AMD A10-5800k APU Processor Review

Recently we saw the release of the new FM2 socket and the trinity platform grace us and we took a look at A8-5600k APU which can be found here which we were impressed with due to its innovation and what it had to offer. With us being enthusiasts however, the one that we had in mind was of course the flagship, top-model A10 5800k as it offers better Radeon graphics as well as a slightly faster clock speed on both the GPU and CPU sides of the product. So with that in mind, we approached AMD about this APU and sure enough, we had one in the post and on its way to us. During the period of waiting for delivery, we also thought it would be a good idea to get hold of some more extreme motherboards to test the chip with and that's why over the next couple of weeks you'll see more and more A85X based boards being reviewed by myself. The latest one that you'll find is the ASRock FM2A85X Extreme 6 which ended up walking away with our bang for buck award when paired with the A10-5800k, so hopefully this is an indication as to what we already think of the platform as a whole. To give you a quick rundown on the A10-5800k specs, it's worth noting that it features HD 7660D graphics, has a TDP of 100W and includes 384 Radeon cores which are clocked to 800MHz. The CPU side of things includes 4 cores with a clock speed of 3.8GHz and turbo speed of 4.2GHz. Included is a total of 4MB cache, has support up to DDR3 1866MHz + overclocking and is fully unlocked for extreme overclocking. Now we don't want to ramble on about the technology to much as we did that in our A8-5600k review so instead we'd rather jump straight into the performance side of things to see where this processor falls within the market place, in terms of how it compares with the A8-5600k as well as its postition when looking at the older Llano platform. To test this board, we are able to run all of our tests at stock speeds using a predefined setup of hardware. We will also be overclocking the processor to its limits to see how the board compares against the stock speed. Test system: Gigabyte F2A85X-UP4 AMD A108-5800k Corsair Vengeance 1866MHz 16GB Corsair H80 Corsair HX1050 Kingston V+100 128GB SSD Lian Li T60 We would like to thank Asus, Corsair, Kingston and Lian Li for supplying us with our test system components. Many different software applications are also used to gain the broadest spectrum of results, which allows for the fairest testing possible. Software used: 3DMark 11 AIDA64 Cinebench R11.5 CPU-Z PCMark 7 SuperPI The first thing that we need to do before we get underway is to see how far the A10-5800k can be pushed in terms of overclockability and with this in mind, we slap it into our Gigabyte F2A85X-UP4 motherboard and proceed to enter the BIOS which we're very familiar with and love its ease of overclocking functions. We started by leaving the voltage at the safe level of 1.475V and immediately went in at the 44x multiplier and found a 100% stable boot and that all of our applications ran flawlessly so we knew that things had to be pushed up a little further. With us knowing that this board can handle a lot of power draw and can deliver that power cleanly to the CPU, we thought that we'd try our luck using the 46x multiplier and this allowed us to boot with no problems at all. We even managed to run Cinebench, Super PI and AIDA64 but both 3DMark11 and PCMark 7 showed signs of instability so we knew we'd have to try the 45x multiplier instead. Once we were at the 45x multiplier, we found that this booted and was just as stable as running at 4.4GHz, so we tried to increase the bus speed, but these range of APUs really don't seem to like that when you're already at an extreme level. We ended up settling on an overclock of 4.5GHz using a 45 x 100 scenario at 1.475V though CPU-Z still reads the voltages slightly wrong due to the new architecture. Though we know that this could have been pushed further, it would rely on having more advanced cooling and with the market these APU processors are aimed at, we wouldn't expect someone to run a processor like this with a £100 cooling solution like an all-in-one watercooled unit. Cinebench R11.5 CINEBENCH is a real-world cross platform test suite that evaluates your computer's performance capabilities. CINEBENCH is based on MAXON's award-winning animation software CINEMA 4D, which is used extensively by studios and production houses worldwide for 3D content creation. MAXON software has been used in blockbuster movies such as Spider-Man, Star Wars, The Chronicles of Narnia and many more. CINEBENCH is the perfect tool to compare CPU and graphics performance across various systems and platforms (Windows and Mac OS X). And best of all: It's completely free. As we can see in Cinebench, the 5800k is positioned exactly where it's aimed for above the other APU processors from FM1 and FM2 platforms barring the flagship FM1 3870k. The overclock helped to boost the CPU score to just under 4 and in reality isn't a million miles away from an i5 3570k but comes in with a much lower price point. We were hoping to see a slightly higher boost with the overclock however. Super PI Super PI is a computer program that calculates pi to a specified number of digits after the decimal point—up to a maximum of 32 million. It uses Gauss–Legendre algorithm and is a Windows port of the program used by Yasumasa Kanada in 1995 to compute pi to 232 digits. Super Pi showed the 3870k beating the A10-5800k again by quite a large margin this time of around 3 minutes in terms of calculation time and from our tests, we can also see that the A10-5800k competes with the FX Vishera series of CPUs quite closely. The overclock manages to shave off some time, but this only brings it inline with the previous socket FM1 3870k. 3DMark 11 3DMark 11 is the latest offering from Futuremark, taking full advantage of DirectX 11 by utilising tessellation features and volumetric lighting. It takes your graphics and CPU hardware to the edge to simulate the most extreme conditions whilst working as a stand point to compare results with other users online. Looking at gaming performance under 3D graphics, we can see that the 5800k has an edge over the competition due to its integrated GPU technology though the 5700 with the same onboard graphics actually performs better showing that maybe the 5700 might be the chip of choice for gamers? The overclock helped to boost things up slightly, but this was just overclocking the CPU side of things and the integrated GPU speed remained at stock speeds. AIDA64 AIDA64 Extreme Edition is a streamlined Windows diagnostic and benchmarking software for home users. AIDA64 Extreme Edition provides a wide range of features to assist in overclocking, hardware error diagnosis, stress testing, and sensor monitoring. It has unique capabilities to assess the performance of the processor, system memory, and disk drives. AIDA64 is compatible with all current 32-bit and 64-bit Microsoft Windows operating systems, including Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2. When looking at memory performance, we are quite surprised by the read and copy speeds which are a lot higher than we expected. The write speeds were quite a lot lower than what we expect but being used to Intel architecture, it comes as no surprise. With the type of market and range of users these processors are aimed at, memory latency and bandwidth isn't going to be a major priority and will most likely see the Trinty series of APUs being paired with 1600MHz memory maximum. PCMark 7 PCMark 7 provides a set of 7 suites for measuring different aspects of PC performance with a high degree of accuracy. Overall system performance is measured by the PCMark Suite. The Lightweight Suite measures the capabilities of entry level systems and mobility platforms unable to run the full PCMark suite. Common use performance is measured by the Entertainment, Creativity and Productivity scenario suites. Component performance is measured by the Computation and Storage hardware suites. The Storage suite is ideal for testing SSDs and external hard drives in addition to the system drive. Taking a look at overall system performance which is great for a product like this with integrated GPU, we can see the 5800k giving strong results in comparison to the FX-8150 Bulldozer with some close numbers. The overclock to 4.5GHz also boosted the score, close to that of the FX-8350 Piledriver CPU processor. Power Consumption To test power consumption, we monitor the overall power of the system through a plug-in electricity usage monitor at an idle and load state. This allows us to show the fluctuation between how much power draw the system takes at idle and at load. By monitoring the overall usage of the whole system, it gives an easy comparison if you wish to do the same yourself as opposed to buying very expensive individual testing equipment. Looking at the power draw, we can see that the 5800k does extremely well by outputting an amazingly low 50 watts at idle and even under 100 watts when fully loaded. Even when overclocked through use of extra voltages, the idle power draw was still low at 62 watts and a load wattage of 132 watts. Some great numbers here from AMD, and something that could really appeal to customers in the market for this type of product for a server or HTPC use. After taking a look at the A8-5600k, we were keen to see what its big brother, the flagship A10-5800k could do and in some ways I'm happy and in others quite disappointed, and that can really be split into two areas which I'll talk about one by one. The first has to be based around the GPU side of things. Technically we don't tend to focus much on the graphical power based around an integrated solution, hence us only showing 3DMark 11, and that's purely because our benchmarking suite revolves around some of the most intensive games and graphics around and truth be told; this type of product isn't aimed at that. If you want to do some light gaming, the chances are that you will buy a discrete card to run some dual graphics action with, but other than that, the GPU power is only really going to come into play when it comes to HD content and video playback. From the GPU side of things, I was really expecting something more in comparison but hopefully drivers can help to boost things further and with the addition of Windows 8 now being released, we may see some drastic changes in our operating systems that may harness more power from the integrated GPU solution. In terms of the raw compute power of the CPU side of things, it was good and we saw some nice strong numbers but the 3870k did put up a fight as well and it seems that if you are already running an existing Llano FM1 platform with a 3870k, then there may not be as many reasons to upgrade as to a customer who is buying new for the first time. We also tested the A10-5700 which while it's a locked processor, at stock it did keep up throughout most tests and in some instances; outperformed the 5800k but the flagship 5800k does have a lot more functionality when it comes to overclocking. In terms of overclocking while we're on the subject; we did see some good results, firstly by hitting 4.5GHz which is a nice jump from the stock speed with a reasonable voltage that should see anyone with a good, strong cooling solution not having to worry about temperatures to much. With the 4.5GHz overclock, we saw some nice boosts in performance, and that was without touching the GPU frequency, which could be reserved for a slightly different review maybe? While I was happy with the A10-5800k, we do have to remember that it's £16 more expensive than the A8-5600k and that could be better spent on upgrading your memory or putting towards a better quality power supply, especially if using this type of APU processor in a small home server, which is one of the many possible solutions for this type of product. Priced at around £90 to £95, it is good value for money and certainly is a step up from FM1 based APUs when you think about the whole package and what's on offer as it's not just all about speed and performance but also about the new architecture on offer and the lower power draw and with a world that is trying to reduce its carbon footprint, electricity is a big killer, not to mention that it will help you to save money. Overall, it's a good APU that offers a good investment for anyone looking to buy from new, but I still feel its lacking slightly when comparing like for like against FM1 but it's nice to see that the architecture has seen a boost and that AMD are constantly trying to improve all-round and that my friends, is innovation at its finest.