Final thoughts and rating

HEXUS Snapshot: ..AMD needs a clear, coherent strategy if it's to leverage the obvious good in its latest A-series APU, especially as the upgrade to a Trinity-based part requires further investment in a FM2-supporting motherboard.

Nearly five months on from the release of the laptop-bound Trinity APU and just in time for the beginning of the holiday season, AMD outs the desktop variant of its latest CPU-and-GPU technology.

The transition from 35W mobile part to 100W desktop enables AMD to increase the Trinity APU's speeds considerably, with the range-topping A10-5800K punching in at a maximum 4.2GHz CPU and 800MHz GPU.

Understanding that the CPU architecture is something of a side-step while the integrated GPU is plain better than anything that has gone before, the £100 APU provides a solid fit for everyday applications - generally matching Intel's comparable processor in CPU-intensive tests and handing it a Bane-esque beating in GPU-related tasks.

We'd absolutely purchase a desktop Trinity APU over a previous-generation Llano, and while the chip has the technical merit to compete against Intel's Core series, we recommend AMD take another look at introducing yet more lower-wattage models and incentivising motherboard partners to marry them up with price-conscious Mini-ITX boards.

AMD needs a clear, coherent strategy if it's to leverage the obvious good in its latest A-series APU, especially as the upgrade to a Trinity-based part requires further investment in a FM2-supporting motherboard. A keen focus on value, form factor and energy efficiency will ensure that AMD APUs become fundamentally viable competitors for low-to-mid-range Intel Core chips.

The Good

Solid CPU and class-leading GPU performance
Very competitive pricing

The Bad

New motherboard needed
Power-draw may be a concern

HEXUS Rating

AMD A10-5800K Trinity desktop APU

HEXUS Where2Buy

TBC.

HEXUS Right2Reply

At HEXUS, we invite the companies whose products we test to comment on our articles. If any company representatives for the products reviewed choose to respond, we'll publish their commentary here verbatim.

Login with Forum Account

Don't have an account? Register today!

A good balanced part but I reckon the upgrade path might be too steep a price for many considering the gains aren't that great…

What has happened to Hexus Bang4Buck analysis? It was such a useful bit of the review, bring it back.

I'd definitely recommend the AMD APU over Intel's i3 offerings. Hopefully the next change brings the CPU side of things closer because I suspect a lot of people would not choose AMD based on that.

It would be nice to compare the 4 trinity APUs available against each other to get an idea of the best value APU.

Good review, but bang-for-buck and comparison of motherboard prices would make this far more useful for real world decisions.

For a budget PC it looks like it's Trinity ftw. I hope they manage to get the chips and motherboards in stock - finding the latest generation laptops is like looking for a needle in a haystack with all the old stock kicking around.

No fast RAM comparison?

Not overclocking the CPU and then running game benchmarks is a bit of a dun-goof as well. We know there is a potent GPU on the package with a gimped CPU - overclocking the CPU may yield better results than raising the GPU's frequency up. Can you not overclock both at the same time?