AMD Richland A10-6790K Review

👤by Tony Le Bourne Comments 📅29-01-14
Conclusion

At a glance, it becomes overwhelmingly obvious that Intel have a huge lead in the CPU department. Memory bandwidth and outright CPU performance is very quick, some areas we see several factors of what the APU can give. Flipping to the opposite extreme, the Radeon HD 8670D is powerful and the utilisation of openGL, openCL and its parallel processing ability stomps all over the HD 4600, which appears competent in some real world gaming scenarios. So how do we levy an opinion on two extremes? The answer is circumstance and use. The Intel technologies certainly throw up impressive numbers, but when considered as a platform, you can get the APU and a supporting motherboard for around the same price as the Intel chip alone and the competitive balance offered by the APU makes an attractive proposition. The question worth asking yourself is, will you ever have the need for a discrete GPU? If the answer is 'yes', then you are most likely going to benefit from the power of the Intel CPUs, if the answer is NO, then the APU alone is likely to offer the best balance for your money.



Traditionally, the CPU was the centre of attention in regards to computer performance, then the GPU rose. As of now we have both on one chip (SOCs) and we could state the arguement 'Why would one need so much GPU performance on a chip?'. The answer is still around the corner, for the time being we are in an age where the software we use is still playing catch-up, a good example would be the result in DOTA 2, Valve's Source engine is nearly 10 years old and is heavily CPU dependent, which makes for a win for Intel. Though with Source 2 up and coming, could we see a more greatly GPU optimised engine? These examples ring true for many real world applications still using legacy software, though due to the frantic nature of modern mobile devices as well as games consoles, developers are pushing for more tools to enable an easier process to optimise their applications on various platforms so they can keep pace with changes in hardware. One such result of this is AMD's Mantle. So we could counter argue and say 'Who needs all that CPU performance anymore?'.

AMDs A10-6790K will give you the same balanced platform as the A10-6800K and cost a little less. Smiles all round, Amazing Value.

Pros.
+ Little need to overclock CPU due to high Turbo Core speeds out the box
+ Discrete level integrated graphics
+ Price

Cons.
- Lagging CPU performance
- Still using 32nm fab




Click here for an explanation of our awards at Vortez.net. Thanks to AMD for providing today’s review sample.


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