AMD A10-6700 And A10-6800K Review: Richland Hits The Desktop

[refillable]

In the last graph, Isn't it suppose to be A10-6700 NOT Pentium B960?

 

[cozmium]

Really not impressed. These are what the AMD fans having been constantly going on about in all the Intel articles during the past months?

I'm not trying to pointlessly bash, but I can't think of a reasonable use for them. What is the market? You get get cheaper more powerful second hand equipment off ebay for gaming, you can use far more energy effecient (meaning passive cooling etc) Intel hardware for an htpc/car pc, and Intel is better for the office use.

Try harder AMD, and hate away fanboys.

 

[sarinaide]

Really not impressed. These are what the AMD fans having been constantly going on about in all the Intel articles during the past months?

I'm not trying to pointlessly bash, but I can't think of a reasonable use for them. What is the market? You get get cheaper more powerful second hand equipment off ebay for gaming, you can use far more energy effecient (meaning passive cooling etc) Intel hardware for an htpc/car pc, and Intel is better for the office use.

Try harder AMD, and hate away fanboys.

What is their market?

Low cost gaming and HTPC/media systems. Target all form factors and bring high end features at a very acceptable cost. You can build a high end APU system for around $350-400 and on value to performance its unbeatable.

Anandtech - Value gaming systems

TPU core i3 3220 vs A10 5800K

That is against the departing 5800K but if you read toms review you would have seen that its compute performance is about on par with the i3, its iGPU is about 3.5-4x faster and costs the exact same price point, the only area it loses is in the power stakes and to be honest a person looking for maximum performance at lowest cost is hardly going to pay heed to a Dual core with a inept iGPU over a Quad core with the fastest iGPU to date, before that is criticised see the 6800K beating a i3 + HD6670, lets not even add dual graphics support which would have seen the 6800K + 6670 in DG crush the i3 + 6670 by around 50% in some titles.

Second hand hardware:

Fair enough, but then you have warranty issues and of course you buy the products in hope the other person looked after it, if it fails due to latent damage there is your warranty and again I can build a high end A-Series setup on any form factor for under $500 that can beat in value anything AMD or Intel can throw at it on another platform.

 

[cozmium]

What is their market?

Low cost gaming and HTPC/media systems. Target all form factors and bring high end features at a very acceptable cost. You can build a high end APU system for around $350-400 and on value to performance its unbeatable.

-snip-

Ok fair point - out of the box it's a very competitively price-per-performance product, but I certainly wouldn't use it for an htpc - there is no need for it's capability at that level of TDP. It would run too hot without a fan, need a massive heatsink to not run too hot (thus negating any small htpc enclosures) and would make unacceptable noise if it did have a fan.

I used the term out of the box on purpose - it doesn't overclock well. In one of the articles you linked they overclocked the A10 to 'trade blows' with the i3. Great - how about overclocking the i3 now?

My issue would be lack of headroom - i've been building computers for over 25 years, and headroom is something you never want to ignore. Even in the Anand article, they no longer recommend the A10 for dual gpu setups. It makes much more sense to go for a cheap setup that can be expanded if/when funds allow to give it a likely needed boost as time passes, to one that doesn't have much.

Granted, you can argue that given the low cost, and the fact that it is capable out of the box, and can be expanded itself is reason enough - but it doesn't overclock well, and runs out of steam if you want to ever get a dual GPU setup. Which incidentally can easily be had for much less money has time goes on, which would easily add >50% to gaming performance.

So ok, you can make a decent budget gaming system from it - not htpc, not car pc/embedded, not office, just gaming. A decent budget gaming system with very little expandability and future proofing potential. If that fits the bill for any given consumer then fair enough - i'm not even saying I wouldn't build/recommend one if the target buyer was a good match - i'm just saying I can't think of any possibility I wouldn't choose or recommend something else; with future proofing in mind.

 

[daglesj]

AMD Marketing being bad??????
I didn't know AMD had a marketing team!!!!! Learn something new every day.

 

[Wes Young]

This is dumb. Still 6670 max card for dual graphics. Disappointing.

No, since driver 13.1 even the 5800k was able to run dual graphics with a HD 7750. I am typing on a system with that exact setup right now. I am not sure if the 6800k will allow anything above the 7750 though. When I tried a 7770 with the 5800k I wasn't given the option to enable dual graphics.

Hurry call amd tech support and tell them you have managed to accomplished what there high paid engineers have been unable to do.
I have no doubt that ccc is saying dual graphics option enabled but when you run benchmarks with it enable and disabled they are the same.

Sorry, but you are simply wrong. Below are results with the 7750 in Dual graphics. I started testing this shortly after the first guy made his youtube post abut it. I was skeptical, but instead of saying it doesn't work I actually tested it.

3DMARK Vantage: P12274, Graphics 13015, CPU 10485
Tomb Raider Bench: 1080p, default settings with AA Min 46.6, Max 66.0, Avg 58.4
Metro 2033: 1680x1050 DX10 High smoothly at 39.88

 

[Wes Young]

This is dumb. Still 6670 max card for dual graphics. Disappointing.

No, since driver 13.1 even the 5800k was able to run dual graphics with a HD 7750. I am typing on a system with that exact setup right now. I am not sure if the 6800k will allow anything above the 7750 though. When I tried a 7770 with the 5800k I wasn't given the option to enable dual graphics.

Hurry call amd tech support and tell them you have managed to accomplished what there high paid engineers have been unable to do.
I have no doubt that ccc is saying dual graphics option enabled but when you run benchmarks with it enable and disabled they are the same.

Sorry, but you are simply wrong. Below are results with the 7750 in Dual graphics. I started testing this shortly after the first guy made his youtube post abut it. I was skeptical, but instead of saying it doesn't work I actually tested it.

3DMARK Vantage: P12274, Graphics 13015, CPU 10485
Tomb Raider Bench: 1080p, default settings with AA Min 46.6, Max 66.0, Avg 58.4
Metro 2033: 1680x1050 DX10 High smoothly at 39.88

 

[Wes Young]

This is dumb. Still 6670 max card for dual graphics. Disappointing.

No, since driver 13.1 even the 5800k was able to run dual graphics with a HD 7750. I am typing on a system with that exact setup right now. I am not sure if the 6800k will allow anything above the 7750 though. When I tried a 7770 with the 5800k I wasn't given the option to enable dual graphics.

Hurry call amd tech support and tell them you have managed to accomplished what there high paid engineers have been unable to do.
I have no doubt that ccc is saying dual graphics option enabled but when you run benchmarks with it enable and disabled they are the same.

Sorry, but you are simply wrong. Below are results with the 7750 in Dual graphics. I started testing this shortly after the first guy made his youtube post abut it. I was skeptical, but instead of saying it doesn't work I actually tested it.

3DMARK Vantage: P12274, Graphics 13015, CPU 10485
Tomb Raider Bench: 1080p, default settings with AA Min 46.6, Max 66.0, Avg 58.4
Metro 2033: 1680x1050 DX10 High smoothly at 39.88

 

[Wes Young]

This is dumb. Still 6670 max card for dual graphics. Disappointing.

No, since driver 13.1 even the 5800k was able to run dual graphics with a HD 7750. I am typing on a system with that exact setup right now. I am not sure if the 6800k will allow anything above the 7750 though. When I tried a 7770 with the 5800k I wasn't given the option to enable dual graphics.

Hurry call amd tech support and tell them you have managed to accomplished what there high paid engineers have been unable to do.
I have no doubt that ccc is saying dual graphics option enabled but when you run benchmarks with it enable and disabled they are the same.

Sorry, but you are simply wrong. Below are results with the 7750 in Dual graphics. I started testing this shortly after the first guy made his youtube post abut it. I was skeptical, but instead of saying it doesn't work I actually tested it.

3DMARK Vantage: P12274, Graphics 13015, CPU 10485
Tomb Raider Bench: 1080p, default settings with AA Min 46.6, Max 66.0, Avg 58.4
Metro 2033: 1680x1050 DX10 High smoothly at 39.88

 

[Novuake]

This is dumb. Still 6670 max card for dual graphics. Disappointing.

No, since driver 13.1 even the 5800k was able to run dual graphics with a HD 7750. I am typing on a system with that exact setup right now. I am not sure if the 6800k will allow anything above the 7750 though. When I tried a 7770 with the 5800k I wasn't given the option to enable dual graphics.

Hurry call amd tech support and tell them you have managed to accomplished what there high paid engineers have been unable to do.
I have no doubt that ccc is saying dual graphics option enabled but when you run benchmarks with it enable and disabled they are the same.

Sorry, but you are simply wrong. Below are results with the 7750 in Dual graphics. I started testing this shortly after the first guy made his youtube post abut it. I was skeptical, but instead of saying it doesn't work I actually tested it.

3DMARK Vantage: P12274, Graphics 13015, CPU 10485
Tomb Raider Bench: 1080p, default settings with AA Min 46.6, Max 66.0, Avg 58.4
Metro 2033: 1680x1050 DX10 High smoothly at 39.88

Wow how I just love that scientific methodology of yours...

 

[maddogfargo]

Something interesting to me is that for gaming the A10-6800 used about 2.5x the power but gave 3x the frames. So even though the power usage was higher, you are getting a higher performance return in that scenario. Seems like a really good match up for budget oriented gaming and HTPC applications. Based on that, I can see why Sony and Microsoft chose customized AMD APUs for their next consoles, especially when you factor in the high speed RAM.

 

[irish_adam]

What is their market?

Low cost gaming and HTPC/media systems. Target all form factors and bring high end features at a very acceptable cost. You can build a high end APU system for around $350-400 and on value to performance its unbeatable.

-snip-

Ok fair point - out of the box it's a very competitively price-per-performance product, but I certainly wouldn't use it for an htpc - there is no need for it's capability at that level of TDP. It would run too hot without a fan, need a massive heatsink to not run too hot (thus negating any small htpc enclosures) and would make unacceptable noise if it did have a fan.

*snip*

ok so what exactly are you using your HTPC for? because if you just want to watch blu-rays, youtube, netflix, hulu etc. your better off buying a blu-ray player and a smart tv. The core i3 is useless for anything else and if you add a discrete graphics card to your HTPC if the enclosure is that small then even a passively cooled card is going to make your system hotter than the APU. APU is the king of HTPC because it allows you to also play games, granted not at max settings but still far cheaper and energy efficent than any solution intel will give you because you would have to buy and add a discrete card.

also if you did want to make an HTPC thats passively cooled and didnt want ot game, you would just get an A4 or A6 not an A10. They would still run everything an HTPC would need minus they gaming and for far less than an i3

 

[varun706]

Since when did Intel support 2133MHz RAM?
http://media.bestofmicro.com/0/X/387537/original/TombRaider-FTV.png

 

[Augray37]

I think...that the market they are aiming for is getting smaller and smaller. As a few of you have said, these APUs run a bit hot, especially the higher end ones, which eliminates them from many legitimate HTPC rigs right there. Not all of them, as inventive (and expensive) cooling solutions can be had, but most of them probably. I would think that this gets more people thinking about a slightly larger HTPC, where just an inch or so in height, width, and depth would make getting an i3 + low profile HD 7750 a much more interesting option, especially now when RAM prices are relatively high. To me, it seems like APUs are most useful for the low resolution gamer on a budget wanting something that doesn't take up much space. If you want a basic mini workstation, you should probably go with an i3 (same price, lower heat). If you want something that games as well, I see the i3 + LP HD 7750 with a slightly larger case option above or, on the flipside, an entry level APU setup so as not to create too much heat in the little case (but then this starts to compete with HD 4000). The slice of the pie that really want and can actually utilize the higher end APUs the way they should be used seems to be getting smaller. Just my opinion, I don't claim to have read every article or have the most insight.

 

[BSMonitor]

Wow, I thought just the FX were horrible on power consumption. These too?? The fact that Core i3 is so grossly ahead in terms of power consumption makes the Richland APU's a joke really.

 

[sarinaide]

Ok fair point - out of the box it's a very competitively price-per-performance product, but I certainly wouldn't use it for an htpc - there is no need for it's capability at that level of TDP. It would run too hot without a fan, need a massive heatsink to not run too hot (thus negating any small htpc enclosures) and would make unacceptable noise if it did have a fan.

Richland/Trinity on the ITX form factor in a ITX case can double as a HTPC/Media center and family gaming platform albeit not the best AMD option for pure HTPC setups and I point you to Kabini based All in One ITX platforms to replace Brazo based E 350 systems. As reviewed earlier these will feature A4 5000/5200 parts based off 25w TPD's and a GCN iGPU capable of giving HD4000 a run for its money.

Kabini All in One ITX HTPC

Granted, you can argue that given the low cost, and the fact that it is capable out of the box, and can be expanded itself is reason enough - but it doesn't overclock well, and runs out of steam if you want to ever get a dual GPU setup. Which incidentally can easily be had for much less money has time goes on, which would easily add >50% to gaming performance.

So ok, you can make a decent budget gaming system from it - not htpc, not car pc/embedded, not office, just gaming. A decent budget gaming system with very little expandability and future proofing potential. If that fits the bill for any given consumer then fair enough - i'm not even saying I wouldn't build/recommend one if the target buyer was a good match - i'm just saying I can't think of any possibility I wouldn't choose or recommend something else; with future proofing in mind

Well they found the A10 6800K can hit clocks of 5ghz and higher on conventional cooling and lower TDP's than the 5800K which struggles to make 4.4Ghz at 1.5v where the 6800K did 5.1ghz at 1.52v, the IGPU hit stable overclocks at 1050mhz with a NB frequency at 2300mhz and voltage at 1.35v while RAM hit DDR3 2600 these are a farcry from the Trinity parts and shows matured process.

I have run my APU's with HD7790's and 650ti Boosts and like Anandtech reviewed actually games at the same level as i3's and Phenom II's along with the FX4000 parts with only minor exceptions where L3 hits performance, I think these are often given the perception of low end but they do pack a bit more bite than just bark. In cinebench the singlethreaded performance outscores the FX8350, that was a jump from 1.11 to 1.25 which is as big a leap as Trinity from llano or from Vishara from Zambezi.

At the end of the day the APU is not just confined to x or y usage but it is ultimately for or not for you as the end user to decide.

Ok fair point - out of the box it's a very competitively price-per-performance product, but I certainly wouldn't use it for an htpc - there is no need for it's capability at that level of TDP. It would run too hot without a fan, need a massive heatsink to not run too hot (thus negating any small htpc enclosures) and would make unacceptable noise if it did have a fan. I used the term out of the box on purpose - it doesn't overclock well. In one of the articles you linked they overclocked the A10 to 'trade blows' with the i3. Great - how about overclocking the i3 now? My issue would be lack of headroom - i've been building computers for over 25 years, and headroom is something you never want to ignore. Even in the Anand article, they no longer recommend the A10 for dual gpu setups. It makes much more sense to go for a cheap setup that can be expanded if/when funds allow to give it a likely needed boost as time passes, to one that doesn't have much

1) Yes like every chip it is either for you or not for you there is no general to high TDP or necessity for low TPD's ie: people don't buy i3's over i7's because the lower TDP is offset by the disparity in performance so power is just a personal preferance not a general criterion.

2) The i3 cannot be overclocked so the point is mute and the A10 6800K is not overclocked its running base clocks, while higher its not overclocked. The same objection is not raised in the fact that intel have their iGPU's running at 1.3ghz relative to much lower AMD clocks 40-70% lower clocks.

3) Nobody will build a APU setup based on multi GPU's as already the cost of two GPU's of standard is more than the APU setup, so its trite the basis of an APU setup is maximum performance at lowest cost and not performance at cost. as to expansion most fM2 a85 boards sport 7-8 Sata controllers and DDR3 dimms upto 2600 along with PCi e and PCI legacy slots, up to 6 USB 3.0 and 4 USB 2.0 and front side USB3.0 that is enough expansion.

 

[sarinaide]

This article is full of errors (for example, see final graph on page 12 "Average Performance Relative to Pentium B960), is completely unoriginal, and omitted everything that we wanted to see (i.e Dual GPU with HD7000 series, overclocking, DDR2400+ RAM, idle desktop power consumption, etc.
Should have saved everyone some time and just posted a 1 page review showing final graph. As mentioned previously, "Where's the beef?"

I feel your pain, we have been getting a few of these lately.

Since when did Intel support 2133MHz RAM?
http://media.bestofmicro.com/0/X/387537/original/TombRaider-FTV.png

Cant say they didnt give Intel fair crack by using the same speed RAM, so for that at least its fair.

I think...that the market they are aiming for is getting smaller and smaller. As a few of you have said, these APUs run a bit hot, especially the higher end ones, which eliminates them from many legitimate HTPC rigs right there. Not all of them, as inventive (and expensive) cooling solutions can be had, but most of them probably. I would think that this gets more people thinking about a slightly larger HTPC, where just an inch or so in height, width, and depth would make getting an i3 + low profile HD 7750 a much more interesting option, especially now when RAM prices are relatively high. To me, it seems like APUs are most useful for the low resolution gamer on a budget wanting something that doesn't take up much space. If you want a basic mini workstation, you should probably go with an i3 (same price, lower heat). If you want something that games as well, I see the i3 + LP HD 7750 with a slightly larger case option above or, on the flipside, an entry level APU setup so as not to create too much heat in the little case (but then this starts to compete with HD 4000). The slice of the pie that really want and can actually utilize the higher end APUs the way they should be used seems to be getting smaller. Just my opinion, I don't claim to have read every article or have the most insight.

AMD plan to integrate a single socket, ie: a high end APU ranging from 8 cores to entry level dual cores, that is the idealogy so no th market is not deminishing as you also failed to account for Kabini based APU's in desktop trim designed for ULV HTPC and multimedia systems. The issue of power again is not a deciding point as some people ie: me don't really give a crap as the 6800K's power is acceptable for the peformance it offers. also as to its performance in work or production systems, point you to the numbers very competitive with intels' i3's and sometimes pushes i5 3330 and 3450 numbers according to other reviews, also if work is based on OpenCL the APU's HSA functionality makes it rather impressive, and finally who needs a A10 6800K for a office machine when say a A8 6500 will more than suffice and run on sub 100w.

Wow, I thought just the FX were horrible on power consumption. These too?? The fact that Core i3 is so grossly ahead in terms of power consumption makes the Richland APU's a joke really.

Your comment is a joke.

You compared a dual core with a less than pathetic iGPU to a Quad Core with the fastest iGPU (just wow)

 

[scazbala86]

"I have to believe that if you're willing to spend $150 on a 65 W A10 that can't be overclocked easily, then you're probably better off with a 55 W Core i3 that's also stuck in place for $10 less."

Seriously? So you're saying you'd be better off buying an i3 for $10 less but having to spend $70-$80 more for a dedicated GPU just to keep up with the A10 in games?

 

[lostgamer_03]

Dissapointed, A10-6800k offers almost no performance increase in terms of gaming performance. Another relaunch with just just tuned clock rates *sigh*.

 

[mohit9206]

So basically whoever currently is using a Trinity based setup has absolutely no reason to upgrade to Richland. They are better off waiting for Kaveri.But then Kaveri will be on a new platform and am not sure unless AMD show some big improvements people are going to upgrade to Kaveri. Richland is just a filler artificially increasing the life of the FM2 platform. AMD should have skipped Richland altogether and had gone straight to Kaveri atleast for the desktop space.

 

[silverblue]

Essentially, what we're asking for is benchmarks of just the APU, and then just the discrete card. As the 7750 is a GCN part, I don't see how it can work in Dual Graphics with a VLIW4 part, but testing will reveal all.

 

[ingtar33]

This is dumb. Still 6670 max card for dual graphics. Disappointing.

No, since driver 13.1 even the 5800k was able to run dual graphics with a HD 7750. I am typing on a system with that exact setup right now. I am not sure if the 6800k will allow anything above the 7750 though. When I tried a 7770 with the 5800k I wasn't given the option to enable dual graphics.

Hurry call amd tech support and tell them you have managed to accomplished what there high paid engineers have been unable to do.
I have no doubt that ccc is saying dual graphics option enabled but when you run benchmarks with it enable and disabled they are the same.

Sorry, but you are simply wrong. Below are results with the 7750 in Dual graphics. I started testing this shortly after the first guy made his youtube post abut it. I was skeptical, but instead of saying it doesn't work I actually tested it.

3DMARK Vantage: P12274, Graphics 13015, CPU 10485
Tomb Raider Bench: 1080p, default settings with AA Min 46.6, Max 66.0, Avg 58.4
Metro 2033: 1680x1050 DX10 High smoothly at 39.88

I am certianly willing to look at what ever you put forward but reserve that right to call BS all the way. First where is your monitor plugged into running dual graphics the 7750 or the motherboard ? Second what is the igpu setting in bios, integrated, pcie or peg ?

I call the first BS now

well considering the 7750 by itself will get 35fps on high graphic settings at 1080p, i've no doubt his 7750 is posting those numbers. of course it's not in dual graphics with the a10 either... as the base 7750 will put out those numbers by itself.

He's obviously got the monitor plugged into the gpu, and "thinks" he's crossfiring with his cpu... when he's clearly not. The A10 defaults to the gpu when you plug it into the gpu... and only can crossfire with a like core... the like core is the 6670 or 6570. When you try to crossfire with a core that isn't similar enough the a10 will default to whichever device the monitor is plugged into.

 

[sarinaide]

So basically whoever currently is using a Trinity based setup has absolutely no reason to upgrade to Richland. They are better off waiting for Kaveri.But then Kaveri will be on a new platform and am not sure unless AMD show some big improvements people are going to upgrade to Kaveri. Richland is just a filler artificially increasing the life of the FM2 platform. AMD should have skipped Richland altogether and had gone straight to Kaveri atleast for the desktop space.

Performance across the board improved but more the compute side and of course Richland overclocks well something Trinity does not do, overall Richland is a bigger upgrade from Trinity than Haswell is from Ivy. Would you skip on a chance to make money and sell off any silicon reserves? obviously not.

 

[The_Trutherizer]

Too bad about the dual graphics problem since some of the results seemed to indicate the APU benefited more from fast memory than a discreet gfx card. I'd really love to see the performance with a dual setup and fast memory - If they can fix the issue of course. Interestingly I've been reading that Richland will be dual graphics compatible with "solar system" parts. Now THAT I'd love to see Are they finally bringing balance to the APU-GPU force?

 

[The_Trutherizer]

So basically whoever currently is using a Trinity based setup has absolutely no reason to upgrade to Richland. They are better off waiting for Kaveri.But then Kaveri will be on a new platform and am not sure unless AMD show some big improvements people are going to upgrade to Kaveri. Richland is just a filler artificially increasing the life of the FM2 platform. AMD should have skipped Richland altogether and had gone straight to Kaveri atleast for the desktop space.

Performance across the board improved but more the compute side and of course Richland overclocks well something Trinity does not do, overall Richland is a bigger upgrade from Trinity than Haswell is from Ivy. Would you skip on a chance to make money and sell off any silicon reserves? obviously not.

I assume you've checked some of the more serious overclocking reviews? Impressive scores!