A Guide to AMD's Trinity A-series APUs and Hardware Ecosystem

AMD’s latest interpretation of Heterogeneous System Architecture (HSA) has been brought to the desktop and mobile computing fronts in the form its Trinity APUs. The APU is built on a mature 32nm SOI process technology, using a second revision of the Bulldozer architecture called the Piledriver. The chip can run much more efficiently as the CPU and GPU of this next-generation APU work in tandem to run applications with improved compute power and lower power consumption.

The company also announced their new desktop APU socket, the FM2 that has been accompanied by a fresh flow of new motherboards. For the mobile computing platform, the Trinity mobile APUs power devices that have been touted as ultra-portable notebooks to Intel's Ultrabooks. Its top-end Trinity A10 mobile APU is even featured in a MSIgaming laptop, the 15.6-inch GX60.

In our guide, we have put together important aspects on Trinity and its accompanying hardware platform. We have uncovered the performance levels of the new APUs, from its raw compute prowess to its new AMD Radeon HD 7000 series integrated graphics stood against Intel's HD Graphics 4000 GPU. Last of all, check out the Socket FM2 motherboards for system builders who absolutely and positively need to build a Trinity-based desktop PC.

• AMD's Trinity APU in the Notebook Ecosystem
• Top-End Trinity Desktop APU: A10-5800K
• AMD A10-5700 Desktop APU Tested
• AMD A-series Desktop Chipsets
• AMD Trinity Desktop APU - Graphics Performance Examined
• AMD Dual Graphics Performance Review
• A Quick Look at Socket FM2 Motherboards