AMD offereing cashback

[LizardKing]

10-20 depending on cpu, ever little counts
https://www.amd-promotions.com/processors/uk/index.asp

Half tempted by a llano for a htpc upgrade

 

[humbug]

Wait for Trinity if your thinking of a HTPC, there better in every way than Llano.

£20 for the 8 core? that would make the FX-8120 £115. Thats really cheap.

Still not going to swap one for my Thuban.... even if i can get £140 for it on a famous auction site.

 

[Marine-RX179]

I have always been interested in the possibility of building a Mini-ITX PC specifically for playing mmo. Problem is while Llano got good enough graphic power for that, it's CPU IPC is too poor for mmos (particular lots of them don't use more than 2-3 cores). On Intel's side, while i5 3570K would deliver the grunt on CPU side, the graphic side on the HD4000 is still lacking.

From the looks of it, it's probably likely to see Intel eventually deliver graphic power good enough, than AMD able to deliver CPU with high enough IPC, considering Phenom II to Bulldozer was actually a step backward...

 

[Smoogels]

I have always been interested in the possibility of building a Mini-ITX PC specifically for playing mmo. Problem is while Llano got good enough graphic power for that, it's CPU IPC is too poor for mmos (particular lots of them don't use more than 2-3 cores). On Intel's side, while i5 3570K would deliver the grunt on CPU side, the graphic side on the HD4000 is still lacking.

From the looks of it, it's probably likely to see Intel eventually deliver graphic power good enough, than AMD able to deliver CPU with high enough IPC, considering Phenom II to Bulldozer was actually a step backward...

I play wow easily on the A8. There is a FPS drop with a lot of things going on but playable.

WoW is a old game and I am interested to see how it an handle Guild Wars 2, which should eat a little more power.

 

[Soundood]

Wait for Trinity if your thinking of a HTPC, there better in every way than Llano.

£20 for the 8 core? that would make the FX-8120 £115. Thats really cheap.

Still not going to swap one for my Thuban.... even if i can get £140 for it on a famous auction site.

totaly agree, really cheap now, but would still keep my 1100t @4 gig over it any day

 

[Marine-RX179]

I play wow easily on the A8. There is a FPS drop with a lot of things going on but playable.

WoW is a old game and I am interested to see how it an handle Guild Wars 2, which should eat a little more power.

Unfortunately my expectation is to be able to hold minimum frame rate of at least 40fps even in busy area, which the A8 won't be anywhere close to be able to deliver that. At the moment, my i5 2500K at 4.5GHz can hold 55fps+ even in busy area on the mmos I play, whereas on my E5200 at 3.75GHz would dip to as low as 20fps in the same area, and I don't expect the A8 would be able to do much better than that (particularly with the games using no more than 2 cores).

I'm not just after "playable", I want smooth gameplay.

 

[Smoogels]

Unfortunately my expectation is to be able to hold minimum frame rate of at least 40fps even in busy area, which the A8 won't be anywhere close to be able to deliver that. At the moment, my i5 2500K at 4.5GHz can hold 55fps+ even in busy area on the mmos I play, whereas on my E5200 at 3.75GHz would dip to as low as 20fps in the same area, and I don't expect the A8 would be able to do much better than that (particularly with the games using no more than 2 cores).

I'm not just after "playable", I want smooth gameplay.

The dip in major city's such as Stormwind brings my FPS to 30 on more or less high settings. I wouldn't expect it to do so well on ultra, but for the price it does very well (like £90).

 

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

It seems the A10-5800K seems to reasonably fine in WoW:

http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/a10-5800k-a8-5600k-a6-5400k,review-32463-16.html

The article also uses pre-released drivers too. The performance in lightly threaded applications like iTunes has improved by around 20% for the same TDP and power consumption figures as a Llano A8.

 

[humbug]

It seems the A10-5800K seems to reasonably fine in WoW:

http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/a10-5800k-a8-5600k-a6-5400k,review-32463-16.html

The article also uses pre-released drivers too. The performance in lightly threaded applications like iTunes has improved by around 20% for the same TDP and power consumption figures as a Llano A8.

Yes and the Clock for clock / core for core performance on the CPU is also up 15% from BD, http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/a10-5800k-a8-5600k-a6-5400k,review-32463-2.html


That puts the PD core with L3 (FX series) about 5% under Thenom II clock for clock and core for core, but again will be clocked about 30% higher with the same power use on the same TDP.

It actually looks promising.

 

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

If you look at the iTunes performance it is not too bad:

http://media.bestofmicro.com/E/N/341375/original/itunes.png

Here are the results for a Core i3 2100:

http://media.bestofmicro.com/5/W/274964/original/iTunes.png

It takes 76 seconds for the Core i3 2100 for the encode and 87 seconds for the A10-5800K. Also,it seems due to the early nature of the motherboards used in the preview,Turbo was not fully engaging it seems. So I suspect that with a retail motherboard performance will be better. AFAIK,iTunes uses only a single thread,and Vishera is not only meant to have L3 cache but further improvements to the Piledriver cores.

 

[humbug]

If you look at the iTunes performance it is not too bad:

http://media.bestofmicro.com/E/N/341375/original/itunes.png

Here are the results for a Core i3 2100:

http://media.bestofmicro.com/5/W/274964/original/iTunes.png

It takes 76 seconds for the Core i3 2100 for the encode and 87 seconds for the A10-5800K. Also,it seems due to the early nature of the motherboards used in the preview,Turbo was not fully engaging it seems. So I suspect that with a retail motherboard performance will be better. AFAIK,iTunes uses only a single thread,and Vishera is not only meant to have L3 cache but further improvements to the Piledriver cores.

Yup.... all though the 2600K @ 65s, is what they should be aiming at to get closer to, its still already an improvement on Phenom II, I think Vishera alone... and on a properly working MOBO will be even better.

PS: Vishera will have L3 just like Phenom II and Zambezi.

It will also have 4 Chanel DDR3, HT and up to 10 cores http://www.techpowerup.com/img/12-01-20/186a.jpg

 

[Marine-RX179]

Yes and the Clock for clock / core for core performance on the CPU is also up 15% from BD, http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/a10-5800k-a8-5600k-a6-5400k,review-32463-2.html


That puts the PD core with L3 (FX series) about 5% under Thenom II clock for clock and core for core, but again will be clocked about 30% higher with the same power use on the same TDP.

It actually looks promising.

So it would put it around Phenom II performance, which is still far away from SandyBridge. To be honest I would prefer that if they could deliver the same performance but over two cores rather than 4. That would at least put its CPU performance for gaming a bit closer toward the i3 2100...

What make i3 2100/2120 so good as a gaming CPU is that it can deliver same CPU performance for gaming as Core2Quad/Phenom II X4 at 3.7-4.0GHz over 2 cores rather than 4, so it's doesn't lose performance when game uses less than 4 cores. Extra cores is pointless if it offer less performance than a dual-core...IPC all the way!

 

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Yup.... all though the 2600K @ 65s, is what they should be aiming at to get closer to, its still already an improvement on Phenom II, I think Vishera alone... and on a properly working MOBO will be even better.

PS: Vishera will have L3 just like Phenom II and Zambezi.

It will also have 4 Chanel DDR3, HT and up to 10 cores http://www.techpowerup.com/img/12-01-20/186a.jpg

Looking at the single threaded performance of the A10-5800K,it does look like Vishera will have much better single threaded performance than Bulldozer based FX CPUs. IPC of Trinity has already gone up by 15% when compared to Bulldozer which has L3 cache according to Toms Hardware. So I expect you will see around a 20% to 25% improvement in IPC overall with Vishera.

On top of this is likely to be clockspeed bump too,meaning that a 25% to 30% increase in overall performance is not far off for the same TDP and power consumption.

Also,due to the improvements in Turbo Core brought in with Bulldozer,clockspeeds in lightly threaded situations will be higher overall than either the Bulldozer based FX CPUs or the Phenom II X4 and X6 IMHO.

As a Core i3 2100 owner myself,I do like the look of the A10-5800K TBH. I suspect lightly threaded performance will be slightly lower but with slightly greater multi-threaded performance. OTH,since it can be overclocked,I might consider picking one up after I upgraded my main rig. However,I might just look at a 65W TDP A10-5700 instead for an SFF rig which can run some games. I can use one cooling fan and a DC-DC PSU! Hopefully,one of those Wesena cases would do the trick.

It will be nice to see how much people can overclock the CPU and IGP though- it looks like it will be fun!!

 

[humbug]

So it would put it around Phenom II performance, which is still far away from SandyBridge. To be honest I would prefer that if they could deliver the same performance but over two cores rather than 4. That would at least put its CPU performance for gaming a bit closer toward the i3 2100...

What make i3 2100/2120 so good as a gaming CPU is that it can deliver same CPU performance for gaming as Core2Quad/Phenom II X4 at 3.7-4.0GHz over 2 cores rather than 4, so it's doesn't lose performance when game uses less than 4 cores. Extra cores is pointless if it offer less performance than a dual-core...IPC all the way!

Well for a start the A10 is already faster than Phenom II in single threaded apps, the FX with 4 Chanel memory, L3, HT and higher TDP to CPU ratio will be better.

However to a certain extent i agree with you in that it might be better to have that performance over less rather than more cores.

Yet if they did that we would just have an Intel clone under another name.

AMD had taken a different direction many years ago when they started piling up the amount of cores, gave you large Cache and long pipelines.

The large Cache and long pipelines means they are slower than Intel (with small Cache and short pipelines) at low workloads, AMD's are geared for high workload multi threading and high clock cycle stabiltity.

With my x6 i can play BF3 while re-encoding multiple movies in the background, i do that fairly regular and it has no effect on the game.

You can't get that level of multitasking on a SB / IB for a similar or 40% higher cost.

Speed at low workloads is far less important to me than the ability to do everything all at the same time.

That's one reason why i would also prefer an x4 over an i3, that and the fact that you can overclock the x4 to make up for, and push past the i3's better (stock) single threaded performance, the i3 is a bitch to overclock and you will only get another 200Mhz out of it at best.

Looking at the single threaded performance of the A10-5800K,it does look like Vishera will have much better single threaded performance than Bulldozer based FX CPUs. IPC of Trinity has already gone up by 15% when compared to Bulldozer which has L3 cache according to Toms Hardware. So I expect you will see around a 20% to 25% improvement in IPC overall with Vishera.

On top of this is likely to be clockspeed bump too,meaning that a 25% to 30% increase in overall performance is not far off for the same TDP and power consumption.

Also,due to the improvements in Turbo Core brought in with Bulldozer,clockspeeds in lightly threaded situations will be higher overall than either the Bulldozer based FX CPUs or the Phenom II X4 and X6 IMHO.

As a Core i3 2100 owner myself,I do like the look of the A10-5800K TBH. I suspect lightly threaded performance will be slightly lower but with slightly greater multi-threaded performance. OTH,since it can be overclocked,I might consider picking one up after I upgraded my main rig. However,I might just look at a 65W TDP A10-5700 instead for an SFF rig which can run some games. I can use one cooling fan and a DC-DC PSU! Hopefully,one of those Wesena cases would do the trick.

It will be nice to see how much people can overclock the CPU and IGP though- it looks like it will be fun!!

Yeah, 4.6Ghz - 4.8Ghz is not uncommon on a BD FX-41## with a £25 212 EVO cooler, hell the FX-4170 run @ 4.2 - 4.3Ghz Turbo on the stock cooler, i have seen them as high as 5.2Ghz on water, and that's a power sapping thermonuclear reactor compared with PD which is about 40% more efficient, and everyone knows because of the long pipelines AMD's run stable at 7Ghz if you can keep them cool, the WR is on the FX-8150 @ 8,6Ghz. so the super high clocks are there, and using 40% less power should reduce that in heat.