looks great here. And that is because AMD adds support for all new instructions sets to their new processors irrespective of their market positioning.

Now that the 8th version of the pop scientific Mathematica suite is available, we decided to bring information technology back as 1 of our regular benchmarks. We use MathematicaMark8 integrated into this suite to test the systems performance:

Wolfram Mathematica is traditionally one of those applications that work well on Intel processors. Therefore, we are non surprised to run across that dual-core Core i3 are way alee of the quad-cadre and half dozen-core AMD processors with any microarchitectures. Here Trinity catches up with Socket AM3+ Bulldozer processors and is vi% faster than A8-3870K.

Nosotros measured the functioning in Adobe Photoshop CS6 using our ain benchmark fabricated from Retouch Artists Photoshop Speed Exam that has been creatively modified. It includes typical editing of four 24-megapixel images from a digital photo photographic camera.

Trinity's upshot in Photoshop is not that expert. Although information technology outperforms Llano past 6%, it tin't compete confronting Intel CPUs. The reason is obvious: low performance of the Piledriver microarchitecture in floating-signal calculations inherited from Bulldozer. As a upshot, A10-5800K is 27% behind Intel Core i3 -3220.

The performance in Adobe Premiere Pro CS6 is determined by the fourth dimension it takes to render a Blu-ray project with a HDV 1080p25 video into H.264 format and use dissimilar special effects to information technology.

We take finally got those applications where A10-5800K demonstrates similar speed as Core i3 CPUs.

In order to measure how fast our testing participants can transcode a video into H.264 format we used x264 HD Criterion 5.0. It works with an original MPEG-2 video recorded in 1080p resolution with xx Mbps bitrate. I take to say that the results of this test are of great practical value, because the x264 codec is also function of numerous popular transcoding utilities, such as HandBrake, MeGUI, VirtualDub, etc.

New AMD microarchitectures suit perfectly for video processing. And even though A10-5800K is non that much faster than A8-3870K, this advantage is more than than enough to significantly outperform any Core i3 models.

Following our readers' requests, we've added a new HD video criterion to our tests. SVPmark3 shows the computer functioning in the SmoothVideo Projection application which makes videos smoother past adding new intermediary frames. The numbers in the diagram reflect the speed of processing Full Hd videos without the graphics carte's help.

This is some other confirmation of everything we have only said above. Trinity copes great with video processing. And by the way, at that place are a lot of utilities that can apply graphics cadre resources via OpenCL. And so, A10-5800K is an first-class choice for an cheap system, which will mostly be used for HD video content processing.

We volition test computational functioning and rendering speeds in Autodesk 3ds max 2011 using the special SPECapc for 3ds max 2011 benchmark:

The processors commonly perform the same style in rendering tasks every bit they practise during video transcoding. It ways that A10-5800K outperforms Intel Core i3, although the advantage is not very convincing. However, when information technology comes to the computing functioning score, Trinity has a trouble: this APU loses to all other participants except Llano.

We use special Cinebench 11.5 criterion to test final rendering speed in Maxon Movie theater 4D suite.

Back in the days, the functioning of Bulldozer processors in Cinebench was almost a joke. And it is actually sad that the new Piledriver microarchitecture hasn't really changed a affair. Still, keeping in mind that A10-5800K costs just as little as the inferior Core i3 CPUs, there is no reason to complain any more than: the toll totally justifies the performance.

Power Consumption

In our previous Trinity test session we didn't reveal whatsoever improvements in the free energy-efficiency of the new Socket FM2 platform compared with Socket FM1. Nevertheless, AMD claims that it is not true. It could exist the fact that concluding fourth dimension we simply tested the organisation power consumption when the load fell on the graphics core. Let's see what volition happen once we install a discrete graphics card into our test system and all the work will be in the hands of x86 Trinity cores.

To get a better thought of how greatly the processor' free energy-efficiency actually improved we performed a round of special tests. The new digital power supply unit of measurement from Corsair – AX1200i – allows monitoring consumed and produced electrical power, which we employ actively during our power consumption tests. The graphs below (unless specified otherwise) show the full ability draw of the computer (without the monitor) measured after the power supply. It is the full power consumption of all the organisation components. The PSU'south efficiency is not taken into account. The CPUs are loaded by running the 64-bit version of LinX 0.half dozen.4-AVX utility. Moreover, we enabled Turbo mode and all power-saving technologies to correctly measure computer's power describe in idle mode: C1E, C6, Enhanced Intel SpeedStep and AMD Cool'north'Tranquility.

In idle manner any contemporary processors volition switch to special power-saving states, in which their ability consumption will exist very low – simply a few watts. In this case the power appetites of other system components and the efficiency of the voltage regulator circuitry on the mainboard offset to matter more. Therefore, AMD A10-5800K is at the top of the diagram. Asus F2A85-Five Pro mainboard nosotros used for our tests has one of the most efficient voltage regulators under depression operational loads. Withal, this circuitry design is partially inspired by the peculiarities of the processors themselves. Trinity features fine-grain power gating, which powers off a lot of knots within the processor in idle mode.

You can clearly see how it works during single-threaded load:

Trinity consumes more power than Llano. Nonetheless, in fact, information technology should be compared against the quad-core Bulldozer processor with the similar microarchitecture. This is where it becomes clear that the energy-efficiency improvements are definitely there.

No doubt that it is Core i3 3000-series processors that let building the most energy-efficient systems. However, among all today'south testing participants from AMD, A10-5800K demonstrates the best peak power consumption readings under heavy calculating load. This progress strikes as particularly impressive taking into account that they didn't switch to finer manufacturing process.

Overclocking

Socket FM1 platform wasn't particularly overclocking-friendly. Llano processors had low overclocking potential, increasing the frequency of the base clock generator would often cause instability, there were few supported dividers for the memory frequency. Overall, AMD didn't actually encourage overclocking of their previous generation APUs, so fifty-fifty their proprietary Overdrive utility wasn't really optimized for them. But their attitude to overclocking has changed a lot with the launch of the new Socket FM2 platform and the APU for information technology. Now overclocking functionality is one of the official strengths of the hybrid processors. And in this respect, Trinity processors are indisputably better than the competing Core i3, which cannot be overclocked at all.

Overclocking-friendliness of the Socket FM2 platform manifests itself in many aspects. Namely, there are a lot of processor models with unlocked frequency multipliers, which are marked with a letter "Thousand" in the model proper noun. Even so, even overclocking past but raising the base clock generator frequency should be fairly easy. In most cases, it tin exist increased past up to 80% above the nominal without losing organization stability. The only two things to keep in mind in this example are: first, significant increase in the clock generator frequency causes mainboard D-Sub out to end working; and second, to ensure that there are no deejay sub-system bug in AHCI style, y'all have to use the AMD driver instead of the default Microsoft driver from the OS suite. Hither we also have to add that in that location are a lot of memory dividers bachelor, and the fact that the poor Overdrive utility has finally started to piece of work with hybrid processors.

All above mentioned overclocker improvements are purely theoretical. In reality, computer enthusiasts obviously expect Trinity to demonstrate increased overclocking potential, because they are based on Piledriver microarchitecture, Bulldozer'due south successor, which is capable of working at pretty high frequencies.

However, we failed to accomplish any remarkable results during our overclocking experiments. Yes, Trinity, just like Bulldozer, is very sensitive to computing core voltage increase and the stability threshold is pushed dorsum every fourth dimension to take some other footstep higher. However, the heat dissipation also increases dramatically, which requires extra-ordinary cooling solutions. At the aforementioned time, information technology is almost impossible to monitor the adequate thermal weather condition. Thermal sensors integrated into the previous AMD processor cores have never been specially precise, but in case of Trinity they are nothing short of a catastrophe. For instance, in moments of idling they tin easily report temperatures close to 0, and under low-cal operational loads they would oftentimes testify temperature readings below the actual room temperature. Therefore, we had to utilise the temperature readings taken off the mainboard diode, which is extremely inertial.

Anyway, we managed to overclock our A10-5800K processor with the NZXT Havik 140 cooler to 4.five GHz in the testbed built on ASUS F2A85-Five Pro mainboard. However, this is not maximum overclocking, only the frequency, at which the system is operational in 24/seven mode. To ensure stability in this mode we increased the processor Vcore past 0.fifteen Five above the nominal reaching 1.5 V.

And then, in terms of resulting clock speeds, Trinity overclocking is very similar to Bulldozer overclocking. Like microarchitecture provides similar overclocking potential. The use of a principally different platform doesn't impact the results in any manner.

The primary distinguishing feature of the Trinity processors is the ability to overclock not only its computing part, just also the graphics core. And I accept to say that this is a pretty logical scenario for integrated systems in its practical aspect. Graphics accelerator integrated into the Trinity processors works most as fast as discrete Radeon HD 6570 and overall is not the dream come true just still. Therefore, many avant-garde users who will decide to become with a Socket FM2 processor will most likely want to overclock their graphics. And it volition pay off to some extent. Still, it is also important to recollect that overclocking system retentivity could as well help meliorate 3D performance of the graphics cadre in Trinity processors, so it tin definitely compliment the straight-frontwards increase in the graphics core frequency.

During our experiments we managed to get the Radeon Hard disk drive 7660D graphics cadre in our A10-5800K processor to work stably at 1085 MHz, which is 285 MHz college than the nominal frequency. Note that to ensure successful overclocking like that, you should respectively increase the respective voltage, which in the mainboard BIOS is commonly referred to in as voltage of the North Bridge integrated into the processor, simply in reality to also applies to the graphics cadre. In our specific case information technology was increased from 1.175 V to ane.four V.

Together with the graphics core overclocking, we increased the memory frequency to the level of DDR3- 2400. This is the maximum memory mode for Trinity processors working at the nominal base clock generator frequency. To ensure stability the only thing we had to do was to set up Command rate to 2T.

Let's take a await at the following screenshot showing our overclocking success:

By overclocking our calculating cores, graphics cadre and retentiveness we managed to score over 2000 points in 3DMark (with Performance contour). This way, the graphics performance of our A10-5800K based system increased by about 25% and reached the level of a detached Radeon HD 6670 compared with the nominal graphics performance of the aforementioned processor. Not bad, don't you think so?

However, the overclocking of the calculating office lonely seems to have no obvious practical value like that. By comparing the Physics Score results nosotros tin can evidence that increasing the clock frequency of our A10-5800K to iv.5 GHz produces only 11% boost in calculating power. AMD has fix the clock frequency of their new Trinity processors loftier plenty right from the start, so only extreme cooling methods will allow boosting the overclocked performance significantly. For example, according to the manufacturer, the apply of liquid nitrogen should enable Trinity processors to accomplish frequency as high as vi.5 GHz, but there is evidence that AMD A10-5800K has already conquered vii.3 GHz speed.

Decision

Back in the days we were non very optimistic about AMD'southward attempt to push their first hybrid Llano processors into the desktop segment. Of class, they were unique and interesting in their own fashion, simply mostly in theoretical perspective. In reality, it was fairly difficult to picture what blazon of desktop systems they could dominate.

However, Trinity is a completely different story. Their graphics performance is not just high according to the contemporary integrated solutions' standards: they let running 3D games in FullHD resolution! And it is a true qualitative leap frontward making Trinity a worthy choice for an entry-level gaming organization. The x86 performance of Trinity'due south computational cores is also quite decent, as we have but seen. The summit members of this new family are most as fast as Intel Core i3 CPUs. In other words, they will offer sufficient speed for contemporary general purpose systems.

Summing up these ii aspects we see that Socket FM2 platform and Trinity processors take a adept chance of taking over a proficient share of the dwelling systems. Of course, hardcore enthusiasts and dedicated gaming fans will inappreciably fall in love with this product, but the boilerplate mainstream users who savor occasional gaming, surf the Web, work with some multimedia content and mayhap some relatively simple specific applications may observe Trinity an excellent product for their needs. In this case, Socket FM2 platform will not only save you lot some money, but volition allow building a meaty, quiet and energy-efficient system (including SFF or HTPC). However, to make this possible AMD shouldn't limit the supplies of their processors with 65 W TDP, as they did with Llano for some reason, and the mainboard makers should come up with a variety of miniature mainboards with an attractive toll tag.

At the same fourth dimension, it is of import to go along in listen that according to our tests, Trinity processors are only attractive while there is no detached graphics card in the flick. The thing is that x86 Piledriver cores are still not that fast in games compared with the competitors. And while it is not very important when the integrated graphics core is involved, because the gaming performance is in this case limited by the 3D graphics accelerator and doesn't hit the clogging of the calculating resource, and then with faster external graphics this disappointing upshot may surface pretty speedily.

Equally for the idea of heterogeneous calculations implemented in the hybrid AMD processors, we dubiousness that it will assistance Trinity's market success. Overall, the software eco-system is not quite gear up yet for calculations dispatch via OpenCL or Direct Compute. We cannot deny, in that location is some progress in this direction. For instance, WinZIP archiving utility is now able to use the graphics core resources, Photoshop CS6 and GIMP have a few corresponding filters, and there are a few utilities for image and video processing (such every bit Musemage or vReveal). However, it is withal too early to take the whole APU ideology for a new standard. Most resource-hungry applications, which nosotros work with on everyday basis, continue to utilise primarily the x86 cores. Also, AMD hasn't yet come up with a solution that would allow using the GPU resources if there is a discrete graphics carte du jour installed into the arrangement, and tertiary-party technologies, such equally LucidLogix Virtu MVP, are non that easy to work with and tin't boast neither stability nor flexibility.

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Source: https://www.xbitlabs.com/socket-fm2-platform-and-amd-a10-5800k-processor-review/

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