Virgo is coming. A quick look at the AMD A10-5800K APU

primesuspect

Virgo is coming. A quick look at the AMD A10-5800K APU

John Danielson II

Nice approach to the situation. One thing you left out, in the email quote Scott used, is a reference to talking to AMD about stuff discovered early but also embargoed. This gives AMD a chance to do some limited fixing at BIOS support level of some problems BEFORE the problems are revealed, and to get fixes mfr'd that might not be in review chips.

Gargoyle

Could Core Temp or anything else estimate the A10's power draw while loaded? I'd be interested in seeing actual usage, since I'm assuming the 5800K wouldn't suck down the full 100W unless it's OC'd heavily.

mertesn

CoreTemp doesn't do that. I've got a Kill-a-Watt that can tell how much the whole system is using at any given point, but that may not answer your question.

Cliff_Forster

"The question is, as always, will they remain relevant long enough to buy time to come out with a truly high-end mainstream enthusiast CPU once again?"

I'm going to challenge this a little. I think reality is setting in for me, it's painful, but it's true. The traditional computer enthusiast is a dinosaur. We all are, and we have to just come to terms with it. The world is changing. The market to build a giant full ATX tower with dual graphics, massive heat-sinks and water cooling systems is a niche, and a shrinking market. AMD's best strategy is to abandon this market. It's barely relevant, the research and development dollars are best spent on the APU. Mobile continues to grow, cloud servers will benefit from the reduced footprint and power utilization, regular business and education desktop users will benefit from the APU's advancements. It's a better chip for more of us, and if the people running AMD are smart, they will just concede the top end of the enthusiast desktop space as an insignificant part of the market and focus on their more innovative technology.

If you consider what the new APU line offers as a flexible platform it's really exciting. This is AMD's future more than anything else. They should embrace it, re focus their energy and abandon the upper echelon of performance CPU's because it's an insignificant portion of the market. It's a market that's loosing it's energy. Hell, I love my tower, I built it with my own hands, managed all the cables, picked all the hardware, it's beautiful, but I know how impractical it really is. It's a dinosaur, it's the old way of doing things, and it's going away.

I'll tell you what will be an exciting enthusiast platform.... When AMD makes my prediction of APU boards with multiple sockets a reality. It just seems like the natural evolution to me. Graphics cards, as much as I love em, are very 1998, it's time for a new way to do things. The APU is the future of power computing, and AMD is doing that better than their competitor. If AMD want's to lead the market, they need to change how the game is played. Competing in the traditional enthusiast space is a loosing proposition, it's a fool's bet, the question AMD should be asking itself is "How do we make the APU more relevant across every application model?" Not "How do we get back into the enthusiast CPU game?"

Thrax

The high-end market isn't shrinking. It's healthier than it's been in a long time. It's just relatively smaller as non-enthusiast segments grow.

I also can't say much more than this: never underestimate the power of a halo brand. Never ever ever ever.

Cliff_Forster

"never underestimate the power of a halo brand" - Okay, without asking you to disclose things that you obviously shouldn't? What does that mean?

CB

He's either talking about the phychological principle by which people associate cool-looking, well-advertized consumer product brands with an unreasonable need, making them willing to pay much more than a product's value simply to have it, or he's hinting that you'll need this hardware to play the next Halo game.

Cliff_Forster

Thanks @CB - Well then I've been a Halo consumer for years.

Tushon

See similar effect with people

fatcat

@Cliff_Forster I'm building a Micro-ATX gaming machine with dual water cooling kits, high end GPU and SSDs all stuffed in to a little case in the very near future. The computer enthusiast is not dead, we're just getting wiser

Cliff_Forster

For the record, I would never call it dead. I just don't think it presents AMD's most significant opportunity for future growth.

mertesn

I hear the FX-8150 overclocks like mad if you know what you're doing (I don't).

primesuspect

The perception is that it's shrinking in North America, but it is growing like mad in Asia, Latin America, Brazil, India, Eastern Europe, and other emerging markets. Like mad.

Thrax

Germany and Sweden alone can account for up to 50% of the western hemisphere's enthusiast hardware purchases. North America may be dominated by OEMs and PC builders, with the bulk of the sales coming from that, but such a retail cycle and configuration does not exist everywhere else. Enthusiast gaming/PCing is alive and well.

Hell, it's even incrementally growing in the US/Canada again.

Garg

mertesn said:

CoreTemp doesn't do that.

Mine does on my home computer. I tried the latest version on my work computer (an Athlon II), though, and the power field was missing. I'm not sure if this power estimate is accurate, if it's supported by many platforms, and I'm not totally sure this wasn't a feature that was put in for one beta release and was subsequently taken out.

mertesn

I stand corrected. Somehow I've overlooked that box.

primesuspect

CoreTemp appears to be inaccurate with this APU:

Garg

Although 100% load at 25*C would be nice.

BuddyJ

Every time I see APU, I think:



I get it AMD, but for the love of all that is marketing you're fighting an uphill battle against a juggernaut with a 23 season head start in getting ingrained in American culture. Be good lads and re-brand it into something you've got sitting up on a shelf somewhere. Call it the All-In-Wonder. :P

Thrax

APU marketing is rarely consumer-centric by virtue of the processor industry, particularly in North America. People buy systems based on price and experience and not a whole lot else. Your average customer has no earthly idea what's in their system. That's advantageous for APUs, and also focuses processor marketing for the whole industry on winning OEM designs, and they're much more knowledgeable.

Peter Gill

My fun? Consider it governed.

mertesn

BuddyJ said:

Every time I see APU, I think:



I get it AMD, but for the love of all that is marketing you're fighting an uphill battle against a juggernaut with a 23 season head start in getting ingrained in American culture. Be good lads and re-brand it into something you've got sitting up on a shelf somewhere. Call it the All-In-Wonder. :P

Bringing the All-in-Wonder name back would have been absolutely genius on AMD's part.

Cliff_Forster

Has pricing been released yet?

Straight_Man

The only info I have about that is kinda sideways info, they (AMD) are talking that it (the APU reviewed a bit here) will "compete with the i3 2120 and i3 2220," so pricing should be similar for the APUs versus those i3's.

mertesn

Cliff_Forster said:

Has pricing been released yet?

Likely NDA'ed until the final release date.

primesuspect

Pricing will be revealed on Oct. 2nd. That date was supposed to be under embargo but every site I've seen has published it, so...

Cliff_Forster

If you can build a whole system around the A10 for about $400, I don't see how it can be beat in the OEM space. Think about it, Grandma's Emachines might run Dirt 3 at reasonable settings. The Grand-kid's may visit more. @Thrax - there is your next advertising campaign, get on it! ;*)

mertesn

Cliff_Forster said:

If you can build a whole system around the A10 for about $400, I don't see how it can be beat in the OEM space. Think about it, Grandma's Emachines might run Dirt 3 at reasonable settings. The Grand-kid's may visit more. @Thrax - there is your next advertising campaign, get on it! ;*)

I have no idea what the pricing is, but I'm going to guess a full system will be closer to $600 by the time Windows and a display are included.

Cliff_Forster

I was thinking more in the lines of an upgraded replacement tower. The typical HP and Emachines OEM stuff that grandma goes to Costco to replace every ten seven years or so.

midga

mertesn said:

Cliff_Forster said:

If you can build a whole system around the A10 for about $400, I don't see how it can be beat in the OEM space. Think about it, Grandma's Emachines might run Dirt 3 at reasonable settings. The Grand-kid's may visit more. @Thrax - there is your next advertising campaign, get on it! ;*)

I have no idea what the pricing is, but I'm going to guess a full system will be closer to $600 by the time Windows and a display are included.

There are alternatives.