We used Gigabytes latest FM2A85X-UP4 motherboard for testing which is the manufacturers flagship product for the FM2 platform equipped with the latest A85X Hudson D4 chipset.

We have already seen integrated graphics solutions from Intel on their processors under the HD Graphics brand so what was so special about these newly released chips by AMD when Intel has already been doing the same thing since Sandy Bridge generation of processors.

The first APU platform was co-developed for both laptops (Brazos based on Bobact architecture) and Llano for desktops which is based on the K10 architecture.

Though they didnt gain much attention over at the desktop end, AMD still had faith and with a strong know-how of the new APU platform waited for the right moment to launch their 2nd generation of APUs codenamed Trinity.

Bulldozer is highly regarded as the biggest flop of AMDs history one which hit the company so hard that it cost the CEO of the company Dirk Meyer his job (Via PCWorld ).

But that hit was a lesson learned hard for AMD and they know that bringing the x86 Bulldozer architecture to the desktop market would mean in-efficiency with mediocre performance so they wanted and a year later introduced Trinity, not with their older x86 Bulldozer architecture but with the new and improved x86 Piledriver revision.

Piledriver got the things right which Bulldozer couldnt at its launch.

This meant that the CPU side was about to get a major boost over the older K10 architecture in the Llano APU and at the same time, improved visual performance was expected from the new APUs due to the addition of Radeon Cores.

The APUs were still based on the 32nm architecture which meant that the TDP would remain higher and the x86 performance was not much impressive against a year old Intel architecture.

But the graphics side shined and Intel had competition at such a competitive price range which their Core i3 and Core i5 chips couldnt outlast.

AMDs APUs were limited to L2 cache since AMD chose efficiency over performance for their new Fusion platform.

Amd A10-5800K Update Over The

The graphics core was based on the VLIW4 architecture which was an update over the VLIW3 based Llano APUs HD 6000 iGP.

The graphics core was smaller but much more power ful and efficient which allowed AMD to not only use the latest Turbo Core 3.0 technology on the CPU side but also on the GPU side which allowed the APU to adjust clock speeds when under load by a demanding application or based on the available TDP room the clocks would go higher.

You can see from the slides below that AMD has done some aggressive marketing with their Trinity APU platform.

The FM2 socket is only compatible with Trinity and Richland Accelerated processing units.

Amd A10-5800K Upgrade To FM2

Users with Llano APUs cant upgrade to FM2 since the new socket isnt pin-compatible with the older processors.

The A85X chipset is going to be shipped with the high-end FM2 motherboards allowing upto 8 SATA 6GBps ports, four USB 3.0, ten USB 2.0 ports, High Definition audio and AMD CrossfireX support.

AMD has arranged their new chipsets in three tiers; A55 Chipset for Entry FM2 solutions, A75 chipset for media users and gamers while the A85X chipset is targeted towards performance users who want to feast upon all the features available on the APU platform.

AMD would later on continue the Athlon branding for their APUs but do note that these models come without a integrated graphics core but go for a much affordable price with higher clock speeds and better performance compared to Athlon II processors.

The A10-5800K is powered with four x86 piledriver cores and a VLIW4 architecture based Radeon GPU with 384 cores.

The HD 7660D graphics core operates at 800 MHz and can be configured to run at idle mode when not under operation or direct load from a demanding application.

The graphics core can support Dual graphics allowing select motherboards that allow the features to pair up the graphics core with a discrete graphics solution allowing an operation similar to CrossfireX in which power can be utilized from both cores.

Heat is the least of an issue for the new processors.At launch, the A10-5800K had an MSRP of 122 which is quiet a reasonable price for a chip that packs the CPU and GPU with fast clock speeds.

Amd A10-5800K Drivers