News - AMD Trinity arriving with Core i5 performance at Core i3 costs

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AMD becomes competitive as stock prepares to land next week.

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i thought this was going to be a review when i saw the title :(

AMD is allowing certain publications to preview certain (favourable) facets of desktop Trinity performance. We will not indulge in a lopsided release which merely serves to show the processor in the best-possible light.

We will release the full review when the NDA actually lifts. You'll see it some time next week. :)

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Originally Posted by Biscuit

i thought this was going to be a review when i saw the title :(

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Just read the same article on engadget, they went for "AMD Trinity desktop chips due next week, promise Core i5-matching power at Core i3 price" Which I think is a better assessment of where we stand in a sentence.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/6332/a...-review-part-1

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Originally Posted by Tarinder

AMD is allowing certain publications to preview certain (favourable) facets of desktop Trinity performance. We will not indulge in a lopsided release which merely serves to show the processor in the best-possible light.

We will release the full review when the NDA actually lifts. You'll see it some time next week. :)

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Good to hear that thanks Tarinader :hexlub:

Are you going to compare the A10 against the IB and SB Core i3 CPUs?? It would be nice to know how an overclocked A10 would perform!!

Considering graphics and compute loads we'd like to achieve on these APUs I was rather hoping for a quad lane memory controller. Any news on that as this attached graph seems to suggest there's only going to be two channel SKUs?

Trinity will be a dual channel memory controller, I don't think that's ever been in question. And as AMD have committed to the same socket for the next generation, that will also have a dual channel memory controller. Most testing (outside of IGP) demonstrates minimal performance benefit beyond 2 memory channels, and on a mainstream platform the extra expense of using (and filling) 4 ram slots instead of 2 (not to mention the amount of reengineering and additional silicon they would have had to dedicate during R&D) just isn't worth the performance gains. Dont' forget that the low end Trinitys will be targetting sub-£300 integrator boxes, and there's no way you can make a motherboard targeting that segment with 4 RAM channels...

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Originally Posted by Willzzz

http://www.anandtech.com/show/6332/a...-review-part-1

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Anadtech have all the exclusive fun.

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Originally Posted by scaryjim

Trinity will be a dual channel memory controller, I don't think that's ever been in question. And as AMD have committed to the same socket for the next generation, that will also have a dual channel memory controller. Most testing (outside of IGP) demonstrates minimal performance benefit beyond 2 memory channels, and on a mainstream platform the extra expense of using (and filling) 4 ram slots instead of 2 (not to mention the amount of reengineering and additional silicon they would have had to dedicate during R&D) just isn't worth the performance gains. Dont' forget that the low end Trinitys will be targetting sub-£300 integrator boxes, and there's no way you can make a motherboard targeting that segment with 4 RAM channels...

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I would still find it useful if it had quad channel controller (not just simple 4 DIMM 2-channel configuration) even if these are targeted at low to mid range at best. I'm on the lookout for a new home server config that would be tasked with DNLA streaming (live re-encoding), storage configured in some form of RAID (probably 5 or 10), dual video output, audio & video re-encoding tasks in the background, torrent client, and possibly a personal web server running pre-compiled CGIs. Most of the time it would be running at least two CPU/direct compute intensive but low priority tasks and would still like some responsiveness for other high priority tasks (like web server and streaming). Having quad channel memory controller and mobo populated with four DIMMs would, I'm quite sure, make a substantial difference. Obviously, I could move some of these tasks mentioned around on other boxes, but that would limit their general responsiveness as well and would rather have them idling most of the time than constantly re-schedule background tasks. I like these new APUs for their simplicity, DC capabilities and power usage though, so I might just as well invest in two new boxes, one as HS & NAS, and the other one as a streaming server, but was hoping I could combine all this in a single box. Oh well...

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Originally Posted by howdee

I would still find it useful if it had quad channel controller

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I'm sure you would, but would you pay the extra £100 for the platform? Do you think Joe Bloggs would be willing to pay £100 extra for his computer when all he wants to do is watching youtube videos and send email? 'Cause that's what AMD have to consider: how much will people reasonably pay for the computer that meets their needs?

Don't underestimate the complexity of adding those extra channels to the controller and motherboards: look how much Intel's X58/X79 platforms cost compared to their simpler dual-channel alternatives. Trinity is a simple personal computer platform. As much as you describe your requirements as a home server, they're not - they're very specialised and if that's what you want to do you should buy a server platform and/or dedicated compute cards. Expecting a consumer platform to deal with server workloads is a little naive ;) I think you'll get what you're after with the move to DDR4 a couple of years down the line: in the meantime, you could always invest in a proper workstation or server platform, which is what your usage pattern would require.

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Originally Posted by MadduckUK

Just read the same article on engadget, they went for "AMD Trinity desktop chips due next week, promise Core i5-matching power at Core i3 price" Which I think is a better assessment of where we stand in a sentence.

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Absolutely - the article title *states* that Trinity has i5 performance at i3 cost as if it is a fact when actually it is what AMD's marketing is pushing without independent verification yet.

Tarinder, you say, "We will not indulge in a lopsided release which merely serves to show the processor in the best-possible light" although, for the aforementioned reasons, I think your article headline contradicts this.

I really hope it competes with the i5 2500. I'm planning a build for sometime around the new year and was planning on an i5 2500. But if this one is close and cheaper, I'll go with it.

I think AMD CPUs are much more ideal for low end laptops, because they offer good performance and also give you semi decent graphics performance allowing you to play a few games if you wish, im looking for a laptop and if i can get a £300 laptop with even the lowest of these AMDs i would be happy because i know id be able to play the majority of my steam collection with a decent frame rate

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Originally Posted by scaryjim

Expecting a consumer platform to deal with server workloads is a little naive ;) I think you'll get what you're after with the move to DDR4 a couple of years down the line: in the meantime, you could always invest in a proper workstation or server platform, which is what your usage pattern would require.

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Sorry if I wasn't clear enough ;) Nothing of what I listed would be considered "enterprise class". I do have other servers for that and they're work related (meaning, I don't mix pleasure with work, not if I can help it). I was talking about home server tasks like networked storage and media playback/streaming (and similar) on top of media re-encoding that I wouldn't mind for most how long they'd take as long as it eventually finishes without crashing and doesn't completely choke other "user activities" (like watching a movie, listening to music,... such "demanding" things). Having a few memory bandwidth intensive tasks running in the background can be a non-issue provided there's plenty of bandwidth to go around and tasks are prioritized properly (I can do that, it's easy enough). I would be perfectly happy with even slower performing CPU + GPU (or APU) actually as long as it can stream 1080p h.264 AVC while also doing other things "in the background". I'd just like my home "media box" to be capable enough but mainly silent. Silencing such boxes, as you'd know, is a lot easier (and cheaper) than silencing server racks and blade servers and whatnot specialized equipment you mentioned. Those that I have are almost as loud as an airplane taking off, but they're stationed in a separate room where I don't listen to my music or watch movies, so it doesn't really matter. Not to mention they cost north of 10x more than what I was describing. I wouldn't even put a single spare "enterprise class" hard drive in my "media box" even though I have a few gathering dust (cold spares LOL), as they're so loud it's near impossible to even form a coherent thought next to them let alone relax. The fact these new APUs come with decent enough (for what I described) integrated GPUs means I can ditch my current C2D+7770 config currently serving as a "media box" and still see most of its performance, all in a less power hungry and even more silent box, and donate the old box to some worthy cause, like my GF's facebook needs and alike LOL ;) Cheers!