The AMD A10 5800K is by all means a very affordable, by AMD labelled as a quad core CPU. With more than plenty power under the hood for modern applications. Especially when comparing it against the almost similar priced Intel rival, the i3-3225, the A10 5800K can stand its ground.

But time for some mild critcism: with the Intel CPU you have raw power at your disposal, in fact always at your disposal. Due to their design, the performance of AMD's latest generations remains a bit hit and miss. In one application the cores/modules are adressed correctly and are operating blistering fast. While in another program, the A10 is even slower then the previous AMD FM1 generation. AMD has opted for this modular design since the launch of the FX Zambezi range and it leaves me puzzled, besides for one reason everybody can think off, why they opted to continue with this design after all.

Calling the A10 a real quadcore would be incorrect as sometimes it can't even beat a dual core from the competitor. Advantage of the current design is that it can achieve pretty high clocks, but the efficiency versus the clocks are sometimes far fetched. Compared to the previous FM1 3870 Llano, the A10 5800K needs sometimes over 1000MHz more CPU speed, to even top the Llano's performance.

Luckily for the A10 it's got another big card up it's sleeve. The HD7660D integrated graphics core is a marvel. No iGP, till now, can beat it's rendering power. Gaming is more than possible without adding a dedicated graphics card in your setup. However keeping in mind a lower resolution or medium to high detail level needs to be selected to achieve fluid gameplay. When we tested the HD7660D it blew away the Intel GMA HD4000s and is a solid step forward from the previous FM1 range with the HD6XXX series built in.

As with most integrated GPUs, the RAM speed becomes a big determining factor. At 1600MHz RAM clocks the performance of the HD7660D is a little bit crippled. Opting for even lower rated RAM speeds (eg 1333MHz) is a big no no. The only way is up folks, this CPU needs fast RAM to perform. Either opt to overclock your current ram to run 1600 or more MHz or go straight for a 2133MHz DIMM set. Your CPU and HD7660D will thank you for it big time and you will be rewarded with a far faster mild gaming setup.

Now where does the A10 fit in for you ? A budget minded gaming setup could well be it, this when not bundling it with a discrete graphics card. Otherwise it might be better to opt for another CPU in the AMD gamma to power your games to new heights. The built-in GPU's performance is strong, very strong, but it all boils down too if you can live with sacrificing some detail level, while being able to play at full HD resolution. AMD has reduced the power consumption too versus the Llano range (15-20W under load), but it's still way higher then the Intel variants, consuming over 35Wats less under laoad. If you can live with that, then this AMD A10 5800K might be suitable for use in your HTPC/media setups.

As mentioned before our test suite is far from AMD optimized, but it still shows the strengths and especially the weaknesses of the current AMD CPU architecture. Madshrimps are a firm believer in honest results, instead of favouring a specific brand article per article. Usually resulting in adjusting bench suites on the fly, to make the product look great. 

For it's price, the performance is right and can be competitive with Intel's i3-3225. Both are ideal solutions for an inexpensive media HTPC to light gaming rig. But in all honesty, the HD7660D turns it all in favour off the AMD A10 5800K, especially when utilising high RAM speeds, the performance is spot on with low end nVidia discrete graphics cards. 

Therefore we award the the A10 5800K, retailing at 115 euros the value award as it's a great blend between a CPU and an integrated graphics card. In 2011 it's almost the perfect APU, c'mon AMD let's drop that wattage ASAP !

A big thanks to Michelle from Text100.NL for providing us with the AMD review kit

Gareth from Corsair for the Dominator 1600MHz C8 kit

And the guys from Tones for lending us the Intel i3 3225 CPU