AMD A8-3870k APU benchmarked, with and without 6670 dual graphics. - Page 7

You are correct about the GPU here, but re-branded or not this means higher end Trinity APUs will be able to work with better GPUs in Dual Graphics mode than their Llano cousins so there should be some gains.

Show me an architectural diagram that has the APUs iGPU sitting on a PCIe lane and I'll believe this. Otherwise, the interaction is so different from standard crossfire that I wouldn't be at all surprised to see different behavior. Again, you rightly point out that this is two very different GPUs working together, but that doesn't necessarily imply problems.

Which one? The OP put up some benchmarks showing Dual Graphics as comparing favorably to an i3 with 7700 series graphics. Wouldn't that imply that to really see noticeable improvement you would need to set up to say a 7850 or the forthcoming 660? Sounds like about $200 to me. Of course you could get some old 500 or 6000 series card too (but that sort of blows the whole power saving bit). You also made the claim that AMD has cooked the benchmarks for dual graphics to misrepresent its performance. Show me a CPU or GPU that doesn't attempt to do this! Ok, maybe the FX line, what a sad CPU series that is, but I'm rambling.

I think the OP's numbers clearly show that dual graphics and even the APUs by themselves can put out usable framerates at medium settings for the cost conscious. Does that mean this is a good setup for gaming? Of course not, but it just might be passable for the person who only has $350 and change. Assuming maybe down the road that same person saves up enough for a low end GPU, they can get even better performance. I'm not going to be running out an buying this, but then I spent almost twice as much on my GPUs as he did on his whole setup. The point is, if you're looking at either not gaming at all, and spending your very last ~$400 to get something going there is an option. If you've got even $500 though, Intel is the way to go by a wide margin.

anyone expecting to game on a NEW $350 pc should be shopping for either an xbox360 or a ps3.

The link to the Biostar board didn't work for me. Is it a mATX? http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813138337
Nice mobo for the price,though it has its downsides,VIA audio and no heatsinks over the VRM's.
EDIT,after looking at more FM1 mATX boards,I notice most of them don't have a VRM/mosfet heatsink.
Edited by Heavy MG - 6/30/12 at 4:46pm

Why? Llano will blow a console away visually.

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Iam far from being an expert at this but looking at those images they look crystal clear and your fps seems decent in my opinion, now u said u combined the internal gpu with an additional gpu correct or am I missing sometething? I would be more then happy to get that type of performance out of my dual 6570s!

Llano's aren't the VRM burners like the PhenomII's are so they can actually get away without any heatsink's, VIA audio is decent, not the best but it's decent i've used VIA and i never had a problem in terms of sound quality and i use some good headphones found no difference from what my 990FX Sabertooth has and what my dad's VIA chipped Biostar has in quality only thing that'll out rank it is a dedicated Sound card which the APU set up actually gives you plenty of room for without sacrificing airflow for the video cards as if you were doing dual video cards and have to put the sound card inbetween the card or next to the bottom card sacrificing breathing room and giving higher temps


thats my take on Llano, my sister has a Laptop version and it plays all her games very nicely
Edited by JunkoXan - 6/30/12 at 5:41pm

Why everytime you compare the price from newegg? Why you cant just compare the price from eu shops? You cant find 3570k under 220 euros for example...

Great thread, thanks for taking the time to put it together and share it with anyone interested in building/buying this type of rig .
I have built 3 APU based rigs 2-3870's and one 3870 k. All using the Asrock extreme 6 motherboard, they all went out the door before I had the chance to 3d bench them.
It would have been interesting to see how well a quad xfire would work on those boards with the 3870's.
I didn't spend much time with them at all , just some quick cpu overclocking - they all hit about 3.5 ghz on the stock voltages but since I was building them for others, thats all the further I took them.
Please continue the testing- very interesting

what? where is he comparing it to a 7700!?
he just posted results without comparing it to anything, I posted links to a few reviews which make clear that this a no faster solution than a single 5770 (6770) so obviously also very close to the 7750, you can find 6850s for 120-140, and that's significantly faster, 7850 is as fast as a 6950...

also if the target is just gaming you could save money on the CPU/memory and invest more on the VGA, and again, if you need better performance than what the IGP can offer here, I think it's better to rethink the entire thing and build something without an IGP, BUT as an upgrade option, the added flexibility to add another card is good, but when you look at the price of the 6670 DDR5 compared to faster cards...

using more than 1 GPU adds complexity, when using CF, proper driver support is even more critical, as seen in some newer games and games with poorer scaling than expected,
as for the PCIE, the IGP is connected to a high speed internal controller or something, and than the PCIE controller to the other card I suppose, but again, you have 2 very different VGAs working in AFR,



that's a great PC for the money, I totally agree,
but now let's add the 6670 DDR5
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127586
$79 after rebate, and that's the cheapest,
performance will be a bit slower than on yours PC (slower ram, lower clocked CPU), but OK, it should be no faster than a single 6770 from what I've seen

which you can buy for the same 79 after rebate
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814121472

so at the end of the day... you could get the same performance without the integrated graphics for the same money on your APU upgrade, and if you want something faster

you could buy a 6850 for $120
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102908
same for the 7770 for $ 110
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127664

and that would beat the APU+6670 or the 6770 by a clear margin, and if you had a the APU, you would need to disable the integrated graphics anyway...

and if you really want a dual core sandy bridge Pentium + 6850 should be clearly faster on most games for the same price (or less) as the 3850+6670,

so while it makes some sense as an upgrade option to someone who is already using the A8 IGPU, I can't say the same for something being built with a $500 budget... just go with a FX4100, i3 2100 and a 6870 or something.

as I said on my first post, llano is great if you are happy with the IGP performance, if you need more, there are many options....