Thursday, March 22nd 2012
AMD A10-5800K "Trinity" APU Tested
Later this year, AMD will unveil its second-generation accelerated processing units (APUs) in the FM2 package, based on its brand-new "Piledriver" CPU and "Graphics CoreNext" GPU architectures. Among these, the part that is designed keeping overclockers in mind is the A10-5800K, which features an unlocked base clock multiplier, four x86-64 cores, 3.80 GHz (nominal) and 4.20 GHz Turbo Core clock speed, and AMD Radeon HD 7660D graphics. Find out more about the lineup here.
INPAI got its hands on an A10-5800K APU, and supporting socket FM2 motherboard, and wasted no time in comparing it to the current-generation A8-3850. INPAI put the two chips through SuperPi 1M, to measure single-thread performance, and 3DMark 06, to measure embedded-GPU performance. In SuperPi, A10-5800K crunched SuperPi 1M in 23.775 s, the A8-3850 did the same in 26.039 s. With 3DMark 06, the A10-5800K scored 9396 points, while the A8-3850 scored 6223. The inference that can be drawn out of this little test is that Trinity has significantly faster graphics, not so much CPU (taking into account A10-5800K cores were clocked over 30% higher than those of the A8-3850).
Source:
INPAI
INPAI got its hands on an A10-5800K APU, and supporting socket FM2 motherboard, and wasted no time in comparing it to the current-generation A8-3850. INPAI put the two chips through SuperPi 1M, to measure single-thread performance, and 3DMark 06, to measure embedded-GPU performance. In SuperPi, A10-5800K crunched SuperPi 1M in 23.775 s, the A8-3850 did the same in 26.039 s. With 3DMark 06, the A10-5800K scored 9396 points, while the A8-3850 scored 6223. The inference that can be drawn out of this little test is that Trinity has significantly faster graphics, not so much CPU (taking into account A10-5800K cores were clocked over 30% higher than those of the A8-3850).
75 Comments on AMD A10-5800K "Trinity" APU Tested
AMD did state a 30% CPU performance improvement with Trinities Piledriver cores versus current LIano. The GPU should offer about 50% to 60% says AMD.
As to your suggestion, here's my competition: that 32 bit system actually has only 2GB of RAM. 3Dmark sees 2GB, SupertPI sees 2GB... it's not hard to figure Trinity ran on 2GB of RAM.
Oh, and UMA can't be larger than 512MB. The BIOS/UEFI doesn't allow it and by default it takes up 256MB or 512MB if large amounts of RAM is detected. So... no, it can't share 1,5GB for video.
On the 64 bit system... SuperPI isn't able to detect the amount of RAM, mainly because the variable that stores that value is of int(32) type and its max value unsigned is 4,29 bln, when it needed a double to store the value of 8 bln bytes, the amount of RAM the Llano system has. It has nothing to do with actual type of app, even if it's 32-bit, it still relies on the os core functions to get those values.
Edit: Here, this is what I mean. Keep in mind my 6870s have only 1gb of on-board video memory and before someone says that is how much system memory that is available, I had 16Gb with something like 13gb or 12gb free. The same thing happened when I only had 8gb on my last build.
Also, if this is real, it's pre-production silicon and therefore is unlikely to perform as well as what we'll see in retail. Umm... if it is GCN, then this; en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_Islands_(GPU_family)
"Support for x86 addressing with unified address space for CPU and GPU"
www.anandtech.com/show/4455/amds-graphics-core-next-preview-amd-architects-for-compute/6
"In terms of base features the biggest change will be that GCN will implement the underlying features necessary to support C++ and other advanced languages. As a result GCN will be adding support for pointers, virtual functions, exception support, and even recursion. These underlying features mean that developers will not need to “step down” from higher languages to C to write code for the GPU, allowing them to more easily program for the GPU and CPU within the same application. For end-users the benefit won’t be immediate, but eventually it will allow for more complex and useful programs to be GPU accelerated."
Anyway, by the looks of it, it's 3GB vs 8GB of TOTAL system RAM. I don't know if 3DMark would be affected by it, it's still a lot of RAM for just one benchmark application and it still has 512 MB of exclusive RAM for video. What I was thinking since I first saw the specs pop up in the wild... imagine if consoles will use GCN. It will allow devs to code better engines for all platforms and get rid of the "it's a cosnole port" stench.
Who are you to decide what a "normal IPC" is?
I think this is really sweet! Really! AMD has one kickass APU! Fantastic job AMD! :rockout:
Then too... wondering whether it is VLIW4 as originally said or GCN as it would appear to be now with the "384 radeon cores" statement which would suggest GCN, especially given the A8-3850 has 400 VLIW5 shader units.
Also I wonder how it overclocks as given it's 15% more energy efficient than Llano it would appear.
Also, look at Southern Islands, specifically Cape Verde- the 7750 has 512 cores. 384 is exactly 75% of 512, and they're clocked at 800mhz, the same as the cores in the 7750. Not to mention the similarity in the memory data rate - using the 2133mhz memory controller the memory bandwidth would be the same between the two graphics processors. And given that it would easily xfire with the 7750.
Also remember Trinity was originally slated for q1 2012 release - it's been pushed back, and not for manufacturing issues. If I were to guess, AMD would push GCN for improved performance overall and push 'fusion' faster.
And yes fantastic APUs indeed.
I wish the IB 3DM 06 scores had been leaked in the other thread. That is not a fact but an assumption. Since they did not clock Llano and Trinity the same, it's impossible to tell if the IPC went up, down, or stayed the same......or as you put it achieved "normal IPC". What ever that means.
If it's GCN though you get to xfire it with a 7750. lol
If want to use the car analogy, it would be similar to adding another engine option to a car and say that is just as easy as moving the car to an entirely different facility for assembly one of which it was never designed to go down. It's possible, but would take a lot of engineering resources to accomplish.
I recently added a 5750 to my a8-3850. The difference is substantial.