AMD A10-4600M Review

The team at NotebookReview.com just finished our in-depth look at the latest generation of AMD's "Accelerated Processing Unit" (APU) technology. Code named "Trinity" this complex processor combines a central processing unit (CPU) and a graphics processor (GPU) onto a single chip while promising lower power consumption. Keep reading to see if your next laptop should have AMD inside.

-->

Those of our readers who stay up to date on the latest processor technology have probably heard about AMD's FUSION. FUSION is what AMD calls its Accelerated Processing Unit (APU) technology. The first FUSION processors were the part of the Brazos platform of C-series and E-series processors (code named "Zacate") for the entry-level laptop market. Later in 2011 AMD released its first A-series processors (code named "Llano") which quickly found their way into a wide range of mainstream notebooks.

The New A-Team

The Trinity APUs consists of the three different classes of A-series APUs (A6, A8, and A10) that are divided into two categories; mainstream and ultrathin. The A6 APUs have dual-core CPUs inside while the A8 and A10 chips pack quad-core processors. The important bit of technical minutia to be aware of is that the new Trinity APUs have undergone a radical change in thermal design packages (TDPs). Last year's A-series processors ran at either 35 or 45 watts ... meaning they were intended for mid-range and high-performance notebooks but not ultrathin laptops. The wizards at AMD found a way to DOUBLE the computational performance per watt but at TDPs of just 17 to 35 watts. That directly translates into thinner notebooks and longer battery life.

AMD "Trinity" APU Specs:

APU Model	AMD Radeon Graphics	TDP	CPU Cores	CPU Clock Speed (Base/Max)	GPU Cores	GPU Clock
A10-4600M	HD 7660G	35W	4	2.3GHz/3.2GHz	384	497MHz/686MHz
A8-4500M	HD 7640G	35W	4	1.9GHz/2.8GHz	256	497MHz/655MHz
A6-4400M	HD 7520G	35W	2	2.7GHz/3.2GHz	192	497MHz/686MHz
A10-4655M	HD 7620G	25W	4	2.0GHz/2.8GHz	384	360MHz/497MHz
A6-4455M	HD 7500G	17W	2	2.1GHz/2.6GHz	256	327MHz/424MHz

The base clock speeds for the A-series notebook APUs range from 1.9GHz to 2.7GHz and higher clock speeds are reached via AMD's "Turbo Core" technology. Turbo Core works in much the same way as Intel's TurboBoost technology by up-clocking one or more cores depending on the processor demands of the software you're running. Unlike TurboBoost, AMD's Turbo Core bases its clock speed increases on the workload of the APU rather than thermal measurements of processor activity.

AMD claims an increase in CPU performance of up to 29 percent and an increase of graphics performance up to 56% over the previous generation of A-series processors. Granted the 29 percent CPU performance boost is pretty impressive, but it's that 56 percent increase in the GPU that will be of most interest to gamers. Whether you're a casual gamer who likes playing web-based games or a hardcore gamer who stands in line for every new release in the Call of Duty series, the GPU inside the new A-series APU genuinely lives up to AMD's label of "discrete-class graphics." We'll save the details for the benchmarking section of this review, but let's just say there's a reason the GPU takes up half the space on this chip.

Another key talking point about the new A-series processors is the AMD HD Media Accelerator, which combines a unique set of technologies designed to optimize the video quality of Internet video content and accelerate video file conversion. Translation: Youtube videos look better and transcoding videos from your video editing software to your iPad or from the Internet to a DVD should happen faster than you expect.

AMD Trinity versus Intel Ivy Bridge: Who Cares About Ultrabooks?

It shouldn't come as a shock that AMD is positioning these new A-series processors as direct competitors to Intel's 3rd generation Core-series processors (code-named Ivy Bridge). More to the point, AMD specifically designed the A10-4655M (25W TDP) and A6-4455M (17W TDP) to match Intel’s efforts in the ultrabook space. AMD's Start Now technology lets a computer resume from sleep in as little as two seconds or even perform a cold boot in as few as 10 seconds ... provided your notebook has a fast SSD that isn't loaded with bloatware. That sounds suspiciously similar to the claims Intel has been making about quick boot and resume-from-sleep speeds on ultrabooks.

Intel might claim ownership of the name "ultrabook" but that isn't going to stop a number of notebook manufacturers from offering thin and light laptops with virtually identical specs but loaded with AMD processors and a substantially lower price. HP has already announced their AMD-powered "Sleekbooks" which will have starting prices around $600 (at least $200 less than the price of a similarly equipped Intel-powered ultrabook.

AMD was kind enough to send us a "white box" laptop for testing. A "white box" is an unbranded PC that is typically not sold to the public. Although this prototype closely resembles a Dell Vostro business notebook, don't read too much into that. Still, the system configuration used in our test notebook will likely be available from one or more notebook OEMs in the months ahead.

AMD White Box Test Notebook Specifications:

• 14-inch 720p (1366x768) anti-glare display with LED backlighting
• Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit
• AMD A10-4600M APU with Radeon HD 7660G graphics (2.3~3.2GHz AMD Turbo Core, 4MB L2 cache, 35W TDP)
• 4GB DDR3 1600MHz RAM
• 128GB Samsung SSD (830 series)
• HLDS CT30L Blu-ray/DVD combo drive
• 6-cell li-ion battery (11.1V, 4.84Ah, 53.7Wh)

There are two things to keep in mind about this test configuration. First, AMD put its best foot forward by giving us the current top-of-the-line APU rather than the mid-range or lower-voltage APUs designed for thin and light notebooks. Second, this notebook is packed with a fast solid state drive (SSD) and fast RAM (DDR3-1600) which are two things you might not find inside some of the budget-oriented notebooks that will ship with AMD APUs later this year. It important to keep this in mind since some of the synthetic benchmarks such as PCMark can be heavily influenced by fast RAM and fast storage drives. AMD says notebooks with the new A10 APUs should have prices that start around $699.

AMD A-series Performance and Benchmarks

I've already explained that our test notebook features the AMD A10-4600M APU with Radeon HD 76600G graphics. This processor has a base clock speed of 2.3GHz and bumps up to 3.2GHz with AMD Turbo Core when the system is running intense applications. That's not bad for a processor with 35W TDP. Again keep in mind that's a 35W TDP for BOTH the quad-core CPU and the integrated graphics on a single chip. An Intel Core i5 processor might have a TDP of 35W but if you want a discrete-class GPU you have to add the TDP of the separate GPU. All that power consumption and heat matters when you're talking about laptops.

With that out of the way, let's jump into the benchmarks:

wPrime processor comparison results (lower scores mean better performance):

PCMark Vantage measures overall system performance (higher scores mean better performance):

PCMark7 measures overall system performance in Windows 7 (higher scores mean better performance):

The synthetic benchmarks shown above for raw system performance are potentially misleading. As previously mentioned, the AMD system gets some help in PCMark thanks to the SSD. That said, if you look at the wPrime results AMD's new A10-4600M APU is roughly equivalent to the Intel Core i5-2467M seen in the Acer Timeline Ultra M3. AMD has historically argued that raw computational power doesn't matter beyond performing calculations on multi-page Excel spreadsheets. However, these synthetic benchmark numbers also translate into real-world performance for tasks like video conversion/encoding and converting MP3s in iTunes.

A potentially larger issue in terms of day-to-day performance is how the new Trinity APUs handle GPU-accelerated software. More and more applications are being developed that use graphics processors to speed up CPU performance -- all of the latest web browsers now do this in order to render web pages more quickly and deliver faster web surfing. We used Cyberlink's MediaEspresso to transcode a 241MB video file from AVCHD to H.264 format. It took the A10-4600M approximately 1 minute and 18 seconds to transcode that video file and it took the Intel Core i5-2430M inside the Dell XPS 14z just 20 seconds thanks to Intel's Quick Sync technology.

3DMark06 measures gaming performance (higher scores mean better performance):

3DMark 11 measures gaming performance in DirectX 11 games (higher scores mean better performance):

The 3DMark benchmarks above show that the Radeon HD 7660G graphics not only exceed the performance of Intel Sandy Bridge Core i5 processors with Intel integrated graphics, but the new APU exceeds the performance of the previous generation of entry-level discrete graphics. The only notebook in the comparison above that beats the A10 is the Acer Aspire Timeline Ultra M3 which features the new Nvidia GeForce GT 640M. However, when you consider that the Acer is priced at more than $1,000 and AMD claims that A10-equipped notebooks will start at $699, the performance of the AMD APU looks pretty good.

In terms of real world gaming performance, the A10 brings plenty to the table. We playedBatman: Arkham City at 1366x768 resolution with high detail settings in DX11 mode and our test system played the game with average frame rates around 23 frames per second (fps). If you drop the graphics into DX9 mode then the average frame rate jumps up to closer to 30fps.

Keep in mind that in a perfect world you want a gaming laptop to deliver frame rates of at least 30fps to simulate fluid, lifelike motion. The fact that the AMD A10-4600M APU with Radeon HD 7660G graphics is giving us anything close to 30fps in a visually intense, modern game like Batman: Arkham City on high detail settings puts it roughly on par with the performance of notebooks equipped with entry-level discrete graphics.

Battery Life

The 6-cell lithium-ion battery in our test system is relatively average for modern notebooks and features rating of 11.1V, 4.84Ah and 53.7Wh. Our standard battery rundown test (Windows 7 Balanced power profile, 70% screen brightness, wireless active, and refreshing a web page every 60 seconds) gave us a total run time of 8 hours and 11 minutes.

This isn't as impressive as the "12 hours" of battery life claimed by AMD but it is a substantial increase over the five hours and 36 minutes we obtained from an AMD test notebook last year running the A8-3500M APU with Radeon HD 6620G graphics.

Battery life test results (higher scores mean better battery life):

Conclusion

At the end of our testing period with the AMD A10-4600M APU, I understood why AMD decided to give this APU the code name Trinity. I expected a rather unimpressive processor and graphics combination, but when I looked at the synthetic and real-world performance, examined the battery life, and actually used it for a few weeks my reaction was, "Holy s#*%! This is actually pretty impressive at this price point." AMD continues to take a big risk by setting aside half of the space on the processor die for graphics instead of dedicating all that room to a multi-core CPU and putting the graphics on another chip. It means there is less room for the dual-core or quad-core CPUs and it means the AMD hardware only "shines" when it's running applications that take advantage of its powerful graphics.

Thankfully, the majority of software developers now recognize the benefit of developing applications that use both the CPU and GPU, and if you aren't going to pay for a discrete graphics card on your Intel-based notebook then you might actually get better overall performance from a lower-cost AMD-based notebook running one of these new Trinity APUs. If our test notebook is indeed representative of what production-level A-series notebooks will deliver, then AMD is on par with the competition in terms of battery life and surprisingly close to the raw CPU performance if you consider what Intel offers at the same price. However, while video playback and gaming looks great the engineers at AMD still need to work on the HD Media Accelerator if they want to compete directly with the video conversion performance of Intel's Quick Sync.

In short, the new AMD A-series APUs should offer plenty of bang for your buck in mainstream notebooks for 2012. Of course, if money isn't a concern you will find better performance from notebooks packed with Intel CPUs and either Nvidia or AMD discrete graphics, but the last time we checked most people aren't exactly throwing money away buying premium PCs. Most consumers want better overall performance but they still want it at $700 or less ... and that is exactly what AMD is doing with Trinity.

Source: http://www.notebookreview.com

Posted in: