Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

Friends, there are MANY reviews out there that cover the 'technical' aspects of this product (you'll see words like 'piledriver', '32nm', 'trinity', and 'HSA' thrown around, but who cares?) and LOTS of misinformation from people who won't put their mouth where their money is - you gotta try it before u knock on it first right? Yours truly bought it when available on day 1 (from Newegg, Amazon was 'out of stock') after following the news about it for a year. There's no such thing as a bad product, just bad prices right? As a smart, savvy shopper (which you all are), you know you've got to compare apples to apples, especially when it comes to electronics. So what do we need to compare this to? The intel core i3-3225, ivy-bridge processor, which retails for about $130 at MicroCenter (the LOWEST price you will find this chip anywhere). Why not the bazillion other 'i3' processors floating around out there you ask? Because only the i3-3225 has the HD4000 integrated graphics baked in, which will give you the most graphic horsepower of the 'i3' lot. That being said, the A10-5800K is its direct competitor; it likewise has the strongest integrated graphics of the AMD side of these new 'fusion' chips. So why does this matter? Because if you want to play computer games on a budget, these are the chips you're going to want to look at. When I say budget, how much of a budget are we talking? I'm talking a $600 budget on EVERYTHING that goes into building a new computer, short of the monitor itself. I even got some premium hardware like a 128 SSD, a good Seasonic power supply, strong 1866 RAM, and barely broke $600. For the truly awesome bargain hunters, I have no doubt you could do this under $500. If you want to play the latest and greatest games on 'HIGH' settings which will give you lots of eye-candy with all the highest details turned on at 1920x1200 (big 24-in. display) resolution, STOP reading this review. In this price-range, we're not 'into' paying hundreds of dollars for better looking graphics on the screen (and gobs of money to buy equipment to cool down the high temps too!), but if you are, you already KNOW you're not seriously thinking of buying either an i3 or the A10. Google 'confirmation bias' if you're still in denial about that. If you want to play the latest and greatest games on 'LOW' to 'MEDIUM' settings which will give you some eye-candy with some details turned on at 1366x768 ('default' low resolution), KEEP READING. After combing through more forums than i can count reading hundreds of arguments where techie people who love intel or AMD feverishly shout and insult at each other over 'i3 versus A10' (these things stir strong passions!), here is the main takeaway about gaming with either the i3 or A10, which is the main selling point of both: 1. If you buy the i3, you MUST buy a separate graphics card to play most games comfortably (at least 30 frames per second). Look for graphics cards in the $70-$100 price range as these would fit the bill, as there are too many to list. Some notable nominees include the Nvidia 550, or Radeon 7750. 2. If you buy the A10, you do NOT need to buy a separate graphics card to play most games comfortably (again, 30 frames per second). You COULD buy another graphics card and add it on to enable 'dual graphics', but you would have to buy a Radeon 6670 to do that, and even then, not all games are going to benefit from it. That being said, you're still in 'budget' gaming territory, so this is an extra cost which in my opinion doesn't really deliver. About CPU performance - Intel is better, and that's a fact. But in this day and age, the modern computer chip will be able to do what I spend about 99% of my time on the computer doing anyway: bothering people on facebook, e-mail, typing papers, watching youtube, burning a CD/DVD, and occasional gaming. If you are into the more exotic stuff (trans-coding files, running very powerful benchmarks/overclocking, high-end gaming) again, this is NOT the chip for you. Lots of mis-information out there, and there are people who will throw bar charts and graphs at each other to prove an obvious point, which is intel has more powerful CPUs, but ask yourself, 'what am I going to do on my computer?'. For me personally, I have no complaints with the A10's performance, based on how I use mine. If you are truly frustrated by your computer's performance, then buy a SSD (solid state drive) and replace your hard drive, you'll feel a HUGE difference. But hey, that's not really part of our discussion, just my opinion, so feel free to disagree. So let's say your sold on it, and you're thinking how to get the most out of this chip, here are the KEY things to know about this chip: 1. Look for a 'FM2' motherboard, this is the main compatibility spec. There are three flavors of FM2 boards (from least to most expensive): A55, A75, and A85X. They all have different selling points, but once you dig into prices you'll know exactly which one you're going to want to get. AMD has committed to sticking with FM2 boards all the way until 2014, so don't worry about having to buy another motherboard if you want to upgrade down the road. 2. This chip EATS memory like no other: buy 2 sticks of 240-pin, 1866-mhz DRAM for optimal performance and stability. Anything less than 1866-mhz and you're short-changing yourself on performance. Anything more than 1866 and you're going to be dealing with overclocking and system stability issues, which gives diminishing returns all the way up to 2600-mhz. 3. This box comes with a 'stock' cooling fan for the chip. Yes it's crappy (most stock coolers are), but it gets the job done. Again, if you get into overclocking, this is NOT going to cut it...and, you're on your own! 4. You CAN overclock with this processor, but you will need to do a LOT of tweaking, and it will be expensive to do so and get marginal gains, so maybe you won't want to. But if you want to take this to its thermal limit, liquid cooling is a MUST. You'll also have to disable the 'turbo' cores, and tinker with AMD's overdrive utility to increase the voltage and multipliers. Chances are if you're in the budget gaming world, liquid cooling is probably not in your budget anyway. But the headroom is there. At the end of the day, ask yourself 2 questions: 1. What am i going to use the computer for? 2. How much do i want to spend? I wanted to do basic stuff on my computer, play some games I liked on low to medium settings comfortably, and stay under $600 with a well-rounded system. I didn't buy another graphics card to accomplish that, because with this chip, I didn't need to. And I didn't buy any extra cooling equipment, because of diminishing returns from overclocking, which I don't do. Do I have a bias towards AMD? Yes, with this chip, but that's because it fit my budget, it plays games reasonably well, and it does what i want it to well. AND if you REALLY want to save even more...wait until Christmas! AMD is very well known for dropping their prices on a dime, and bundling with extra components, which could drop your total price by about $40 or more. That being said, you will NOT find a more well-rounded system on a chip that will go into a desktop than this one on a budget. Happy bargain hunting folks! EDIT 10/11/2012-------- For those of you are stuck in the trenches of budget gaming, but somehow find yourself with several hundred dollars more (or maybe you're just 'feeling' richer), here's a great article which pairs up the A10 and intel i5 with some high end current generation graphics cards and plays through some games on very high settings, to give some meaty comparisons. I won't spoil the takeaway, but trust me, you WILL want to look at this if you decide to splurge on another video card. I can't paste the link here, but google 'VRZone A10-5800k discrete' and it will be the first hit... EDIT 2 10/18/2012------- Just played through F1 2012, Counterstrike GO, and Battlefield 3 this past week. Performance feels smooth on my full-size 1900x1200 Dell U2412HM IPS monitor enabled with mostly medium graphics settings. Heed my words friends; save on the hardware, and go big moneys on the monitor, your eyes will thank you! EDIT 3 11/9/2012------- Dual graphics supports a graphics card up to the Radeon 6670 DDR3*. (If you're hoping to use 'dual graphics' with a GDDR5 graphics card, this will be supported on the next iteration, 'Richland' APU that supports 'Graphics Core Next' sometime next year in June-ish, most likely up to a 7750 HD). - *Thanks to your comments pointing out it wasn't a '6570' as I posted in my original review! EDIT 4 1/25/2013------ I'm seeing conflicting reports from various tech journalists saying Richland will be some enhanced version of VLIW4, or Graphics Core Next. While this is murky and while I'm not sure what it all means, 'Kaveri' which will be released in 4Q12 will definitely have GCN, albeit with more robust graphics. More to come on this later, as Richland should be out in a matter of few months.