AMD Trinity Cheap Desktop Gaming
Last Thursday, AMD lifted the NDA covering their Trinity desktop APUs... sort of. Review sites were allowed to discuss GPU performance of the chips but werent allowed to disclose much of anything else. Today the curtain gets pulled back fully.
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| Source: AnandTech |
For the uninitiated, an accelerated processing unit (APU) is "a processing system that includes additional processing capability designed to accelerate one or more types of computations outside of a CPU" (Wikipedia). Basically, both AMD and Intel are taking the approach of throwing GPU cores onto their mobile and desktop CPUs. In general, Intel has the edge when it comes to processing power while AMD maintains a pretty sizable lead in the graphics department.
Here are some of the more interesting previews that were released last week covering GPU performance:
- AnandTech: AMD A10-5800K & A8-5600K Review: Trinity on the Desktop, Part 1
- Toms Hardware: AMD Desktop Trinity Update: Now With Core i3 And A8-3870K
- Toms Hardware: Gaming At 1920x1080: AMDs Trinity Takes On Intel HD Graphics
- guru3D: AMD A10 5800K Trinity APU preview
To round things out, here are follow-up reviews posted today by the same sites:
- AnandTech: AMD A10-5800K & A8-5600K Review: Trinity on the Desktop, Part 2
- Toms Hardware: AMDs Trinity APU Efficiency: Undervolted And Overclocked
- guru3D: AMD A10 5800K review
Desktop APUs are a decidedly budget part and the low-end market has traditionally been square in AMDs wheelhouse. Looking through the reviews, it seems like the A10-5800K holds its own in most games (at reduced settings) at 1920x1080. The major exceptions to this statement are Metro 2033, The Witcher 2, Crysis 2, and Battlefield 3, though it looks like those would be playable at lower resolutions. While youre not going to be able to play much of anything released in the last 2-3 years without reducing settings in some way, its pretty amazing that a combined CPU/GPU budget of $125 doesnt really lock you out of anything.
Gaming on the Cheap
To investigate further I threw together a few theoretical builds. Everything below links to Newegg for simplicitys sake, though its always a good idea to shop around.
| AMD APU Build | ||
| CPU | AMD A10-5800K Trinity 3.8GHz Quad-Core APU | $130 |
| Motherboard | ASRock FM2A75M-DGS Micro ATX FM2 | $60 |
| RAM | Patriot IEM 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 | ($31) |
| HDD | Seagate Barracuda 500GB 3.5" 7200RPM | $75 |
| GPU | (integrated) | -- |
| Power Supply | Corsair Builder CX430 V2 | ($35) |
| Optical | Lite-On iHAS124-04 DVD/CD Writer | $18 |
| TOTAL | $349 | |
Note that a couple of items include mail-in rebates, denoted by parentheses around the price.
For comparisons sake, heres a budget Intel build:
| Intel CPU+GPU Build | ||
| CPU | Intel Core i3-3220 3.3GHz Dual-Core CPU | $130 |
| Motherboard | ASRock B75M-DGS Micro ATX LGA1155 | $55 |
| RAM | Patriot IEM 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 | ($31) |
| HDD | Seagate Barracuda 500GB 3.5" 7200RPM | $75 |
| GPU | XFX Radeon HD 6570 1GB | ($45) |
| Power Supply | Corsair Builder CX430 V2 | ($35) |
| Optical | Lite-On iHAS124-04 DVD/CD Writer | $18 |
| TOTAL | $389 | |
And finally to round things out, heres another AMD build using an FX-6100 and a discrete GPU:
| AMD CPU+GPU Build | ||
| CPU | AMD FX-6100 Zambezi 3.3GHz Six-Core CPU | $120 |
| Motherboard | ASRock 960GM/U3S3 FX AM3+ Micro ATX | $55 |
| RAM | Patriot IEM 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 | ($31) |
| HDD | Seagate Barracuda 500GB 3.5" 7200RPM | $75 |
| GPU | XFX Radeon HD 6570 1GB | ($45) |
| Power Supply | Corsair Builder CX430 V2 | ($35) |
| Optical | Lite-On iHAS124-04 DVD/CD Writer | $18 |
| TOTAL | $379 | |
Looking through part one of the AnandTech review, it seemed like gaming performance of the A10-5800K was in line with the HD 5570 or GT 440 discrete cards depending on the game being tested. Radeon 5000-series cards are disappearing rapidly at this point, so I substituted an HD 6570 instead.
I used the same RAM, HDD, PSU, and DVD drive in each build to eliminate variations based on those parts. Rather than go with a bottom-of-the-barrel $45 motherboard, in each case I picked a middle-of-the-road AsRock board for around 60 bucks. This isnt meant to be a seminar on choosing the correct parts and/or correct vendors for your next PC build, so keep in mind that these builds are meant to serve as discussion-starters.
Examining the Budget Builds
AnandTech basically hit the nail on the head in their conclusion:
As I mentioned earlier, Trinitys CPU performance puts the buying decision squarely in the tradeoff evaluation zone. Once again what matters the most is how important Trinitys GPU is to you. AMD holds a clear advantage there if youre going to use it, otherwise the decision is heavily weighted towards Intel. Intel holds a power consumption advantage and a clear single threaded performance advantage, while there are some specific workloads that will do better on Trinity (e.g. AES-NI accelerated apps, heavily threaded integer applications).
The main difference between the three builds posted above is the combined total spent on CPU and GPU components. AMDs APUs give you a pretty solid package deal for 130 bucks or less, while a traditional build is going to require a $50 discrete card on top of the $120-130 CPU to be able to keep up.
With that being said, the scales tip in favor of a traditional setup once you increase your graphics budget beyond 50 bucks. Browsing through the listings on Neweggs page I was able to find an HD 6670 for $50 after rebate, an HD 6750 for 80 bucks, and an HD 7750 for $95 after rebate. Each of those cards should provide superior performance from a gaming standpoint when compared to an APU.
For the extremely price-conscious, a system based around a Trinity APU is going to offer significant bang for your buck. While the system I picked above uses the top-of-the-line A10-5800K, its possible to go even cheaper at the cost of GPU performance and CPU clock speed. With a base cost in the $300-350 range youve got room to add a cheap case, a copy of Windows, and maybe even a keyboard and mouse for around $500 total.
Thats not too far off from the cost of entry at the beginning of a console generation. Once you consider the higher price of console games (and lack of Steam sales), the presence of services like Xbox Live and the additional fees they require, and the lack of upgrade paths with traditional consoles, a cheap APU-based system starts to look pretty good. If hard drive prices ever come back down to their pre-flood levels, it might be possible to build a complete A10-5800K system (sans monitor) for around $450 with some savvy shopping.
While AMD might be falling behind in the desktop CPU arms race with Intel, the future looks pretty bright on the APU front. For entry-level, cheap, low power gaming or a solid little HTPC, AMDs Trinity looks like a great option. For enthusiast, high-end gaming or applications that require serious power, stick with Intel.
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