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

Throughout all of our benchmarking and testing, we also monitored how much power our test systems consumed using a power meter. Our goal was to give you all an idea as to how much power each configuration used while idling and while under a heavy workload. Please keep in mind that we were testing total system power consumption at the outlet here, not just the power being drawn by the processors alone.

Total System Power Consumption

Tested At The Outlet

Idle power consumption is surprisingly similar between the various platforms we tested, with only a 6 watt spread separating AMD's latest Trinity-based APUs and Intel's Ivy Bridge-based offerings. Under load conditions, however, the AMD platforms consumed significantly more power than Intel's and virtually the same as the previous-gen Llano-based A8-3870K.

Though actual power consumption is similar between the A8-3870K and newer A10-5800K and A8-5600K, efficiency is improved with Trinity / Virgo. Both the A10-5800K and A8-5600K offer better overall and graphics performance than the older A8-3870K, but we'll have to save all of those details for our follow-on article we're working on for next week.

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