[SOLVED] Why is i5-4590 is better A6-5400K, athough A6-5400k can OC and has higher clock speed

Feb 24, 2020
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Why is i5-4590 is better A6-5400K, although A6-5400k can OC and has higher clock speed? I looked up at User Benchmark comparison and it said that i5-4590 is really 155% better???? I need answer!!
 
Solution
Yeah as everyone's already said, it's because of architecture. The A6 APU is a cheap dual core CPU that is capable of running some workloads like a quad core chip.

Where as the i5 4590 is a true quad core, with way more power per core aswell.

And yeah don't use userbenchmark, it is a site that shouldn't be on the internet.
I believe this is related to operation efficiency. Basically how many cycles it takes to perform each operation. As a over simplified example lets take an addition problem to both CPUs. We might consider this a single step, but for the CPU it's a combination of several steps. It has to load each number into the adder and then add them together. The AMD CPU might use a single cycle to load each number and another to add them together and a third to save the result. An intel CPU might be able to load both numbers in the same cycle. Giving it a 1 cycle advantage. It doesn't sound like much but if it's performing a million addition operations then the intel CPU would be able to perform that in 75% of the time as the AMD CPU. That's an over simplified example. There are lots of very low level optimizations that can be done to improve each CPUs efficiency. Changing the way the CPU stores data and how it anticipates using data are also important to the function of the CPU. If the CPU has to wait 37 cycles to pull data from RAM into it's L1 cache, that's a huge delay compared to if it was able to properly anticipate needing the data 37 cycles prior.
 
Why is i5-4590 is better A6-5400K, although A6-5400k can OC and has higher clock speed? I looked up at User Benchmark comparison and it said that i5-4590 is really 155% better???? I need answer!!
A couple things... the I5 is probably better for it's IPC, or Instructions per Clock, it can process even at it's lower clocks than the A6 processor.

However: do note that User Benchmark is horribly biased in the way it works. Firstly because they use results uploaded by everybody running their BM's that are aggregated to come up with comparisons, you can never be certain just how those results came about. Highly rigged up/overclocked/modified machines to produce crazy high numbers, run multiple times as enthusiasts tune their system will skew a comparison unrealistically. Comparisons are also unfair across mfr's because User Benchmark weights their scores according to how they feel a given processor/system should run. Typically, they weight more towards Intel CPU's than AMD.

Finally: while it may be true the A6 hasn't as strong a CPU, the real performance area where the A6 processor can shine is the iGPU. The Radeon graphics in AMD APU's far outshines what comes in Intel's CPU's.
 

logainofhades

Titan
Moderator
Userbenchmark is a trash site, but it isn't totally wrong that the i5 4590 is superior. The i5 is a true quad core, and the A6 is a dual core. The A6's architecture is the same, at its base, as that of the FX series of CPU's. That arch was quite inferior to that of an i5 4590. The only thing superior with that A6 vs an i5, is the integrated graphics.
 
Yeah as everyone's already said, it's because of architecture. The A6 APU is a cheap dual core CPU that is capable of running some workloads like a quad core chip.

Where as the i5 4590 is a true quad core, with way more power per core aswell.

And yeah don't use userbenchmark, it is a site that shouldn't be on the internet.
 
Solution
Why is i5-4590 is better A6-5400K, although A6-5400k can OC and has higher clock speed? I looked up at User Benchmark comparison and it said that i5-4590 is really 155% better???? I need answer!!
It comes down to efficiency. The 4590 is more efficient, and hence is faster--even if it was just a single core. Add in the point that it has 4 cores, and that makes it a lot, lot faster:
https://www.cpubenchmark.net/compare/AMD-A6-5400K-APU-vs-Intel-i5-4590/1494vs2234
 

logainofhades

Titan
Moderator
Yeah as everyone's already said, it's because of architecture. The A6 APU is a cheap dual core CPU that is capable of running some workloads like a quad core chip.

Where as the i5 4590 is a true quad core, with way more power per core aswell.

And yeah don't use userbenchmark, it is a site that shouldn't be on the internet.


The A6 is a pure dual core. It doesn't have SMT. It was never a good processor.

https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/a10-5800k-a8-5600k-a6-5400k,3224-8.html