{"id":54832,"date":"2013-06-05T14:21:18","date_gmt":"2013-06-05T12:21:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/?p=54832"},"modified":"2013-06-05T14:26:14","modified_gmt":"2013-06-05T12:26:14","slug":"amd-richland-processors-launched-review-roundup","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/hardware\/54832-amd-richland-processors-launched-review-roundup","title":{"rendered":"AMD Richland processors launched: review roundup"},"content":{"rendered":"

AMD’s Richland processor family has just been launched and the reviews are out. The processors are compatible with the FM2 socket and may or may not require a BIOS update.<\/p>\n

Richland is a slight improvement on Trinity in terms of hardware. It enables a few functions that were disabled in Trinity, like extra heat sensors and a new power management scheme, that were initially disabled to improve the APU’s performance and get them out to market faster while the BIOS software was still being improved.<\/p>\n

Indeed, Trinity users today benefit from some of the improvements that also apply to Richland – many users are reporting lower power use and slightly better performance with the new BIOS updates.<\/p>\n

\"AMD<\/a>

AMD Richland improvements<\/p><\/div>\n

In terms of hardware, the processors are still based on Piledriver and sport dual-channel DDR3 controllers supporting speeds up to DDR3-2133. The processors are made up of modules, which integrates two cores closely together and shares cache and a floating-point math co-processor between them. The rest of the space on the chip is devoted to the GPU.<\/p>\n

That’s been upgraded in a sense, as the new GPUs are officially part of the HD8000 family. However, they’re still based on the same hardware found in the HD6000 series and are equivalent to the baseline cards from that range, like the HD6450 and the HD6670. The APUs offer better GPU performance than their rival Intel processors at the same price range and in most cases offer playable performance at medium settings in most games at the standard 720p resolution.<\/p>\n

\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
AMD Richland APU
\n<\/strong><\/td>\n		A10-6800K<\/strong><\/td>\nA10-6700<\/strong><\/td>\nA8-6600K<\/strong><\/td>\nA8-6500<\/strong><\/td>\nA6-6400K<\/strong><\/td>\nA4-4000<\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\u00a0Radeon GPU<\/td>\n\u00a0HD8760D<\/td>\n\u00a0HD8760D<\/td>\n\u00a0HD8570D<\/td>\n\u00a0HD8570D<\/td>\n\u00a0HD8470D<\/td>\n\u00a0HD7480D<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\u00a0TDP<\/td>\n\u00a0100W<\/td>\n\u00a065W<\/td>\n\u00a0100W<\/td>\n\u00a065W<\/td>\n\u00a065W<\/td>\n\u00a065W<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\u00a0GPU core count<\/td>\n\u00a0384<\/td>\n\u00a0384<\/td>\n\u00a0256<\/td>\n\u00a0256<\/td>\n\u00a0192<\/td>\n\u00a0128<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
GPU clock speed<\/td>\n\u00a0844MHz<\/td>\n\u00a0844MHz<\/td>\n\u00a0844MHz<\/td>\n\u00a0800MHz<\/td>\n\u00a0800MHz<\/td>\n\u00a0720MHz<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\u00a0CPU core count<\/td>\n\u00a04<\/td>\n\u00a04<\/td>\n\u00a04<\/td>\n\u00a04<\/td>\n\u00a02<\/td>\n\u00a02<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\u00a0CPU clock speed<\/td>\n\u00a04.1GHz<\/td>\n\u00a03.7GHz<\/td>\n\u00a03.9GHz<\/td>\n\u00a03.5GHz<\/td>\n\u00a03.9GHz<\/td>\n\u00a03.0GHz<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\u00a0CPU boost speed<\/td>\n\u00a04.4GHz<\/td>\n\u00a04.3GHz<\/td>\n\u00a04.2GHz<\/td>\n\u00a04.1GHz<\/td>\n\u00a04.1GHz<\/td>\n\u00a03.2GHz<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\u00a0L2 cache (shared)<\/td>\n\u00a04MB<\/td>\n\u00a04MB<\/td>\n\u00a04MB<\/td>\n\u00a04MB<\/td>\n\u00a01MB<\/td>\n\u00a01MB<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\u00a0Max DDR3 frequency<\/td>\n\u00a02133MHz<\/td>\n\u00a01866MHz<\/td>\n\u00a01866MHz<\/td>\n\u00a01866MHz<\/td>\n\u00a01866MHz<\/td>\n\u00a01866MHz<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\u00a0Multiplier-unlocked<\/td>\n\u00a0Yes<\/td>\n\u00a0No<\/td>\n\u00a0Yes<\/td>\n\u00a0No<\/td>\n\u00a0Yes<\/td>\n\u00a0No<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
RRP (US $)<\/td>\n\u00a0$150<\/td>\n\u00a0$149<\/td>\n\u00a0$120<\/td>\n\u00a0$119<\/td>\n\u00a0$80<\/td>\n\u00a0$46<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table><\/div>\n

The pricing is attractive and as usual, the A-series goes up against Intel’s Celeron, Pentium and Core i3 lineup, offering not only higher clock speeds but also boost speeds and three multiplier-unlocked products. Oddly enough, AMD is returning to the “Black Edition” moniker, a throwback to the old Phenom and Phenom II lineups when the “Black Edition” processors had unlocked multipliers.<\/p>\n

As far as performance goes, it’s a minor step over Trinity. Comparing the same chips from the same price points, Richland will only be an average of 10-15% faster, with a 20% speed-up in some cases thanks to the higher boost states and the better thermal control.<\/p>\n

In addition, there should be more overclocking headroom as the manufacturing processes for making these chips have improved. They have less leakage and stay at the boost clocks for longer periods of time.<\/p>\n\n\t\t