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Review: AMD A8-5600K

by Tarinder Sandhu on 18 October 2012, 12:00 3.5

Tags: AMD (NYSE:AMD)

Quick Link: HEXUS.net/qabnxb

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Testing methodology

Comparison Systems

System name AMD A10-5800K AMD A8-5600K AMD A8-3870K Intel Core i7-3770K Intel Core i3-3225 Intel Core i3-2100
Processor AMD A10-5800K @ 3.8GHz AMD A8-5600K @ 3.6GHz AMD A8-3870K @ 3.0GHz Intel Core i7-3770K @ 3.50GHz Intel Core i3-3225 @ 3.30GHz Intel Core i3-2100 @ 3.10GHz
Cores/threads 4/4 4/4 4/4 4/8 2/4 2/4
Cooler AVC reference AVC reference AVC reference Intel reference Intel reference Intel reference
Motherboard Gigabyte F2-A85X-UP4 Gigabyte F2-A85X-UP4 ) ASRock A75M-ITX (F10)

Gigabyte GA-Z77X-UD5H (F8c)

Gigabyte GA-Z77X-UD5H (F8c)

Gigabyte GA-Z77X-UD5H (F8c)

BIOS F3e F3e F10

F8c

F8c

F8c

Chipset driver Catalyst 12.8 SB Catalyst 12.8 SB Catalyst 12.8 SB

Inf 9.30.0.1031

Inf 9.30.0.1031

Inf 9.30.0.1031

Graphics AMD Radeon HD 7660D AMD Radeon HD 7560D

AMD Radeon HD 6550D

Intel HD 4000 Graphics Intel HD 4000 Graphics Intel HD 2000 Graphics
Graphics driver Catalyst 12.8 Catalyst 12.8 Catalyst 12.8 Intel 8.15.10.2761 Intel 8.15.10.2761 Intel 8.15.10.2761
Memory
Patriot 8GB IEM DDR3 (2 x 4GB)
Memory speed
9-9-9-24-1T @ 1,600MHz
Sound card
Onboard high-definition audio
Primary storage
256GB Samsung 830 SSD
PSU
Corsair AX750
Chassis
Corsair Graphite 600T
Operating System
Windows 7 Ultimate SP1 64-bit

Benchmarks

AIDA v2.60 Tests system bandwidth, cache bandwidth, and latency
HEXUS PiFast A single-threaded number-crunching test we've been using for over 10 years now
Cinebench R11 Using Cinebench's multi-CPU render, this cross-platform benchmark stresses as many cores as possible.
TrueCrypt 7.1a This benchmark evaluates the AES-encryption ability of the systems
X264 HD 5.0.1 Much-used, standardised test that encodes a 1080p clip into H.264 format
LuxMark Uses LuxRender and OpenCL for GPGPU performance evaluation
PCMark 7 PCMark 7 combines various single- and multi-threaded CPU, Graphics and HDD tests to score overall system performance
7-zip 9.2.0 Popular program for zipping files. Includes compressing and decompressing tests
3DMark 11 Run at Entry preset
3DMark Vantage Run at Performance preset
DiRT: Showdown 1,280x720, 4x MSAA, Medium settings, DX9
Batman: Arkham City 1,280x720, 2x MSAA, High-quality settings (DX9) and Medium-quality settings (DX11)
Power consumption Noted for system idling, under X264 HD all-core load, and for GPU playing Batman: Arkham City

Notes

We've stuck the A8-5600K chip up against the best AMD APU of this generation, A10-5800K, the best of the last generation, A8-3870K, and also evaluated it against two price-comparable Intel Core i3 chips from the Sandy Bridge (i3-2100) and Ivy Bridge (i3-3225) lines.