Holiday 2012 AMD Trinity Buyer's Guide

Final Words

To be blunt, AMD has seen better days than today. Its higher-end CPUs (the FX series) have difficulty competing with Intel's Core i5 and Core i7 CPUs in many regards, though Piledriver has helped narrow the gap. Up until recently, AMD competed with Intel's lower end CPUs (Celerons and Pentium Dual Cores) with older, power-hungry processors (Athlon II X2s, X3, and X4s). This situation was especially untenable in the mobile market. If you've followed my guides over the last two years, you've seen fewer and fewer systems based on AMD processors.

But the first-generation Llano APUs and especially the current-gen Trinity APUs fare well against Intel's low- and mid-range CPUs. From a consumer standpoint, competition is always good, and I'm glad to see AMD competing well in the mainstream market segment. Most of the computers I build are mainstream systems, and it's great to be able to reduce power consumption, system complexity, and cost by simply cutting out the discrete GPU—while still allowing my computers' users to play new, popular video game titles. Trinity is especially well-suited to the small form factor, and I hope motherboard manufacturers start to make more models available!

While Black Friday and Cyber Monday have come and gone, holiday sales will continue to present compelling prices to potential parts buyers. If you're patient and do your homework, you'll be able to put together systems like the ones outlined in this guide for as little money as possible. AnandTech's own Hot Deals Forum is a great place to find and share what are often ephemeral, flaming prices on hardware. And of course, AnandTech's General Hardware Forum is a great place to ask any questions you might have and share your expertise with fellow enthusiasts.