AMD A8-5600K APU Trinity Desktop Processor

Full Disclosure: The product sample used in this article has been provided by AMD.

Right on track, well after Ivy Bridge, AMD has released their second generation of Accelerated Processing Units in the form of the Trinity series A8-5600K and the A8-5600k. Last week, we brought you a preview of these two APUs just to give you a taste of their gaming performance and some of their specifications. Today, at Benchmark Reviews, we are going in detail for a full work-over of the A10-5800 APU.

Unfortunately, six months is a long time. A lot can happen in six months, and a lot of processors can be sold. Based on the performance that we have seen up to this point, the second generation AMD APUs are set to beat their equivalently priced Ivy Bridge counterparts quite handily. The problem is finding the group of customers who waited patiently for their appearance and held off from buying an Intel system.

Last week we saw some details about the new Trinity APUs, including some of the impressive GPU numbers they put up. Today we can get into more of the details, including what they cost and a more robust selection of benchmarks. With the A10-5800K retailing at Newegg.com for $129.99 today, that puts it right in the market of the i3-3220. We have comparison tests ready to go for those two processors, as well as a slew of benchmarks comparing graphics in all their varieties. The closest comparable CPU in price to the A8-5600K is the i3-2100, which I tested against the A8-3850 last year. Since the A8-5600K had no trouble keeping up with the i3-3220, I didn't bother re-testing the i3-2100 for this review.

For reference, I've listed a chart below with all of the Trinity series FM2 APUs and their respective specifications.

AMD FM2 Chipsets - A85X, A75, A55

If you are familiar with last year's AMD FM1 platform, you'll recognize that the A55 and A75 chipsets stuck around for the FM2 platform. Nothing has changed on those two chipsets, except that they will use the FM2 socket for the FM2 platform. Like I talked about last week, the FM1 and FM2 sockets are not compatible with each other, as we have seen on previous AMD socket updates. Considering the fact that Intel went just the opposite and made the Sandy and Ivy bridge CPUs backwards compatible, I'd say that's a step backwards for AMD.

Since the A75 and A55 chipsets haven't changed at all, let's take a look at the A85X.

Not much has changed when moving to the A85X chipset either, though. What the A85X does is brings a few more enthusiast and gaming level features to the Fusion platforms. That being said, the A75 chipset could certainly be used by gamers as well.

With the release of the FM2 APUs, AMD has specified which processors they have targeted for which chipsets. According to AMD, the A55 chipset is targeted for use with the A4 and A6 series APUs. The A75 chipset is targeted for the A6 and A8 APUs and the A85X chipset targets the A8 and the A10 series APUs. There is a little bit of overlap there, as you can see.

Even though AMD touts the A85X chipset as targeting enthusiast and performance users, it really doesn't bring a whole lot more onboard. The reason for that is that the APUs have most of their functionality built right into the processor. The old "northbridge" is now a function of the CPU and the A85X chipset is really just a functioning "southbridge", now known as the Fusion Controller Hub (FCH). Since the APU controls almost everything, the FCH brings in the use of external controllers and connections.

The A85X chipset brings with the ability to use a second PCI-Express GPU slot. The total number of lanes remains the same, however, so if you use two PCI-Express slots for GPUs, you'll be running at x8 and x8. Using a single discrete GPU, you'll still be able to run it at x16 of course. In addition to adding the use of another PCI-Express slot, the A85X chipset brings with it a full complement of eight SATA III 6Gb/s ports. That's up from six on the A75 chipset and zero on the A55 chipset. All the SATA ports on the A55 chipset are SATA II. With those SATA III ports also comes RAID 5 support, absent on the A75 chipset. The USB connectivity remains the same between the A75 and A85X chipsets with support for 4 USB 3.0 ports, 10 USB 2.0 ports, and 2 USB 1.1 ports.

Processor Testing Methodology

Because the Trinity is the second generation of AMD APUs, it makes sense to compare it to the first generation in addition to Intel's competing Ivy Bridge platform. Trinity comes with an entirely new series of processors, the A10 series, that looks to have a distinct performance advantage over of the Llano A8 processors. For this review, I will be comparing the A10-5800K and the A8-5600K FM2 APUs with the A8-3850 Lynx APU as well as the Intel i3-3220, the closest Ivy Bridge CPU in price. I'll also be using a few other processors to round out the tests and give you a good idea of where the new Trinity APUs fall in the lineup. I'll be using the i5-2500K, the Phenom-II X4-980BE, and the i7-3820 for the top end. In CPU performance, I don't expect the Trinity APUs to match those top end CPUs, but it will do well to show where they stand.

For this review, I didn't run any of the processors overclocked. I don't want to rush my overclocking efforts, so I'll be releasing another article specifically talking about overclocking the A8-5600K and the A8-5600K since both are Black Edition unlocked processors.

Since the real question behind the second generation of APUs is how well can they game, I've used a robust grouping of GPUs to test against the on-die capabilities of the A10-5800K and the A8-5600K. Those processors come equipped with the Radeon HD 7660D and the Radeon HD 7560D respectively. I've compared those to the Intel HD 2500 GPU on the i3-3220 as well as the HD 3000 GPU on the i5-2500K. I would have liked to test against the HD 4000 graphics, but I just don't have any on hand. Besides, based on the results, I think it is pretty obvious that the Trinity APUs would smoke the HD 4000 graphics anyway, and in processors that cost less than half what an Ivy Bridge with HD 4000 would cost. Finally, I've paired the i3-3220 with a GT 630 to see where that stands. I also paired the GT 630 with the APUs and I threw in a few higher level discrete cards from this and the last generations just to show the full spectrum.

Intel Z77 Express Test Platform

• Motherboard: Biostar Hi-Fi Z77X
• Processor: 3.3GHz Intel Core i5-2500K and 3.3GHz Intel Core i3-3220
• System Memory: 16GB DDR3-1866 (two 8GB DIMMs) GSkill Aries at 9-9-9-27
• Primary Drive: Filemate Solid GO 60GB SSD SATA II
• Graphics Adapter: AMD Radeon HD5770; AMD Radeon HD6870; AMD Radeon HD6850; AMD Radeon HD7870; NVIDIA GT 630; NVIDIA GT430

Intel X79 Express Test Platform

• Motherboard: ASUS Rampage IV Formula X79
• Processor: 3.6GHz Intel Core i7-3820
• System Memory: 16GB DDR3-1866 (two 8GB DIMMs) GSkill Aries at 9-9-9-27
• Primary Drive: Filemate Solid GO 60GB SSD SATA II
• Graphics Adapter: AMD Radeon HD5770; AMD Radeon HD6870; AMD Radeon HD6850; AMD Radeon HD7870; NVIDIA GT 630; NVIDIA GT430

AMD FM1 A-Series Platform

• Motherboard: ASUS F1A75-M PRO
• Processor: 2.9GHz AMD A-Series A8-3850 APU
• System Memory: 16GB DDR3-1866 (two 8GB DIMMs) GSkill Aries at 9-9-9-27
• Primary Drive: Filemate Solid GO 60GB SSD SATA II
• Power Supply Unit: Corsair CMPSU-850TX 850W 80-Plus Certified
• Graphics Adapter: AMD Radeon HD5770; AMD Radeon HD6870; AMD Radeon HD6850; AMD Radeon HD7870; NVIDIA GT 630; NVIDIA GT430

AMD FM2 A-Series Platform

• Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-F2A85X-UP4
• Processor: 3.8GHz AMD A-Series A10-5800K APU; 3.6GHz AMD A-Series A8-5600K APU
• System Memory: 16GB DDR3-1866 (two 8GB DIMMs) GSkill Aries at 9-9-9-27
• Primary Drive: Filemate Solid GO 60GB SSD SATA II
• Power Supply Unit: Corsair CMPSU-850TX 850W 80-Plus Certified
• Graphics Adapter: AMD Radeon HD5770; AMD Radeon HD6870; AMD Radeon HD6850; AMD Radeon HD7870; NVIDIA GT 630; NVIDIA GT430

Benchmark Applications

• Operating System: Windows 7 Home Premium 64-Bit
• AIDA64 Extreme Edition v2.30.1900
• Futuremark PCMark 7
• Futuremark 3DMark 11 (for DX11 testing)
• Futuremark 3DMark Vantage (for DX10 testing)
• Aliens vs. Predator benchmark (for DX11 testing)
• Unigine Heaven 3.0
• Maxon CINEBENCH R11.5 64-Bit
• PassMark PerformanceTest 7.0b1021
• x264Bench HD 3.0
• Handbrake 0.96 video transcoding

AIDA64 Extreme Edition v1.1 Benchmark Tests

AIDA64 is a full 64-bit benchmark and test suite utilizing MMX, 3DNow! and SSE instruction set extensions, and will scale up to 32 processor cores. An enhanced 64-bit System Stability Test module is also available to stress the whole system to its limits. For legacy processors all benchmarks and the System Stability Test are available in 32-bit versions as well. Additionally, AIDA64 adds new hardware to its database, including 300 solid-state drives. On top of the usual ATA auto-detect information the new SSD database enables AIDA64 to display flash memory type, controller model, physical dimensions, and data transfer performance data. AIDA64 v1.00 also implements SSD-specific SMART disk health information for Indilinx, Intel, JMicron, Samsung, and SandForce controllers.

All of the benchmarks used in this test- Queen, Photoworxx, ZLib, hash, and AES- rely on basic x86 instructions, and consume very little system memory while also being aware of Hyper-Threading, multi-processors, and multi-core processors. Of all the tests in this review, AIDA64 is the one that best isolates the processor's performance from the rest of the system. While this is useful in that it more directly compares processor performance, readers should remember that virtually no "real world" programs will mirror these results.

All of the benchmarks used in our test bed rely on basic x86 instructions and consume very low system memory while also being aware of HyperThreading, multi-processors, and multi-core processors. While the AIDA64 CPU tests really only compare the processor performance more than it measures platforms, it still offers a glimpse into what kind of power each platform possesses.

Like the Queen benchmark, the Photoworxx tests for penalties against pipeline architecture. The synthetic Photoworxx benchmark stresses the integer arithmetic and multiplication execution units of the CPU and also the memory subsystem. Due to the fact that this test performs high memory read/write traffic, it cannot effectively scale in situations where more than two processing threads are used. The AIDA64 Photoworxx benchmark performs the following tasks on a very large RGB image:

• Fill
• Flip
• Rotate90R (rotate 90 degrees CW)
• Rotate90L (rotate 90 degrees CCW)
• Random (fill the image with random colored pixels)
• RGB2BW (color to black & white conversion)
• Difference
• Crop

The Zip Library test measures combined CPU and memory subsystem performance through the public ZLib compression library. ZLib is designed as a free lossless data compression library for use on virtually any computer hardware and operating system. The ZLib data format is itself portable across platforms and has a footprint independent of input data that can be reduced at some cost in compression.

The AES integer benchmark measures CPU performance using AES data encryption. It utilizes Vincent Rijmen, Antoon Bosselaers and Paulo Barreto's public domain C code in ECB mode and consumes 48 MB of memory.

Next we will take a look at the Passmark Performance Test results.

Passmark Performance Test 7.0

PassMark Performance Test is a PC hardware benchmark utility that allows a user to quickly assess the performance of their computer and compare it to a number of standard 'baseline' computer systems. The Passmark Performance Test CPU tests all benchmark the mathematical operations, compression, encryption, SSE, and 3DNow! instructions of modern processors.

In our tests there were several areas of concentration for each benchmark, which are combined into one compound score. This score is referred to as the CPU Mark, and is a composite of the following tests: Integer Math, Floating Point Math, Find Prime Numbers, SSE/3DNow!, Compression, Encryption, Image Rotation, and String Sorting.

Up next are the results from the PCMark 7 tests.

PCMark 7 Benchmark Tests

PCMark 7 is Futuremark's successor to PCMark Vantage. The full suite of tests comprises seven different sequences with more than 25 sub-tests that exercise your system's abilities in storage, computation, image and video manipulation, web browsing and gaming. It was developed with input from the designers, engineers and product managers at AMD, Compal, Dell, Hitachi GST, HP, Intel, NVIDIA, Samsung, Seagate, Western Digital and many other well-known companies.

For this benchmark I chose the PCMark test, which provides a number indicating total system performance, as well as the Productivity, Creativity, and Computation test suites.

Productivity Test

The Productivity test is a collection of workloads that measure system performance in typical productivity scenarios. Individual workloads include loading web pages and using home office applications. At the end of the benchmark run the system is given a Productivity test score. The Productivity test consists of:

• Storage
• Windows Defender
• Starting applications
• Web browsing and decrypting
• Productivity
• Data decryption
• Text editing

Creativity Test

The Creativity test contains a collection of workloads to measure the system performance in typical creativity scenarios. Individual tests include viewing, editing, transcoding and storing photos and videos. At the end of the benchmark run the system is given a Creativity test score.

• Storage
• importing pictures
• video editing
• Image manipulation
• Video transcoding - high quality

Computation Test

The Computation test contains a collection of workloads that isolate the computation performance of the system. At the end of the benchmark run the system is given a Computation test score.

• Video transcoding - downscaling
• Video transcoding - high quality
• Image manipulation

It's important to note that since PCMark 7 was designed as a system test, the scores are dependent on the configuration of the entire system being tested, including things like the memory, hard disk, and graphics cards used: it's not an isolated CPU test like most of the other benchmarks I'm using in this review. However, I tried to keep all other hardware (motherboard, video card, memory, hard disk, etc.) as identical as possible.

Cinebench R11.5 Benchmarks

Maxon Cinebench is a real-world test suite that assesses the computer's performance capabilities. Cinebench is based on Maxon's award-winning animation software, Cinema 4D, which is used extensively by studios and production houses worldwide for 3D content creation. Maxon software has been used in blockbuster movies such as Spider-Man, Star Wars, The Chronicles of Narnia and many more. Cinebench Release 11.5 includes the ability to more accurately test the industry's latest hardware, including systems with up to 64 processor threads and the testing environment better reflects the expectations of today's production demands. A more streamlined interface makes testing systems and reading results incredibly straightforward.

The Cinebench R11.5 test scenario uses all of a system's processing power to render a photorealistic 3D scene, "No Keyframes" the viral animation by AixSponza. This scene makes use of various algorithms to stress all available processor cores. The OpenGL graphics card testing procedure uses a complex 3D scene depicting a car chase with which the performance of your graphics card in OpenGL mode is measured. During the benchmark tests the graphics card is evaluated by way of displaying an intricate scene that includes complex geometry, high-resolution textures, and a variety of effects to evaluate the performance across a variety of real-world scenarios.

Next we will take a look at DX10 Gaming through the eyes of 3DMark Vantage.

DX10 Gaming Benchmarks

3DMark Vantage

3DMark Vantage is a computer benchmark by Futuremark (formerly named Mad Onion) to determine the DirectX 10 performance of 3D game performance with graphics cards. A 3DMark score is an overall measure of your system's 3D gaming capabilities, based on comprehensive real-time 3D graphics and processor tests. By comparing your score with those submitted by millions of other gamers you can see how your gaming rig performs, making it easier to choose the most effective upgrades or finding other ways to optimize your system.

There are two graphics tests in 3DMark Vantage: Jane Nash (Graphics Test 1) and New Calico (Graphics Test 2). The Jane Nash test scene represents a large indoor game scene with complex character rigs, physical GPU simulations, multiple dynamic lights, and complex surface lighting models. It uses several hierarchical rendering steps, including for water reflection and refraction, and physics simulation collision map rendering. The New Calico test scene represents a vast space scene with lots of moving but rigid objects and special content like a huge planet and a dense asteroid belt.

At Benchmark Reviews, we believe that synthetic benchmark tools are just as valuable as video games, but only so long as you're comparing apples to apples. Since the same test is applied in the same controlled method with each test run, 3DMark is a reliable tool for comparing graphic cards against one-another.

Since 3DMark Vantage is tough for even high-end graphics solutions, we have kept things at the lowest level for the Graphics tests here. Using the common resolution of 1280x1024, the minimum settings were applied to 3DMark Vantage include no Anti-Aliasing, no Anisotropic Filtering, all quality levels at Entry Level, and Post Processing Scale at 1:2.

Let's take a look at some DX11 Gaming Tests next.

DX11 Gaming Benchmarks

3DMark 11

FutureMark 3DMark11 is the latest addition the 3DMark benchmark series built by FutureMark corporation. 3DMark11 is a PC benchmark suite designed to test the DirectX-11 graphics card performance without vendor preference. Although 3DMark11 includes the unbiased Bullet Open Source Physics Library instead of NVIDIA PhysX for the CPU/Physics tests, Benchmark Reviews concentrates on the four graphics-only tests in 3DMark11 and uses them with medium-level 'Performance' presets.

The 'Performance' level setting applies 1x multi-sample anti-aliasing and trilinear texture filtering to a 1280x720p resolution. The tessellation detail, when called upon by a test, is preset to level 5, with a maximum tessellation factor of 10. The shadow map size is limited to 5 and the shadow cascade count is set to 4, while the surface shadow sample count is at the maximum value of 16. Ambient occlusion is enabled, and preset to a quality level of 5.

Aliens vs. Predator Benchmark Results

Rebellion, SEGA and Twentieth Century FOX have released the Aliens vs. Predator DirectX 11 Benchmark to the public. As with many of the already released DirectX 11 benchmarks, the Aliens vs. Predator DirectX 11 benchmark leverages your DirectX 11 hardware to provide an immersive game play experience through the use of DirectX 11 Tessellation and DirectX 11 Advanced Shadow features.

In Aliens vs. Predator, DirectX 11 Geometry Tessellation is applied in an effective manner to enhance and more accurately depict HR Giger's famous Alien design. Through the use of a variety of adaptive schemes, applying tessellation when and where it is necessary, the perfect blend of performance and visual fidelity is achieved with at most a 4% change in performance.

Unigine Heaven 3.0 DX11 Benchmark Results

The Unigine Heaven 3.0 benchmark is a free publicly available tool that grants the power to unleash the graphics capabilities in DirectX-11 for Windows 7 or updated Vista Operating Systems. It reveals the enchanting magic of floating islands with a tiny village hidden in the cloudy skies. With the interactive mode, emerging experience of exploring the intricate world is within reach. Through its advanced renderer, Unigine is one of the first to set precedence in showcasing the art assets with tessellation, bringing compelling visual finesse, utilizing the technology to the full extend and exhibiting the possibilities of enriching 3D gaming.

The distinguishing feature in the Unigine Heaven benchmark is a hardware tessellation that is a scalable technology aimed for automatic subdivision of polygons into smaller and finer pieces, so that developers can gain a more detailed look of their games almost free of charge in terms of performance. Thanks to this procedure, the elaboration of the rendered image finally approaches the boundary of veridical visual perception: the virtual reality transcends conjured by your hand.

Next up are the video transcoding tests.

Video Transcoding Tests

x264 HD Benchmark 5.01

Tech ARP's x264 HD Benchmark comprises the Avisynth video scripting engine, an x264 encoder, a sample 720P video file, and a script file that actually runs the benchmark. The script invokes four two-pass encoding runs and reports the average frames per second encoded as a result. The script file is a simple batch file, so you could edit the encoding parameters if you were interested, although your results wouldn't then be comparable to others.

Handbrake 0.9.6 Video Transcoder

HandBrake is an open-source, GPL-licensed, multiplatform, multithreaded video transcoder program designed to convert MPEG video (including DVD-Video) into an MPEG-4 video file in MPEG-4 Part 14 (.mp4) or Matroska (.mkv) containers. The program is used to convert DVDs into other forms so they can be viewed on portable media devices and with most media players. While Handbrake was originally developed for BeOS, it is now available for Linux, Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X.

Handbrake is a readily available program that easily handles and utilizes multiple CPU cores and threads. This makes it an ideal program for us to use to test CPU performance. The amount of time it takes for Handbrake to convert a media file scales very nicely based on the clock speed and available cores of the CPU. For this test, I used a 1.12GB video file in MPEG format to be converted to MP4 format using the "iPhone &iPod Touch" presets. I recorded the total time in (min:sec) that it took to transcode the video file.

That's it for the benchmarks. Let us know what you think below.

Temperature

The A8-5600K runs very cool. This seems to be a trend with 32nm processors and is one that I look forward to the industry enhancing in the future. When testing the temperature of the A8-5600K, the ambient temperature stayed at a constant 22 degrees Celsius. The A8-5600K actually ran a few degrees hotter than the A10-5800K for some reason. The numbers are close enough, however, that I would place it in the margin of error.

Fresh Startup (15 min idle)	25 degrees
After 2hr Netflix Stream	36 degrees
Prime95 & Furmark Stress Test (2hr)	52 degrees
After 24 hours of normal use	40 degrees

Power Consumption

Power Consumption on the A8-5600K was very impressive. The power consumption actually fell quite a bit from the first generation A8-3850 levels. AMD has obviously focused on making power consumption an issue. The following is a measure of the power consumption of the complete system at certain points during operation. Measurements were taking with a P3 Kill-A-Watt meter. While these wattages are somewhat low, it is important to note that they are definitely higher than the Sandy Bridge H67 platform with an i5-2500K CPU. The A8-5600K also ran a little bit higher in terms of power consumption than the A10-5800K. Again, though, it was very close, so I'm not quite sure that the APU itself is the cause.

Idle	36 Watts
During 2hr Netflix Stream	82 Watts
Gaming	110 Watts
Prime95 & Furmark Stress Test (2hr)	154 Watts

AMD A8-5600K APU Final Thoughts

There isn't much to say about the A8-5600K APU that hasn't already been said about the A10-5800K. The second generation of AMD A-Series APUs is definitely an improvement over the first generation. The A8-5600K well outperforms the A8-3850 APU, which was the top of the series a year ago. Not only that, but it costs $40 less than that APU did when it was released.

My issue with the A8-5600K is that I don't feel like it fills its own space well enough. For just $20 more, you can get the A10-5800K with better performance and a better GPU. The two APUs are nearly identical and the price difference just doesn't justify going down one level for me. I think even a $30 difference in price would make a difference in my opinion, if only slightly. As it stands, I have to say that 10 times out of 10, I'll recommend the A10-5800K.

Either way, I'll have to recommend the A8-5600K or the A10-5800K over the Ivy Bridge equivalents for almost any use. If you are looking for an enthusiast grade computer, I wouldn't recommend either the APUs or the i3 Ivy Bridge CPUs. Of course, if you want a gaming computer but are looking to cut costs, I might recommend the i3-3220 with a more expensive discrete GPU. A high-end GPU will turn either of those brands into a viable gaming machine, but the i3-3220 will offer more CPU power than the APUs.

That being said, I would expect most people looking for a gaming machine to go for at least an i5 CPU and probably an i7. Because of that, anyone in the market for an i3 or an APU either doesn't have the disposable income for a $300 GPU, or doesn't need one. For media playback, the A8-5600K or the A10-5800K will be perfect. Add some gaming to that mix and for a very reasonable price you can have a great computer.

So, my final word is that for almost every usage other than extreme videophile gaming, I would recommend the A8-5600K or the A10-5800K over the i3-3220. However, I would also recommend the A10-5800K over the A8-5600K in everyone of those cases as well.

Bottom Line = Spend the extra $20 and go for the A10-5800K.

AMD A-Series A8-5600K Conclusion

IMPORTANT: Although the rating and final score mentioned in this conclusion are made to be as objective as possible, please be advised that every author perceives these factors differently at various points in time. While we each do our best to ensure that all aspects of the product are considered, there are often times unforeseen market conditions and manufacturer changes which occur after publication that could render our rating obsolete. Please do not base any purchase solely on our conclusion, as it represents our product rating specifically for the product tested which may differ from future versions. Benchmark Reviews begins our conclusion with a short summary for each of the areas that we rate.

If you are looking for a great deal on a computer to use as a Media PC or as a PC for someone in your life who dabbles in gaming, the A8-5600K is what you are looking for. If you need your PC for CPU performance more than GPU performance, or if you are planning on buying a nice GPU for gaming, then you should probably look at the Intel Ivy Bridge i3 CPUs. That being said, Trinity accomplishes what it came out to do. Dollar for dollar, I would certainly call it a better value than its Intel equivalent.

The A8-5600K came very close to the Intel i3-3220 in terms of performance. Very close indeed. In the pure CPU tests, it even surpassed the i3-3220 a couple of times. For the most part, however, it fell slightly behind. Not by much, mind you, but it was behind. The GPU performance was outstanding, though. As an all-on-die solution, the A8-5600K really excels. The A8-5600K really is the whole package. The distance that it puts between itself and the i3-3220 in GPU performance more than makes up for the amount it trails in CPU performance.

As for construction, it's a little difficult to rate the A8-5600K. It's built very similarly to the previous generation APUs, with a lot taken from the FX CPUs. That being said, AMD has always lagged behind Intel in shrinking their processes and the A8-5600K still uses a 32nm process. Also, as is natural with the processor fabrication process, the earlier iterations of CPUs tend to experience a lower yield until some of the kinks have been worked out. Intel also has this in its favor since Ivy Bridge has been out for a while.

Unfortunately, I was unable to spend as much time as I would like on overclocking the A8-5600K. It is an unlocked processor and there is a lot to try out. Because of that, I didn't include an overclocking section in this review and I will not pass judgment on the overclockability of the A8-5600K just yet. All signs point to some good overclocking in the near future, so you can expect another article with those details soon.

Functionally, the A8-5600K is very robust. With the increase in encryption performance that AMD stressed on this second generation of APUs, you can really depend on the A8-5600K for just about anything you need. As an internet browsing, YouTube watching, small-time gaming, Netflix and Hulu machine, the A8-5600K offers more than you will ever need. If you plan on bumping up your gaming or using very CPU intensive software, then you probably already have something else in mind that will cost quite a bit more.

For $109.99 (Newegg), I just have to recommend the A10-5800K instead. Its a hard decision for me, but I'd spend the extra $20 every single time. I think $109.99 is an amazing price and the A8-5600K is a great value, especially seeing that the A8-3850 released at nearly $150 last year. The A8-5600K is priced to move, but the A10-5800K is priced even better.

Pros:

+ Discrete level 7660D graphics
+ CPU performance on par with Ivy Bridge i3-3220
+ Can use dual Discrete GPUs in x8/x8
+ Memory support up to 1866MHz
+ Supports 8 native SATA III ports

Cons:

- No backwards compatibility with FM1
- Late market entry

- No Native Virtu MVP support

- You can run two Discrete GPUs, but can't pair those two with the APU graphics

- Drop it another $10 and we'll talk

Ratings:

• Performance: 9.00
• Construction: 8.50
• Functionality: 9.00
• Overclock: --
• Value: 8.50

Final Score: 8.75 out of 10.

Benchmark Reviews invites you to leave constructive feedback below, or ask questions in our Discussion Forum.

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