AMD finally moves forward with implementing a completely new module architecture across its processors. This move has been met with a lot of controversy thanks to high expectations from the first all new design in over a decade. While the rest of the Internet has already released their findings, we decided to spend some extra time to get to know the new AMD Virgo Platform and Trinity APU just a little better. We’re going to be taking a good look at the new “Piledriver” architecture and how it builds on “Bulldozer”, which came with the launch of the AMD FX platform. Can the company finally shed their old ways? Let’s find out!
Whats New?
The current AMD Trinity APU and Virgo Platform are more or less upgrades to the existing AMD product line. There is no need for me to go through all the information from our AMD Bulldozer Review, so lets just look at what has been improved, added, or changed with the new “Piledriver” architecture.
The general design of the architecture remains mostly unchanged when compared to an AMD FX CPU, but you have to keep in mind this is an Accelerated Processing Unit. The AMD Trinity chip is replacing the current Husky based APUs. This means you gain features such as support for the new ISA instruction sets including AVX, AES, FMA4, and XOP. Trinity also gains the AMD TurboCore 3.0, DisplayPort 1.2 (adds daisy chaining support), and full support of AMD Overdrive.
The biggest change for most enthusiasts is the full support for CrossfireX Technology. This may be confusing to some as previous APUs could only use its on-die GPU in tandem with select GPUs called Dual Graphics Technology. The reason AMD did not use the CrossfireX label for this feature is because of those limitations. The new Trinity APU can operate in either a single x16 PCIe 2.0 mode or dual x8 PCIe 2.0 mode with any supporting graphics cards independent of the on-die GPU. This will greatly improve the upgrade options available to those who build their system with the Virgo platform.
AMD worked to improved every other aspect of the original “Bulldozer” design with improved branch predictions, cache performance, and memory controller performance while maintaining a similar TDP as previous APUs. This means the top-tier A10 5800K will have a TDP of 100W and the same max CPU clock speed of 4.2 GHz as current FX CPUs. There is really no information about what was changed or was done differently, so we will simply let the numbers speak for themselves in testing.
The Virgo Platform will also include the addition of a new FCH (Fusion Control Hub) in the A85X Hudson-D4. The details of the new features can be found in our preview of the Virgo Platform. The one interesting improvement is the support for up to 8 SATA 6.0 Gb/s ports which may reduce the cost and complexity of top-tier FM2 socket motherboards. Many manufacturers may simply use the FCH to provide all the SATA support including rear and front I/O eSATA ports.
While not directly related to the new FCH, we will also see the new AMD AMP! (Advanced Memory Profiles) available on all A85X based motherboards. If AMP does provide tangible performance improvements, I expect to see this expanded to most future AMD motherboards. This is also the reason why, at the time, it was difficult to see value in the AMD Branded Memory Kit we reviewed earlier this year. But with AMP!, we can finally see a benefit to using such kits.
The AMD Virgo Platform will seem to many like a minor update to the APU lineup, but I disagree. The introduction of the first Piledriver based CPU and support for the new ISA instructions could translate to huge improvements in performance for certain applications. It is only left to see if the weaknesses in the Bulldozer architecture have been improved upon. You can expect to see six new APUs at launch with 2 dual-core chips and 4 quad-core chips with an expected max price of $129.99 and an entry level price of $59.99 which is overall very affordable.
Test System Setup
As I am comparing the current FM1 socket A8-3870K to the new FM2 socket A10-5800K/A8-5600K there will be two test systems. I will also be including figures from the FX-8150 for comparison only. Select CPU benchmarks will be used to further assess performance.
Hardware – Trinity System
- Motherboard: MSI FM2 A85X-G65
- CPU: AMD A10-5800K 3.8 GHz (4.2 GHz Max Turbo) Socket FM2 || AMD A8-5600K 3.6 GHz (3.9 GHz Max Turbo) Socket FM2
- GPU: AMD on-die Radeon HD 7660D ;; AMD on-die Radeon HD 7560D
- Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws X 2133 MHz (9-11-10-27) @ 1866 MHz (9-10-9-27)
- Power Supply: Antec 850W HCP 80+ Gold
- Case: SilverStone TJ04-EW
- SSD: Patriot Pyro SATA III MLC 60 GB (Sandforce 2281 controller)
- HDD: Seagate Barracuda XT 2 TB
Hardware – Llano System
- Motherboard: MSI FM2 A85X-G65
- CPU: AMD A8-3870K 3.0 GHz Socket FM1
- GPU: AMD on-die Radeon HD 6550D
- Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws X 2133 MHz (9-11-10-27) @ 1866 MHz (9-10-9-27)
- Power Supply: Antec 850W HCP 80+ Gold
- Case: SilverStone TJ04-EW
- SSD: Patriot Pyro SATA III MLC 60 GB (Sandforce 2281 controller)
- HDD: Seagate Barracuda XT 2 TB
Software/Benchmarks
- Windows 7 64-bit Ultimate
- PCMark07
- 3DMark11
- Alien Vs. Predator DX11 benchmark
- Resident Evil 5 DX10/DX9 benchmark
- Battlefield 3
- Sandra 2012 SP5
- Handbrake 0.9.8
Now that we’ve got the software and hardware load out described, let’s see if there were any issues to note with installing, upgrading and overclocking with the new Virgo platform.
Installation and Upgrade Notes
AMD continues using the same retention system for the CPU cooler. This is a big plus as any aftermarket cooler you can use with AM3, AM3+, FM1, or even some AM2 sockets will all work just fine. There are some do’s and do not’s I would like to go over for those planning to switch from an older platform.
If you are upgrading from an FM1 system, then you do not need to completely reinstall your operating system. However, you do need to remove any secondary USB 3.0 drivers, update to the latest AMD chipset drivers which as of this writing, are version 12.8 of the Catalyst Control Center. You should also remove any brand specific software control suites. ASUS’ AI Suite comes to mind.
Once you have done this, simply swap out your motherboard and APU then reboot. Windows 7 will recognize and reinstall all the drivers for you. I would also recommend using something like “Ghostbuster” or “Crap Cleaner” to help remove all of the old registry data to maintain boot speed. Since these utilities sometimes have a mind of their own, please do so at your own risk. Ultimaely, the best way is to completely re-install Windows 7 to ensure the best possible performance.
AMD had plenty of time to work out any bugs, kinks, and quirks so you will not run into any issues with an upgrade or new installation. Once the OS was running, I attempted to use the provided drivers on the CD. The installer hung for almost an hour before I decided to try something different.
Once your new OS is running, install the Ethernet driver and get the latest chipset and graphics drivers from game.amd.com. My MSI FM2 A85X-G65 did not have any secondary USB 3.0 or SATA controllers, so these covered everything with one update from AMD.
Overclocking Notes
Overclocking the A10-5800K was easy thanks to the unlocked multiplier and more mature memory controller. Right off the bat I could get 2133 MHz RAM clock by simply switching to it. Attempting this with previous APUs and even the FX-8150 left the test system unstable. These attempts with my FX-8150 would often lead to a crash after a few minutes of gaming, I had no such issue with the A10-5800K. I could also increase the GPU to 950 MHz and the CPU to 4.3 GHz by turning off power management and adjusting the CPU voltage up a notch.
Getting the A10-5800K over those settings was a little bit more of an adventure. I eventually got the 5800K to 4.5 GHz, GPU at 1014 MHz bus, and memory to 2133 MHz with some voltage tweaking; however, this resulted in a catastrophic failure of my test system during gaming. Prior to the failure, I did get some performance figures that I will include where they apply.
Now that we have two ways to get to a stable system, lets put the A10-5800K and A8-5600K through its paces. Its time to see exactly what we have gained any performance with this latest hardware update.
Total System Performance (PCMark07)
Starting off with PCMark07 gives us a good idea up front of what we can expect in terms of overall performance, and in specific tests coming up. Testing was done with everything except secondary storage testing selected.
As you can see the A8-3870K comes behind in every test. While the older Llano chip normally falls 150 to 500 points behind, it is completely blown away in the Computational and Creativity scores by the new Trinity APU. This comes down to the support for the new instruction sets when performing certain tasks such as photo editing.
Synthetic Graphics (3DMark11)
Lets take a quick glance at expected gaming performance as this is the area Trinity APUs are expected to shine the brightest. We don’t expect major difference as there was a marginal different between the 6000 and 7000 series graphics chips the GPUs were based on. We do expect lower power consumption though which we will validate a little later on.
The A8-3870K falls within a few points of the A8-5600K with the A10-5800K pulling well ahead in graphical performance. This does fall in line with the AMD naming scheme as the A## is a quick way to compare performance at a glance. It would seem this is also very accurate.
With the synthetic tests giving us a relative direction of performance, let’s see how that translates to real world performance.
Real World Gaming Performance (Resident Evil 5 and Alien Vs. Predator)
Now let’s try the same testing with an actual game. As always I test the AvP with the default settings which sets everything to high, DX11, but with only 2xAA. RE5 was testing with settings maxed out in every category, frame rate unlocked, Vsync disabled, and no motion blur. Both were testing at 1920 x 1080 resolution.
While all the numbers are very close, the A8-3870K comes between the A10-5800K and A8-5600K, which is not expected based on previous results. Following the same trend as the dedicated versions of these chips, the on-die 7660D and 7560D uses fewer shaders with a higher default clock.
Real World Gaming Performance (Battlefield 3)
We found out that the Llano APUs could easy run older titles at maxed out settings with little trouble. This included great titles such as Portal 2, Trine, and Mass Effect 2. With some tweaking you could also get playable frame rates out of last years AAA titles such as Deus Ex: Revolution and Mass Effect 3. Since I am sure you can get Trinity to do the same, lets push these chips to their limit with Battlefield 3 at 1920 x 1080 on High with no motion blur on the Alborz Mountains map.
As you might expect, there is no playing BF3 on High with only an APU. It is good to see that the Trinity chips both did better than their predecessor. As foreshadowed by previous tests, the A10-5800K maintains a comfortable lead. If you really insist on trying to play this game with just your an A10-5800K, you will need to set the shared memory to 1 GB or better to stop texture pop-in and use 2133 MHz memory if possible to give memory bandwidth a boost.
You’ll also need to set custom graphical settings in-game. I eventually got a solid 30 FPS using modified low settings, but I still found the system hindering my gameplay. This is a place where we’d strongly recommend a discrete graphics solutions. But if you are a fairly casual gamer, then you’ll still find many great titles to play at very reasonable quality and frame rates.
Now let’s move on to how the new Trinity APU works as a CPU alone.
General CPU Performance (Cinebench 11.5)
Now that we are clear the on-die 7660D and 7560D are solid performers, lets zoom in on the CPU side of Trinity. Using Cinebench 11.5, we will assess any improvement since Bulldozer. I will be including test results from the FX-8150 in these graphs for comparison.
The new Piledriver architecture does manage to pull ahead of the arguably higher end Bulldozer chip. Even when compared to the A8-5600K in single CPU test, the FX-8150 falls behind despite having a high maximum speed of 4.2 GHz. When the higher clocked A10-5800K (3.8 GHz default/4.2 GHz Max Turbo) is put to the test it comes in even faster. While still well behind Intel’s latest and greatest, it is good to see improvement here.
Sandra 2012 SP5 (Arithmetic CPU Performance)
Now that we have an idea how how the CPU battles should go, lets do some specific testing to see how it performs in various tasks. We’ll be assessing general CPU performance using the Dhrystone and Whetstone arithmetic tests. We’l also be adding in the Multimedia test as well.
In the arithmetic tests, the new instruction sets make no difference. Here the numbers stay very close with the A10-5800K maintaining that lead. The A8-3870K does manage to take the victory by a small amount in the Whetstone performance. Multimedia testing (how many megapixels the CPU can render in 1 second) is no comparison at all with performance nearly doubled over the A8-3870K with the new Trinity.
Sandra 2012 SP5 (Cryptography Performance)
Next up is cryptography in which the Trinity chips get a huge advantage in AES-256 test thanks to the AES instruction set support. This means we mainly want to see how the SHA-256 test results come out since the FX-8150 had trouble with this before. We will see how updates to the software may have changed this.
These results came out exactly as expected with the AES-256 testing being completely unfair. In the SHA-256 results we’re happy to see a strong performance from both of the new Trinity chips, but there is a strange drop in performance when overclocked. Overall a good sign for these kinds of tasks and for the upcoming Vishera FX chips which will boast an additional 4 cores for a total of 8 physical cores.
Sandra 2012 SP5 (Memory Performance)
Finally, we have memory performance to look at. Please note, we were unable to run memory at 2133 MHz RAM with the FX-8150 or A8-3870K without system stability issues. The new A10-5800K and A8-5600K can both run with memory at this speed with no issues. Our memory is designed to run at 2133 MHz 9-11-10-28 @ 1.65V by default, but we only used this speed during overclocking tests.
There is a very minor improvement in memory performance at the same speed. I initially wanted to dismiss this as a fluke, but repeat testing yields the same result. This is secondary to stable performance at higher memory clocks.
Let’s push some slightly more real world tests at these APUs/CPUs and see how they do.
Real World CPU Performance (7-zip)
These test are straight forward testing of the CPU doing a real world task. While the 7-zip test is pre-designed, it is simply testing its own performance with random number compression and decompression.
The A8-3870K once again gets by the A8-5600K by a small margin. It still is not able to reach the A10-5800K in performance however, but does come very close.
Real World CPU Performance (Handbrake 0.9.8)
Though the software has had a few updates since I last used it for testing, we don’t see anything that would improve the overall encoding performance. It continues to be a good test of real world video encoding performance. Our test is configured by converting a 720p HD video from its default format to fit an iPhone4.
This test shows the 5800K and 5600K using that clock speed advantage to its best. This does not discount the 16 second improvement with the 5600K and 24 second improvement with the 5800K. Overclocking the 5800K to 4.5 GHz nets an additional 11 seconds shaved off for a total advantage of 35 seconds when converting video. If you convert a lot of video over the course of a year, this can lead to a lot of time saved.
Power Consumption
Once again this is full system performance, so take these figures with a grain of salt as the motherboard itself could affect these figures somewhat. Please also keep in mind the low power state for the A8-3870K is at 800 MHz while both of the Trinity chips only go down to 1.4 GHz. This is significant as it does affect non CPU intensive tasks.
Power consumption can vary from chip to chip. My A8-3870K uses slightly more power at both idle and full power. The difference at idle is small enough to ignore and full load only shows 8 watt difference. I enjoy the improvement, but we will not see significant drops until AMD switches to a new fabrication process.
Final Thoughts
I can’t say that I am impressed with the new Virgo platform and Trinity APUs, but I am not disappointed either. The new on-die GPU once again shows it has more muscle than you would expect considering “so-called” competitive offerings. Will you be playing AAA titles at maxed out settings? No. But you can easily play most at medium settings with decent frame rates for under $500 for an entire system. And if you are still playing titles from 1 or 2 years ago, then this is more than enough to distract college students who should be doing homework. And homework is done quite well thanks to its overall performance as a package.
On the CPU side of things, this is where I find myself a little conflicted. I would like to say Piledriver will breath new life into the FX line, but I don’t see it happening. There is clearly an improvement, but it is mainly refinement with minimal gains when compared to Llano and Bulldozer. I would like to see Piledriver with a L3 cache and 4 modules (8 integer cores) and what it could do in a true head to head fight with the old FX-8150. If AMD sticks to its release schedule, this could be soon.
When it is all said and done the new Virgo Platform and its Trinity APUs do deliver in terms of features and user experience. We gain AMD AMP!, CrossfireX support, AMD TurboCore 3.0, and additional SATA ports. These features expand on the APU platform as being more all-purpose with the ability to appeal to a broader audience. It does leave those with Llano systems a little short-changed as there is no easy upgrade path to Trinity without a new motherboard, and there is no backwards capability either. But at the same time, if Llano already does everything you need, this doesn’t seem like a bang for buck upgrade.
But if you’re building a brand new system today, there is no doubt in my mind that for the $129.99 you spend on an A10-5800K, you can build one very capable system for around $500 or less complete. If you choose to spend more for better memory and maybe an SSD, you’ll have a system that will fulfill all your day to day tasks without delay, and still be able to keep up with a vast library of games on the weekend.
The Virgo Platform and the Trinity APU is no revolution, but it’s definitely a step in the right direction for AMD and a real gift for mass market users looking for a great mix of value and performance.
Pros:
- Single and Multi-threaded Performance Improvement
- New Instruction Sets
- Improved Memory Controller
- AMD CrossfireX Support
- AMD AMP! Support
- AMD TurboCore 3.0
- Less need for secondary USB 3.0 and SATA Controllers
- Great on-die GPU overclocking
Cons:
- Performance Difference Task Specific
- CPU core performance still well behind Intel
- No Compatibility with FM1
- Insignificant Power Consumption Improvement
Overall Score: 8.5/10
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