AMD A10 and A8 Trinity APU: Virgo Desktop Experience

Name: AMD A10-5800 APU
Brand: AMD

by Marco Chiappetta — Thursday, September 27, 2012, 12:01 AM EDT

For our next set of tests, we moved on to some low-res benchmarking with Crysis (DirectX) and Enemy Territory: Quake Wars (OpenGL). In these tests, we drop the resolution to 1024x768, and reduce all of the in-game graphical options to their minimum values to minimize the load being placed on the GPUs and push frame rates as high as possible. However, the in-game effects, which control the level of detail for the games' physics engines and particle systems, are left at their maximum values, to enhance image quality somewhat.

Low-Resolution Gaming: Crysis and ET: Quake Wars

Minimizing the GPU Load

Low-resolution tests such as these are typically used to illustrate CPU and memory performance, when run using a high-end GPU. What these results show, however, is that even with older game titles and relatively low-quality settings, Intel's HD 4000 (Core i3-3225) and HD 2500 (Core i3-3220) graphics cores are the limiting performance factor. The Radeon HD 7660D and HD 7560D graphics cores built into the new AMD A10-5800K and A8-5600K APUs, once again, offered double or nearly double the performance of Intel's integrated graphics solutions.

Tags: AMD, graphics, processor, A-8, Fusion, APU, A10, Trinity, FM2, VIrgo

Marco Chiappetta

Marco's interest in computing and technology dates all the way back to his early childhood. Even before being exposed to the Commodore P.E.T. and later the Commodore 64 in the early ‘80s, he was interested in electricity and electronics, and he still has the modded AFX cars and shop-worn soldering irons to prove it. Once he got his hands on his own Commodore 64, however, computing became Marco's passion. Throughout his academic and professional lives, Marco has worked with virtually every major platform from the TRS-80 and Amiga, to today's high end, multi-core servers. Over the years, he has worked in many fields related to technology and computing, including system design, assembly and sales, professional quality assurance testing, and technical writing. In addition to being the Managing Editor here at HotHardware for close to 15 years, Marco is also a freelance writer whose work has been published in a number of PC and technology related print publications and he is a regular fixture on HotHardware’s own Two and a Half Geeks webcast. - Contact: marco(at)hothardware(dot)com