AMD’s upcoming generation of APUs that is called Trinity is only a few weeks away from launch right now. The advertising for the upcoming top model on the mobile side: A10-4600M reveal an increase in performance of around 58 percent compared to Intel HD 4000 in 3DMark 11.
Yesterday Intel launched their new Ivy Bridge architecture, that not only came with smaller improvements on the processore side compared to the previous generation but also offered a significantly improved graphics architecture.It looks as their HD 4000 is placing itself somewhere between the AMD A6 (HD 6520G) and the AMD A8(HD 6620G) in performance, which together with the powerful processor architecture threaten AMDs position on the market. Although Trinity is not far off, and advertising material from South Korea reveal both specifications and performance on the upcoming flag ship for laptops: A10-4600M.
| Modell | A10-4600M | A8-3550MX | A8-3520M |
| Architecture | Trinity | Llano | |
| Manufacturing technology |
32 nanometer HKMG/SOI (GlobalFoundries) | ||
| Processorarchitecture | Piledriver | Husky “K10.5” | |
| Processor cores |
4 | 4 | |
| Frequency | 2,3 GHz | 2,0 GHz | 1,6 GHz |
| Turbo | 3,0 GHz (3,2?) | 2,7 GHz | 2,5 GHz |
| L2-cache | 2 x 2 MB | 4 x 1 MB | |
| Graphics architecture |
VLIW4 | VLIW5 | |
| Graphics (Model name) |
HD 7660G | HD 6620G | |
| Radeon cores | 384 | 400 | |
| Frequency (GPU) | 685 MHz | 444 MHz | |
| Memory support |
DDR3-1600 | DDR3-1600 | DDR3-1333 |
| TDP | 35W | 45W | 35W |
As we’ve discussed earlier the Trinity architecture will get two Piledriver modules, adding up to four cores. Even though AMD will not go above 35W TDP with the new top model it has managed to turn up the frequency quite a lot compared to today’s flagship A8-3550MX, with around 300 MHz. While the sales material says 3.0 GHz, we have been told that the Turbo mode will go up to 3.2 GHz, but we cannot confirm this.
The integrated graphics is based on the more efficient VLIW4 architecture, which should still be faster even though it has less cores compared to Llano, 384 vs. 400. Also the frequencies have been bumped and start at 685 MHz, but this might be the Turbo frequency. Trinity is expected to bring Turbo Core 3.0 that will lift the frequencies of the integrated graphics processor, and how that relates to this number we don’t know. It at least sounds like AMD has managed to squeeze out more performance without going above 35W TDP, with the same manufacturing technology as Llano and the A series processors.
*Added numbers from the sales material
Performance is on average 66 percent above the older 6 series, and 58 percent above the new Intel HD 4000 graphics, which puts A10-4600M on the same level as the low-end discrete graphics cards for notebooks. If we instead focus on Dual Graphics where AMD has combined the integrated graphics with a HD 7670M in CrossFire, it ends up with a score in the same class as mid-range graphics cards. Keep in mind 3DMark 11 is still a synthetic test where Dual Graphics work well in our tests, but scaled much worse in actual games .
We still know very little about the processor performance of the new Piledriver architecture found in Trinity, but it at least looks hopeful that the graphics performance reaches these levels. The sales material ends with percentages for CPU and GPU at 29 and 58 percent “UP” respectively, which is probably a comparison to an older generation; the A series processors for notebooks. The launch of Trinity is not far off now, and we hope to report more details soon.
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