The word trinity has many meanings, with
one of the primary areas being the connotations that refer to religious
leanings. The other, more that refers to religious leanings. The other, more
obvious, reference would be AMD’s current range of Fusion CPUs, called
Accelerated Processing Units (APUs). While everyone is hyped over Intel’s new
processors, AMD steps up from behind to show that there are other forms of
innovation to consider as well, specifically in the areas beyond the primary
CPU architecture.
Top tier
The A10 4600M, like its direct counterpart,
is the highest end in the new A-series of APUs. While it has a native clock
speed of 2.3GHz, it can be over-clocked to the factory cap of 3.2GHz. This
ensures the mobile A10 is more than capable of powering up the entire system to
play heavy graphic games. When paired with the AMD Radeon HD 7660G graphics
portion of the A10 chip, the super-powered processing capabilities are more or
less guaranteed to remain consistent. It definitely shows with videogames that
are set on Ultra setting and enriched HD content, showing no sign of lag at all
even when there are many elements that require heavy computing power.
Enter
the AMD A10-4600M, the latest all-in-one chip for portable PCs
Optimized operations
AMD had been kind enough to send a notebook
that comes equipped with the A10 for us to try out. In this case, it is the HP
Pavilion G4 notebook that came into the lab to show-off what the new A10 can
do. Equipped with 8GB of RAM and another 7660G discrete graphics, the G4 is
definitely one of the more suitable systems to showcase how well the A10 can
perform when delivering performance. In terms of performance, the new APU
handles each processing challenge with ease and only starts to show signs of
strain when the G4 had to tackle RAW image editing while playing the battle
royal scene from the Summer Wars anime.
The
AMD A10-4600M is also the first Bulldozer-derived chip of any flavor to
integrate graphics functionality
Battery drive
In terms of power management, the new A10
does its work well enough as it worked to ensure the G4 had enough juice to
carry out through most of the day. The G4 lasted an average of five hours while
a HD movie had been set to repeat and lasted close to seven hours while on idle
mode. Great energy management indeed, even though I did not switch the battery
management to power savings.
Graphic difference
The one and only characteristic that the
A10 has over the competition is the massive graphics system that has been
embedded within. When used in tandem with the discrete Radeon HD7660G, the raw
potential to produce great graphics on the G4 is seemingly limitless. What I
would kill for such a powerful mobile system on a PC like the G4.
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Specifications
§ Price:
$599
§ Processor:
AMD A10-4600M
§ Clock
speed: 2.3GHz/3.2GHz
§ Number
of cores: 4
§ Graphics:
AMD Radeon HD 7660G
§ GPU
cores: 384
§ GPU
clock: 497MHz/686MHz
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