AMD A8 3870K APU

Not to be outdone by new graphics releases AMD is going back to the APU Processor drawing board with its new AMD A8 3870K.

While its flagship Bulldozer FX processors are failing to shine, AMD has a chip that at the other end of the market really ought be cleaning up. Its LIano Fusion APUs, which combine a multi-core CPU and a Radeon graphics chipset all into one die, are actually rather good low-cost gaming chips.

They may be based on older processor architecture, but quad-core examples such as this AMD A8 3870K hold their own against Intel's similarly priced dual-core Core i3 processors in CPU benchmarks.

When it comes to 3D tasks such as gaming, the on-board AMD Radeon HD 6550D is simply in a different league to Intel's laggardly HD Graphics 3000 cores. The on-board graphics in the AMD offerings are capable of gaming with decent settings at decent resolutions.

Trinity: Dodge this

And if you've ever tried working with Intel's onboard graphics to get any of your contemporary games running adequately, you will know that's not something that you could ever pin on its pixel-pumping silicon. How could they get better? We'd like chunky price drop, but that's not going to happen.

There are plans afoot for the Trinity APUs to hit the shelves sometime in the summer. These will combine the latest Bulldozer FX technology (itself a refresh codenamed Piledriver) as well as Radeon HD 7000 series graphics technology on die.

Not to be outdone by new graphics releases AMD is going back to the APU Processor drawing board with its new AMD A8 3870K.These APUs could potentially sit happily at the  heart of a serious gaming rig, but they are not ready yet and so, what have we got to tide us over?

AMD has refreshed its LIano lineup and introduced 'Black Editions' of the chips, recognizable by their 'K' suffix. Just like Intel chips with a 'K' monitor, they come with an unlcoked multiplier, which makes them more suitable for overclocking enthusiasts.

Now, you might think that anyone who wants to overclock a chip will be looking at something a little more high-end than these very basic processors, but the entire raison d'etre for overclocking is to turn something cheap into an unexpected powerhouse. An unlocked, gaming-capable hybrid chip for just over Euro 100 sounds like the stuff hardware hackers' dreams are made of. But does it deliver on that promise?

OC ready?

A stock AMD A8 3870K APU ships with its CPU set at 3GHz and the graphics core clocked at 800MHz. Attempt to increase these weren't exactly stellar - it ramped straight up to 3.4GHz/800MHz, but any attemps to go further were frustratingly unstable.

Wit more fine-tuning and a really good CPU cooler, have seen reports of much higher clockspeeds, but are not overly convinced that it's ultimately worth it for the performance.

Perky APU

It's shame really considering that we managed to get the original 2.9GHz A8 3850 up to 3.7GHz with mimial fuss. The difference between motherboard technology seems to be vital to getting anywhere near the top speeds from AMD A8 3870K APUs.

Additionally, it's unlikely that motherboard manufacturers are going to get behind this particular platform with any high-end boards that are full of good, stable overclocking features, because potential purchasers just aren't going to spend the extra they will cost to make.

Still, since the AMD A8 3870K APU is already available for less than its non-tweakable predecessor, the A8 3850, the unlocked multiplier is more of a pleasant extra to have. And if you do your research you should be able to find a motherboard, such as the Asus F1A75-V Pro, that will make use of the unlocked multiplier.

But even if our dream of overclocking one of these  APUs to outperform an Intel Core i7 isn't going to happen the AMD A8 3870K APU is still a great little chip.

The CPU part of Liano however, was never in much doubt. Based on the same architecture as Athlon II and Phenom II with a die shrink, it's old but still capable.

Because it has four native cores it outperforms and Intel Core i3 in tasks such as media rendering, although Intel's computational engine is still superior in games - even if its graphics lags far behind.

For a workplace system, then, the AMD A8 3870K APU is an exceptional choice, and it'ss beat a similarly priced Core i3 system at everything. It gets a bit more complicated if you're after a budget system that game at 1080p - to use as a media centre, for example.

Mix 'n' match

Even overclocked, the AMD A8 3870K APU alone isn't an alternative to discrete graphics - although it does come very close if you're willing to sacrifice graphics quality, Battle Field 3, for example, is close to being playable at 1,920 x 1,080 with low image quality settings. Which are still bloody good looking. The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim at similar settings runs like dream.

If you're thinking of adding in a mid-range graphics card, such as the Radeon HD 6870 or even something as powerful as Nvidia's GeForce GTX 560 Ti, though, Intel just wins though - although it's a draw in games that are CPU limited, such as Total War: Shogun 2 and Skyrim.

AMD's architecture does have the curious disadvantage of performing slower in CPU benchmarks when discrete graphics are attached too.

But that leaves one feature that we haven't discussed yet which brings us down in favor of AMD. That feature is Asymmetrical CrossFire, which is the ability to use both the AMD A8 3870K APU graphics and a low-power GPU, such as an AMD HD 6670, for a gaming experience that's capable of playing most games at 1080p with medium settings. That's a hell of a thing in AMD's favor.

Enough that while it's not going to be our chip of choice for a workstation or enthusiast games rig, if you want a small, low-cost PC which is capable of playing occasional games at console quality, it's a steal.

The potential to overclock is a bonus, but really not enough by itself to make us favor this chip over any other quad core LIano. Where it comes into its own is as either a flexible platform for a quad core office machine or as a capable gamer PC with Asymmetric CrossFire.

Intel has had its own way in the high-end desktop CPU market for a couple of years but, since the six-core i7-980X and i7-990X, it hasn't released any Extreme Edition chips to tempt tweakers. That's all changed with the arrival of the second generation Core i7 chips, it X79 chipset and LGA201 socket.

The three-chip range, also known as Sandy Bridge E, is topped of by the Core i7 3960X - a 3.3GHz monster that delivers six cores (servicing twelve threads) of processing grunt. One step down is the i7-3930K, which has six cores running 100MHz slower, and those on tighter budgets will have to settle for the i7-3820, which is slated for release in Autumn. It will be cheaper still and, despite a higher stock speed of 3.6GHz, it will "only" have four cores.

So, what makes Intel's new chips worthy of the Second Generation name? There's nothing revolutionary here - the underlying 32nm architecture is unchanged over the previous generation - but a range of improvements to key features promises to boost performance in a variety of ways.

Turbo Boost 2 has been, well, boosted. Whereas the last generation of Sandy Bridge chips saw the high-end Core i7-2600K gaining up to 400MHz across a single active core, the new Core i7 3960X can add 600MHz. If all six cores are active, you'll get an extra 300MHz of juice per core - an improvement over the additional 100MHz the i7-2600K provided.

There's more L3 cache on offer, too: the older Sandy Bridge chips have a maximum of 8MB, but that's almost doubled to 15MB on the top-end i7-3960X, with 12MB and 10MB available on the two lesser processors.

Intel Sandy Bridge E Chipset Changes

The new processors are also around twice the size of older Sandy Bridge chips, and Intel has developed a new socket - dubbed LGA 2011 - to house them. The new motherboards built around this socket have a new high-end chipset, too: x79.

One of the big changes introduced with the X79 chipset can be found either side of the socket: two banks of four DIMMs. They're indicative that the X79 chipset can handle a massive 64GB of quad-channel RAM - so that's more gigabytes and more bandwidth than we've ever seen on a consumer systems, with Intel's own calculations claiming a maximum bandwidth of 51.2GH/sec.

A couple of other chipset features are designed to entice enthusiasts. PCI Express 3 support is unofficially included, even if graphics card haven't yet arrived that will take advantage of the increased bandwidth on offer (Intel informed than PCI-E 3 isn't validated because of the lack of expansion cards to test with). There are 40 PCI Express lanes, so you can run two high-end graphics cards at full x16 speed - a boon, as older chipsets restricted two PCI Express x16 slots to half their normal speed, bottlenecking the most expensive GPUs.

It's worth bearing in mind that other areas haven't been improved with such gusto, although with support for only two SATA 6Gbps sockets included. Motherboard manufacturer's, it seems, will still have to rely on proprietary controllers if more are required. There is also still no USB 3 support, so third party controllers continue to be important for connectivity as well.

Intel Sandy Bridge E Performance

That's the theory, then, and we can confirm the i7 3960X - in test rig consisting of 8GB of quad-channel G.Skill Ripjaws-Z RAM, an AMD Radeon HD 5550, and a Samsung Spinpoint F3 hard disk - is very swift indeed. Its score of 1.12 in application benchmarks is an improvement on the 1 scored by the i7 2600K and, when the six cores flex their muscles, it's faster still, with the i7 3960X delivering a superb result of 1.23. For power, test rig idled at a reasonable 97W. Running the Prime 95 stress test on the chip saw a peak power consumption rise to 234W.

Sandy Bridge E Core i7 3960x Pricing

So how much is all of this raw horsepower going to cost? The answer is: a lot. You'll have to hand over $1,250 for the Core i7 3960Xon its own, with between $260 and $540 set aside for an LGA 2011 motherboard. That's an incredibly expensive upgrade. The i7-3930K is a marginally more tempting buy at $659, but even then you'll still need to fork out for a new motherboard.

Given how fast the original K-edition i7 CPUs are, can't see anyone but the most enthusiastic of tweakers and high end workstation builders stumping up the cash, at least while prices remain this high. But there's no denying the world-beating power on offer, and that Intel has extended its lead at the top of the heap yet again AMD must be sweating.

	Core i7 3960X	Core i7-3930K	Core i7-3820
Frequency	3.3	3.2	3.6
Cores	6	5	4
Threads	12	12	8
Smart Cache	15MB	12MB	10MB
Memory Frequency	1.600MHz	1,600MHz	1,600MHz
Turbo Mode	2.0	2.0	2.0
Unlocked?	Yes	Yes	Yes
Socket	LGA 2011	LGA 2011	LGA 2011

AMD's shiny new Bolldozer FX processors have been released into the wild for some time now, so you might be wondering what this crusty old Phenom II processor is doing sullying this showcase of white-hot, high performance computing platforms.

Well, it all depends on pricing and product availability. We're not sure if AMD is still cranking out the Thuban processor dies that form the basis of the Phenom II X6 1090T Black Edition, though we believe that to be the case, if only or manufacturing server processors.

The Anti-Doze

Although it will take a while for the 1090T to be completely flushed from all those retail channels, supply is now somewhat sporadic. There's still a decent choice of retailers, but prices vary wildly. The best price we could find was around $176, while others are charging over $319.

At the lower price point, the 1090T looks very attractive. On a per-core basis, it easily has the measure of the new AMD FX chips. It's not even that far behind the top FX 8150 eight-core model in several of multi-threaded tests, like the Cinebench professional rendering benchmark. It would have been faster than the FX in nearly scenario.

Intriguingly, however, database query benchmark does demonstrate that the theoretical benefits of AMD's exotic new Bulldozer architecture can sometimes translate into real-world gains. The 1090T gets left trailing-and horribly.