What do you guys think of this CPU?

[chowderek]

What do you guys think of the AMD Quad-Core A10-Series Processor (2.3GHz - 3.2GHz)?

The GPU is Radeon HD 7970M GDDR5 (2.0GB)

The GPU seems to be one of the best available on the market right now but would it be a good fit for the CPU considering how bad the A10 it performs compared to other processors?

Would it handle games with the GPU or would the laptop's ability be limited by the CPU?

 

[slomo4sho]

Just make sure to pickup a 5000 series instead of the 4000.

 

[fatboytyler]

Just make sure to pickup a 6000 series instead of the 5000.

The 5800 is actually the better deal. About $30 bucks cheaper and less than 5% slower.

 

[slomo4sho]

The 5800 is actually the better deal. About $30 bucks cheaper and less than 5% slower.

You do realize that he is referring to the laptop variety right?

 

[Maxx_Power]

A10 is not a fast processor... I assume based on the speeds you were quoting, that this is the Trinity generation A10-4600M. If so, there are some benches:

Computation:

Games:

You can see, that this isn't a fast CPU compared to Sandy or Ivy Bridge. Here is what Anandtech said about this situation in summary:

"To recap, Trinity is AMD’s continued journey down the path they started with Llano. Both CPU and GPU performance have improved over Llano. The general purpose CPU performance gap vs. Intel is somewhere in the 20—25% range..."

All from Anand's review:

http://www.anandtech.com/show/5831/amd-trinity-review-a10-4600m-a-new-hope/9

SOOOOO, if you play games that aren't CPU intensive, you can get away with it. Although paired with such a fast CPU, I'd hate to know what happens in a few years, when the GPU is still plenty fast to game, but the CPU is the other way around.

If you don't play anything CPU intensive, it is an OK choice. Although I would recommend a better CPU for that mobile GPU, your 7970m.

 

[chowderek]

A10 is not a fast processor... I assume based on the speeds you were quoting, that this is the Trinity generation A10-4600M. If so, there are some benches:

Computation:

Games:

You can see, that this isn't a fast CPU compared to Sandy or Ivy Bridge. Here is what Anandtech said about this situation in summary:

"To recap, Trinity is AMD’s continued journey down the path they started with Llano. Both CPU and GPU performance have improved over Llano. The general purpose CPU performance gap vs. Intel is somewhere in the 20—25% range..."

All from Anand's review:

http://www.anandtech.com/show/5831/amd-trinity-review-a10-4600m-a-new-hope/9

SOOOOO, if you play games that aren't CPU intensive, you can get away with it. Although paired with such a fast CPU, I'd hate to know what happens in a few years, when the GPU is still plenty fast to game, but the CPU is the other way around.

If you don't play anything CPU intensive, it is an OK choice. Although I would recommend a better CPU for that mobile GPU, your 7970m.

I think with this good of a GPU, if I get a CPU with somewhat similar performance it would be cost a lot more. Way more than what I can afford. So which games are CPU intensive?

 

[Maxx_Power]

A10 is not a fast processor... I assume based on the speeds you were quoting, that this is the Trinity generation A10-4600M. If so, there are some benches:

Computation:

Games:

You can see, that this isn't a fast CPU compared to Sandy or Ivy Bridge. Here is what Anandtech said about this situation in summary:

"To recap, Trinity is AMD’s continued journey down the path they started with Llano. Both CPU and GPU performance have improved over Llano. The general purpose CPU performance gap vs. Intel is somewhere in the 20—25% range..."

All from Anand's review:

http://www.anandtech.com/show/5831/amd-trinity-review-a10-4600m-a-new-hope/9

SOOOOO, if you play games that aren't CPU intensive, you can get away with it. Although paired with such a fast CPU, I'd hate to know what happens in a few years, when the GPU is still plenty fast to game, but the CPU is the other way around.

If you don't play anything CPU intensive, it is an OK choice. Although I would recommend a better CPU for that mobile GPU, your 7970m.

I think with this good of a GPU, if I get a CPU with somewhat similar performance it would be cost a lot more. Way more than what I can afford. So which games are CPU intensive?

Off the top of my head: StarCraft 2 (since it is largely still single-core, and largely any modern RTS), AMD CPUs tend to do poorly in this game, Battlefield 3 multiplayer (especially demanding when the number of players gets large, say 32-64), Skyrim (to a certain extent), and some say GTA 4 (any console port), Assassins Creed 3, Batman Arkam City, PlanetSide 2 (apparently poor multi-threading), and so on...

 

[chowderek]

A10 is not a fast processor... I assume based on the speeds you were quoting, that this is the Trinity generation A10-4600M. If so, there are some benches:

Computation:

Games:

You can see, that this isn't a fast CPU compared to Sandy or Ivy Bridge. Here is what Anandtech said about this situation in summary:

"To recap, Trinity is AMD’s continued journey down the path they started with Llano. Both CPU and GPU performance have improved over Llano. The general purpose CPU performance gap vs. Intel is somewhere in the 20—25% range..."

All from Anand's review:

http://www.anandtech.com/show/5831/amd-trinity-review-a10-4600m-a-new-hope/9

SOOOOO, if you play games that aren't CPU intensive, you can get away with it. Although paired with such a fast CPU, I'd hate to know what happens in a few years, when the GPU is still plenty fast to game, but the CPU is the other way around.

If you don't play anything CPU intensive, it is an OK choice. Although I would recommend a better CPU for that mobile GPU, your 7970m.

I think with this good of a GPU, if I get a CPU with somewhat similar performance it would be cost a lot more. Way more than what I can afford. So which games are CPU intensive?

Off the top of my head: StarCraft 2 (since it is largely still single-core, and largely any modern RTS), AMD CPUs tend to do poorly in this game, Battlefield 3 multiplayer (especially demanding when the number of players gets large, say 32-64), Skyrim (to a certain extent), and some say GTA 4 (any console port), Assassins Creed 3, Batman Arkam City, PlanetSide 2 (apparently poor multi-threading), and so on...

Oh man... I really want to play those games. I guess I'll have to keep searching then. Thanks though

 

[Maxx_Power]

Oh man... I really want to play those games. I guess I'll have to keep searching then. Thanks though

There should be some decent sales of the previous generation, Ivy Bridge based Core i-somethings paired with a good GPU. If you are open to something Nvidia based, you can also consider laptops with the GTX 670MX, 675MX, 680M. They are about the same league as the 7970m, and when paired with a good CPU, should be a formidable combo. Be careful with the GTX600 series, the suffix "M", "MX" makes a world of difference, because some of the parts are actually rebranded Fermis instead of Keplers (like the GTX 670M, 675M).


EDIT:
If you want a different perspective on this, from a preview of the MSI GX70 3BE Neptune gaming notebook (with a newer Richland APU A10-5750, faster than the Trinity A10s and the rebranded AMD 8970M), here is what Anandtech said so far about the gaming aspects:

"The bad news then is that a 10% clock speed increase from Trinity isn't going to be enough to close the gap in many titles, depending on the resolution and quality settings. Looking at Trinity vs. Ivy Bridge with 7970M, I've seen Intel outperform AMD by 50% or more, particularly in titles that pound the CPU (e.g. Skyrim and StarCraft II); on other games, however, it's basically a wash at high quality 1080p settings, so as a more budget-friendly gaming notebook the GX70 has potential.

The other bad news is that my continuing experience with Enduro is that it's not all that it's cracked up to be, but going pure AMD helps quite a bit. Getting updated drivers with an AMD APU and dGPU is easier, and AMD dGPUs simply cooperate with AMD iGPUs better it seems. I've done some testing with the latest 13.5 Beta2 mobile drivers issue on several other laptops (including the MSI GX60), and for most mainstream applications and games they have been fine. However, there are still times when everything doesn't work quite as smoothly as I'd like."

Taken from:

http://www.anandtech.com/show/6949/msi-gx70-3be-richland-a10-apu-and-neptune-8970m-gaming-notebook

 

[chromic]

http/www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gx60-gaming-laptop-radeon-hd-7970m,3478.html

i think it looks pretty good.