AMD A8-5600K Pro Reviews

AMD's rollout of six second-generation APUs brings renewed focus to the constituent parts of any mainstream PC today. A good look at the A8-5600K chip reveals its can-do CPU core and above-average integrated graphics provide a good fit for an inexpensive system. We'd recommend pairing said APU with a microATX motherboard, 8GB of DDR3-2,133 memory, a cheap-as-chips SSD, and a small chassis - all for under £300, assuming you could sufficiently cool the chip without resorting to using loud fans. After presenting 30-odd graphs and prodding and poking the APU's qualities, we feel that AMD's A8-5600K is a reasonable bet if you can't stretch the extra £20 for the A10-5800K and don't want to go down the Intel Core i3 path.

The new A8-5600K provides a far better cost/benefit ratio than the A10-5800K. The A10-5800K, as you can see in our review, has an excellent gaming performance for its class, but falls short on general processing power. Its competitor, the Core i3-3220, is a faster CPU for regular programs. The A8-5600K, on the other hand, is priced just right. At USD 110, it competes with the Pentium G2120 (USD 100, which is based on Intel’s “Ivy Bridge” microarchitecture) and the Core i3-2100 (USD 120, which is based on Intel’s “Sandy Bridge” microarchitecture). The A8-5600K proved to be a superior CPU than these entry-level models from Intel for both general computing and gaming. According to our tests, the integrated video of the A8-5600K has the same performance level as a GeForce GT 440 with 1 GB, which is terrific. Therefore, we highly recommend the A8-5600K if you are building a mainstream PC. Even if you are not going to play games, the A8-5600K will provide better general performance than its competitors.

The AMD A8-5600K may not have been as fast as the A10-5800K, but it is still a great piece of Silicon that will save you $30 and still run like a champ.

For $109.99 (Newegg), I just have to recommend the A10-5800K instead. Its a hard decision for me, but I'd spend the extra $20 every single time. I think $109.99 is an amazing price and the A8-5600K is a great value, especially seeing that the A8-3850 released at nearly $150 last year. The A8-5600K is priced to move, but the A10-5800K is priced even better.

Trinity is competitive, and that is what we like to see. Intel is not slowing down much, but rumors have Haswell being somewhat delayed. This could potentially open up a window for AMD to release Steamroller and surprise the market again. But for the time being Trinity will fit in nicely at $122 and below. The strong point again for this particular processor is that of the platform as a whole. A user can get quite a lot of computer for less money than when using a comparable Intel processor.

I poured out my thoughts about these APUs out on the front page. I like them a lot. Intel simply doesn't offer anything remotely close for the same budget when it comes to 3D performance. They aren't really meant to compete with Intel anyway, so you are left with two choices when it comes to low power and entry-level stuff, and that is a choice between CPU horsepower or GPU horsepower. Clearly, there is a large divide when those two are considered. The fact that CPU performance isn't quite up to Intel levels is going to upset some, but I see that as a non-issue. You have got to make certain concession in order to squeeze so much 3D powers into such a small space on such a power budget, and what AMD ultimately offers suits me just fine. I cannot help but think of how many office PC users would love to get their hands on something like this considering the fact that multi-monitor support is easy to deal. What they have available now is greatly underpowered in comparison. Those boxes could use this upgrade, and the introduction of Windows8 might just be enough to push many offices in the direction of AMD's A-series APUs.

I have been trying to think of how to sum up what AMD dropped off here this week and I think a defining moment came while I was playing DiRT 3 at 43 FPS with settings on high at 1080p. I looked over at the large windowed case that I assembled this new platform in and saw only a motherboard and some memory looking back at me. What AMD has engineered here is a rather amazing platform. If you need a multitasking center and a fully featured multimedia center, and workstation, and a gaming machine, well here you go. I was just afforded a look at the retail pricing for the flagship of the A-series and it will be available for $122. By my calculations that means for around $400 you can put together all of the above. The A85X chipset is equally impressive with its range of features and possibilities with eight SATA 6Gb/s ports, the ability to drive three monitors from the motherboard using the integrated graphics, the ability to double your graphics power with a $50-$80 discrete card to work in tandem with the on-die graphics and the list goes on. The CPU half of the die has been improved but is not going to set the world on fire and against Intel it is on par with the i3s. It leaves me wondering why the L3 is missing in Trinity, and what the 8MB of L3 will mean to Vishera.