Slashdot Mirror
AMD Trinity APUs Stack Up Well To Intel's Core 3
Barence writes "AMD's APUs combine processor and graphics core in the same chip. Its latest Trinity chips are more powerful than ever, thanks to current-generation Radeon graphics and the same processing cores as AMD's full-fat FX processors. They're designed to take down Intel's Core i3 chips, and the first application and gaming benchmarks are out. With a slight improvement in applications and much more so in games, they're a genuine alternative to the Core i3."
MojoKid writes with Hot Hardware's review, which also says the new AMD systems "[look] solid in gaming and multimedia benchmarks, writing "the CPU cores clock in at 3.8GHz / 4.2GHz for the A10-5800K and 3.6GHz / 3.9GHz for A8-5600K, taking into account base and maximum turbo speeds, while the graphics cores scale up to 800MHz for the top A10 chip."
You know you can just not use it right?
Why bother looking for a chip without it?
Heck, these days it is even usable and has good open drivers.
Or, more accurately, AMD's integrated video is better than Intel's integrated video (seriously, that's all they tested!).
And these AMD chips still double the system power consumption over their Intel counterparts.
So if you're part of the subset of gamers that morally object to dedicated video cards but still enjoy noisy fans and high electricity bills, AMD has a product just for you! Woo!
How can I believe you when you tell me what I don't want to hear?
Ironic statement, since the main selling point of the chip being reviewed here is its integrated graphics.
Which I find just silly really. These are fine chips to build a PC for your little cousin who surfs the web and maybe plays world of warcraft. for any real build, integrated graphics, for all their advancements, still read like:
Intel: "Our new HD4000 graphics are nearly as fast as a mainstream card from 8 years ago!"
AMD: "HAH, our new chip's graphics cores are as fast as a mainstream card from 6 years ago! we're two years of obsolecense better!"
even a $100 modern dedicated card will whallop either of these chips solutions.
You are actually bitching about less power than a light bulb used to use?
At worst case it looks like ~60 watts on the two higher end units. How low power is the monitor if that constitutes doubling the power? I am betting total system in this little test ignores the monitor.
Oh noes tens of dollars more per year in electricity! The HORRORS! How ever will I afford such an extravagance that costs per year almost what two drinks at the bar costs.
If they are within 100watts I would call it a wash and be far more interested in computing power per $ upfront cost. AMD has traditionally done very well in that test and only started failing it very recently.
I gave up on ATI's drivers too and bought a new laptop with an nVidia card. The state of the drivers is so pathetic that the laptop will not even boot nine times out of ten unless I disable the discrete card and use the integrated Intel GPU because otherwise the Optimus screws everything up. I will take occasionally buggy ATI over completely non-functional nVidia next time.
Go green: turn off your refrigerator.
Does it really degrade performance? I've had motherboards with intel graphics, and I just plug an ATI/NVidia video card into them, install the drivers and it seems to work. Then if the video card fails (which does happen) I have the intel graphics to fall back on - so I can still use the PC for normal desktop stuff even if I can't play games that require higher graphics performance.
Because its adding heat for a part you're not using
Personally I doubt a graphics core that is turned off draws any significant power, particually compared to the massive gulf in performance per watt between intel and AMD at the moment. You could buy a xeon chip where the graphics core is lasered off rather than merely disabling it in software but I doubt it's worth the extra cost to do so.
and sucking up die space?
Meh, what does that matter to me as the user. Yes a slightly smaller die is perhaps a little cheaper to make but we all know price is only loosely tied to cost anyway and it's not like a smaller die means a smaller total area taken up by the processor. The package and heatsink already many times bigger than the die.
note: i'm known as plugwash most places but i screwd up registering that here somehow in the past and now can't register