AMD Trinity A10-5800K APU Review

System / IGP Power Consumption

Our power consumption numbers are broken down into two categories: one which simply stresses all of the CPU cores with WPrime and another which puts a high amount of load on both the CPU cores and the IGP. The latter will only be included if a given processor includes a dedicated internal graphics sub-processor.

For the CPU power consumption test, we use the standard testing system (with an NVIDIA GTX 670 installed) and wait until the system and discrete GPU are at idle speeds in order to log the idle power consumption. After this, WPrime 1024M is looped for 15 minutes while the power consumption is logged with a calibrated power meter to determine the peak watts.

IGP power consumption testing follows very much the same route as above but with some changes. First and foremost, the GTX 670 is removed and the video output is run through the processor’s graphics engine. In order to fully load the graphics cores and the primary processing stages within the CPU, we run the Unit Benchmark (in DX9 mode) from Civilization V for exactly 15 minutes.

Please note that after extensive testing, we have found that simply plugging in a power meter to a wall outlet or UPS will NOT give you accurate power consumption numbers due to slight changes in the input voltage. Thus we use a Tripp-Lite 1800W line conditioner between the 120V outlet and the power meter.


When placed in comparison to previous AMD architectures, the A10-5800K represents a good step forward from a performance per watt perspective. It manages to consume less power than an A8-3870K despite its higher clock speeds.

Against Intel processors, things tend to fall apart. AMD’s 32nm manufacturing process and relatively large die size contribute to significantly more power consumption than any of the Intel processors we tested in this review. This causes an issue for AMD since their APU architecture is well suited for small form factor chassis but SFF manufacturers desperately need to retain peak efficiency.

One small glimmer of hope rests in the idle power consumption numbers which are simply astonishing. It looks like AMD’s power gating and memory P-state expansion has served them well.


The IGP-only results follow almost perfectly in the footsteps of the previous CPU test but with some differences. The HD 7660D seems to be quite efficient but its extra performance does come with a price and it consumes nearly as much power as the previous generation’s HD 6550D. Nonetheless, it is great to see that AMD has augmented performance by leaps and bounds without sacrificing efficiency.