The New Trinity CPUs

[ssjwizard]

The APU platform is a reasonable one to be sure. My wife gamed on an A8-3870K + 6670 in AMD Dual Graphics for over a year. Played anything we threw at it, some games it could even max out. I almost made the jump to FM2 and considering the whole line of chips coming in the next 2 years I kinda wish I had, but whos gonna turn down an effectively free 2500K?

Trinity is based on the same cores in Vishera but lacks the upper level cache. That means its a little slower than the equivalent FX counter part, but not by much.

If your on a budget, or not a picky gamer then the FM2 APUs are a great option.

 

[RGone]

but whos gonna turn down an effectively free 2500K? = Nobody for sure. A real good 2500K can do all the gaming the APU might not do so well. For sure.
RGone...

 

[Tithulta]

I'm looking into building my daughter a new PC as hers is long overdue being replaced. It's my old socketA...yes its still running and even played WoW until the MoP release, now its a slideshow.
Anyway the lowend FM2 APU is what im concidering, seen a roadmap somewhere that says they'll be releasing some rebranded APU's later this year. The roll out of the new architecture with HD8000 gpu is being delayed til 4th qrt. The way I see it i get the cheap entry using the lowerend A4 and see what speeds look like this summer/Fall for an easy upgrade. If im not happy with it's performance I can add a discrete card to boost it up to acceptable. Anyone know if you have to use the recommended card? it says to use the HD6450 with the A4 APU vs the HD6670 with the A10 APU.

 

[Jezus53]

I'm looking into building my daughter a new PC as hers is long overdue being replaced. It's my old socketA...yes its still running and even played WoW until the MoP release, now its a slideshow.
Anyway the lowend FM2 APU is what im concidering, seen a roadmap somewhere that says they'll be releasing some rebranded APU's later this year. The roll out of the new architecture with HD8000 gpu is being delayed til 4th qrt. The way I see it i get the cheap entry using the lowerend A4 and see what speeds look like this summer/Fall for an easy upgrade. If im not happy with it's performance I can add a discrete card to boost it up to acceptable. Anyone know if you have to use the recommended card? it says to use the HD6450 with the A4 APU vs the HD6670 with the A10 APU.

I believe that recommendation is just for hybrid crossfire to work. If it's not on the list then it just does discrete only.

 

[ssjwizard]

The suggested is where you will get the best scaling, but anything from a 6450 up to a 6670 will work. The 6670 is substantially faster than the iGPU on the low end A4 APUs, and wont get as good of scaling as the lower end card would, but it will still work. However, if your considering that the iGPU on the low end might not be fast enough it is probably cheaper aiming for the A6 or A8 APU to start off with.

 

[azanimefan]

A4-5300 - $55 - performance ~ 58% -$20 savings over mean
A6-5400k - $75 - performance ~ 62% -$8 savings over mean
A8-5600k - $105 - performance ~ 95% -$17 savings over mean
A10-5800k - $130 - performance ~ 100%

The two best Trinity chips on a dollar/performance basis are clearly the A8-5600k and the A4-5300. Both are over performers for their price... with the A8 clearly within 5% of the A10 in most benchmarks... and being 80% of the price... there is a great value there. On the low end of things the A4 also outperforms it's price... at it's performance it should really be sold near the A6's price point. That said there is a significant dropoff in performance compared to the A10/A8.

 

[Steve-50a]

An A10 can be had for $119 when on sale at the egg + free shipping..... even at $130 the A10 is an unlocked chip & will run at 4.2 all day with no work at all. Add a 6670 for less than $100 gddr5 less than $80 gddr3 & you have a mid range gamer. So for the price of a I5 you're in the door.

The A8 is a nice chip & worth the entry level price, But.... You may have buyers remorse

More interesting are the feature rich motherboards available for the FM2 & they're inexpensive. A $600 budget will buy a lot of future, great PSU, SSD & a real nice case.... I still have a Lian Li I bought in 1998......

 

[TeknoBug]

Yeah I used a Lenovo A10 4600M laptop not long ago, way nicer than my Toshiba which has an AMD P360 2.4GHz which only lasts barely 2 hours on battery.

 

[azanimefan]

Yeah I used a Lenovo A10 4600M laptop not long ago, way nicer than my Toshiba which has an AMD P360 2.4GHz which only lasts barely 2 hours on battery.

yeah.. my buddy's new a10 laptop is insane. i can't get over all he's able to do without it plugged in. yesterday i found him playing a video game (on ultra high graphics) while streaming music... said he'd been playing for 4 hours without a plug. his battery was at like 59% charge. I mean think about that.

He's basically playing a state of the art (copyright 2012) graphic intensive game with no stuttering (it was smooth as silk) on a USB ps2 style controller, while using his wifi to stream music off the net, and apparently was dl'ing skyrim off the net at the same time... all on an a10 $680 laptop... and ended up going for like 8+ hours before the pc warned him he was at like 10% battery life. Whats hilarious is the laptop's own battery monitoring software actually massively underestimates the length of time the battery will last.

At full charge it claims it will go like 4-5 hours... Since this model of laptop also comes in an i7 model i think their software is based on the intel chip (reviews of the intel version claim it lasts 4-5 hours or so on battery)... cause the AMD really stretched far past those numbers with ease. Very energy efficient.

Really blew my mind all over again. Especially since i've seen the i7 mobile CPUs... they can't do what his was doing without a mobile GPU (intel hd 4000 is not up to par)... which further kills the battery life of a laptop.

An A10 can be had for $119 when on sale at the egg + free shipping..... even at $130 the A10 is an unlocked chip & will run at 4.2 all day with no work at all. Add a 6670 for less than $100 gddr5 less than $80 gddr3 & you have a mid range gamer. So for the price of a I5 you're in the door.

The A8 is a nice chip & worth the entry level price, But.... You may have buyers remorse

More interesting are the feature rich motherboards available for the FM2 & they're inexpensive. A $600 budget will buy a lot of future, great PSU, SSD & a real nice case.... I still have a Lian Li I bought in 1998......

Yeah... i'd rather go with the a10 if it was me. it's just the guy i was responding to was talking about getting a "place holder" chip for a system which down the road he'd upgrade.

When taking that into consideration, i figured it would be best to give him a little advice on the best deals per performance. That said, i wouldn't go lower then the A8-5600k when getting a trinity. The cpu/gpu droppoff is far too great on the a6 or a4

 

[robert98374]

So right now im trying to figure out how with this processor and this mobo how i am able to connect 3 monitors?

 

[azanimefan]

looks like it has plugs for

1 - HDMI
1 - Display Port
1 - VGA/D-sub
1 - DVI

since it's a A85X chipset that means it will support 4 monitors. there are 4 plugs. you're good to go.

 

[robert98374]

so i would need to hook a monitor up to the different ports? There isnt a special splitter that i could use?

 

[Steve-50a]

azanimefan, you're absolutely right. AND, I've seen the 5600 for as little as $99-

Robert, If you use a splitter - you see the same thing on both monitors. There's hydra vision http://support.amd.com/us/gpudownload/Pages/hydravision.aspx - it allows for more desktops on the same monitor.
For dual & triple monitors I would get a 6670, any flavor memory, so when you are using a single it can be in xfire w/IGP. Look for a refurb, open box, clearance, they can be had for cheap & give you some flexibility. The Extreme 6 is very nice, I have one on http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811112287 with http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827136250 to watch 3d movies on a 3d tv - I call it the "Man Ray" after 1 of my favorite artists. I can watch a movie & have email or weather on 1 of our small monitors - or set up 1 tv & 2 24" monitors for a presentation.

 

[azanimefan]

so i would need to hook a monitor up to the different ports? There isnt a special splitter that i could use?

as the fellow directly above this post said... a splitter would simply mymic what you see on 2 screens.

A better option would be to use one of the MANY video adapter cables that are available for like $5 apiece to change the output to a format your monitors can accept.

believe me, there is an adapter for every format.

and yes. you need to plug each monitor into a separate port if you don't want to simply show the same media on all 3.

 

[Steve-50a]

^^^^
Yup! I have a box full of antique stuff that I keep just for that "someday I'll need it".

 

[robert98374]

as the fellow directly above this post said... a splitter would simply mymic what you see on 2 screens.

A better option would be to use one of the MANY video adapter cables that are available for like $5 apiece to change the output to a format your monitors can accept.

believe me, there is an adapter for every format.

and yes. you need to plug each monitor into a separate port if you don't want to simply show the same media on all 3.

I wish they would of said how they set it all up on this video

I cant wait to get it all hooked up on wednesday, I already told my wife im going to lock myself in the office and build both the computers

 

[Steve-50a]

What kind of monitors do you have?

 

[C7C]

^^^^
Yup! I have a box full of antique stuff that I keep just for that "someday I'll need it".

LOL, you mean a WTF box? A box we save all the bits, extras, and "this part is good, keep it and toss out the rest". When you try to pull one thing out, you get 3+ items that tag along. During that time, you think or say "WTF?"...

I am building a A10-5800K build. I got the case yesterday and I am waiting for the rest of it today. What sucks about this is I have to work the midnight shift tonight. So I will not be able to enjoy it till tomorrow.

This is my build:
AMD A10-5800K
MSI FM2-A75MA-E35
2x 4GB Kingston HyperX Beast 2400mhz
ARCTIC Freezer 7 Pro Rev.2
CORSAIR Builder Series CX430
Case
Win 7 OEM
3 extra fans for flare and cooling
recycling my old drives (HD and optical)

My decisions were based off of NewEgg reviews, and personal experience I read from this forum and another popular one.

The total cost is $519.88 before shipping and processing. All from NewEgg.

I am looking forward to this build. Will let you know how it works out.

Something else to consider about these rigs... do you really need 1080 res? If you want better performance, try 720, or non HD. Higher the res the more it needs to perform.

The first time I read anything about Trinity, my first tech thought was 17" ISP gaming tablet. The second was... Raids on laptop even if power goes out. Its performance/power consumption is amazing. Even if you OC it.

 

[Steve-50a]

Looks GOOD!
A $600- budget goes a long way with this platform.
You'll get 1080p with what you have, I think you may be in for a pleasant surprise.
Yup! A "WTF box, you just never know when you need an IDE cable... or 2...

 

[C7C]

Looks GOOD!
A $600- budget goes a long way with this platform.
You'll get 1080p with what you have, I think you may be in for a pleasant surprise.
Yup! A "WTF box, you just never know when you need an IDE cable... or 2...

For me, I really dont need 1080. 720 is fine, and I am happy I found these 2400 for the price.