Conclusion
Conclusion
Richland couldn’t have been released at a better time for AMD. With Intel’s Haswell stealing the headlines and Kaveri still months away, AMD needed something that would draw attention towards their APUs and refresh the eight month old Trinity lineup. The new A-series does exactly that; it may not use a completely new architecture but Richland’s targeted improvements go a long way towards legitimizing AMD’s current positioning.
On the mobile side, Richland has the capability to be a superstar. The lower power TDP thresholds, improved clock cycles, an expanded feature set and low costs should make it a winner for entry level notebooks. Within the desktop market its true goals remain rather nebulous since its improvements over Trinity are quite minor. However, we can’t forget AMD only required a simple clock speed bump to achieve Richland’s 5% to 15% improvement over Trinity without augmenting TDP numbers. By comparison, Intel’s transition to a brand new architecture netted Haswell very similar gains over its predecessor, albeit without frequency changes.
From a performance standpoint, the A10-6800K is an improvement over the A10-5800K, most notably in the graphics processing department. Its higher clock speeds also help out in general processing tasks, the one area where APUs seriously lag behind the competition. Overclocking the 6800K is also a dream come true; just increase the voltage, play around with multipliers and you’ll be running at 4.7GHz or higher in no time. That’s a far cry from the hoops we had to jump through when testing Haswell.
The A10-6700 by comparison is priced in line with the 6800K at $149 yet consumes less power, outputs less heat and performs almost identically. Its lack of an unlocked multiplier may turn some budget-focused enthusiasts off but anyone looking for a perfect mid-range HTPC companion need look no further. Granted, some of the A8 and A6 APUs could conceivably fit the HTPC mold as well but the 6700’s HD 8670D GPU boasts better gaming abilities alongside more available power for AMD’s proven HD decoding features. IGP performance doesn't stop at the levels we saw in this review either since these APUs have
proven to scale well with higher memory speeds.
But will these changes tempt current Trinity users to switch over? Not a chance. Anyone with a Llano will likely be in the same boat. Even with AMD’s newfound performance boost, the architecture –like Trinity- still represents a step backwards from Llano in terms of some processing capabilities. This causes no small amount of headaches for Richland when it’s placed alongside similarly priced Sandy Bridge and Ivy Bridge processors, particularly from a performance per watt standpoint. Once the Haswell microarchitecture cascades down into lower price points, things will really start to get interesting.
Without a doubt, AMD’s focus on GPU compute shows great promise with new software developers jumping onboard the OpenCL bandwagon almost daily. However, if there’s any hope for survival their architecture evidently needs some balancing. Currently Richland exhibits the same issues Trinity did: the Radeon cores significantly outpacing everything Intel has at a comparable price point but in general processing tasks, these APUs fall behind all too frequently.
The issue here lies with the Bulldozer / Piledriver architecture which just isn’t properly optimized for running programs using legacy compilers. Intel has realized legacy development tools aren’t going anywhere and Haswell was designed to address this reality. AMD on the other hand moved in the opposite direction and is paying a heavy price. Their APUs are supposedly optimized for tomorrow’s computing environments but Trinity and now Richland are being sold
today, in a market containing a healthy mix of software using legacy and newer compilers and instruction sets.
While pricing on the A-series APUs continues to be extremely competitive, their usefulness for many DIY desktop builders is questionable. For budget gamers, the IGP won’t pack enough power, allowing AMD’s FX-4300 to act as a worthy alternative since it provides all of the A10-6800K’s performance and costs some $30 less. That’s money which can be put towards a current generation discrete graphics card rather than on an outdated HD 6000-series part for Dual Graphics compatibility. With that being said, for low power small form factor builds, Richland can offer some great performance in a compact and efficient package.
The A10-6800K is a capable, well-rounded APU which boasts performance increases in several key areas and great overclocking headroom, making it a good choice for small, overclocker-friendly systems that aren't compatible with discrete GPUs. Its sibling, the A10-6700, balances out performance and TDP very well, though its overclocking headroom has been curtailed. As such, Richland may not be the processor architecture that AMD required to take the fight to Intel but it serves perfectly well as a bridge between Trinity and Kaveri.