AMD Attempts to Shape Trinity Launch Content - But How Much Does it Matter?

[Rob Williams]

AMD will be launching its Trinity APUs early next month, marking the first follow-up to its Llano release from last year. While not a high-end part like Bulldozer, AMD is touting Trinity as being a great desktop product and perfect for the HTPC. Whether or not that actually proves to be the case, we'll find out soon enough.

Read the rest of our post and then discuss it here!

[madmat]

Sorry I had to edit your post but the link wasn't working for some odd reason.

As to the content, I agree that forcing a two staged review is pretty lame. In my opinion they're attempting to prolong their fifteen minutes of fame by letting one review carry the momentum over from the first. Either that or they're scared that the CPU performance is so weak that they need to get the APU performance out there first to get some positive press initially.

[Rob Williams]

If the CPU performance on this chip was stellar, AMD wouldn't have asked for a roll-out like this, that's for sure. In essence, it admits the CPU performance is "good enough", while the graphics is top-rate (as far as that goes for IGP). It's a smart business move, but not great for consumers who might not bother to read the actual conclusions.

[Kougar]

It took some thinking on this... but I do have to agree with Scott's point-of-view here. What this tactic is, is a double-edged sword.

The first "wave" of 'reviews' praises the GPU, and so the uninformed public will get a generally positive view of the APU design. Many people won't read follow up 'reviews' that add in all the missing benchmarks.

This is a double-edged sword, because if a site refuses to release such a highly selective "preview" then they will miss a very large portion of the initial readership that has been interested in the product. It seems like the majority of readers will read a preview elsewhere, and simply not read any further reviews. This will hurt any site that decides against publishing early, while also at the same time helping other sites that decide to fall in line and publish the limited story.

What AMD is doing here goes far beyond a typical "preview" release. In a typical "preview" article there are a few options: 1) a site can release information but not benchmarks of any kind, or 2) They get early access to the hardware and are free to run & publish any tests they wish on a preconfigured system. AMD has effectively found a third option... they can control what gets published, and in doing so present their product in the best possible light while completely hiding its shortcomings.

While what they have done isn't terrible, it is still bad and highly questionable. But more importantly, it sets a very dangerous precedent that WILL be taken advantage of by companies that are hard-pressed to push their products any other way.

Sure, a tech-enthusiast wouldn't be fooled by this. But are these sites publishing content for tech-enthusiasts, or Joe public?

[madmat]

Now that the curtain has been lifted completely and full reviews are starting to trickle in, does anyone have any thoughts?

The CPU performance that I've seen doesn't seem terribly bad. I'd wager it's better than the 940BE I'm still rocking in my main rig by a good margin.

Add in the integrated DX11 graphics which aren't bad performers on the few games I've seen used in the reviews I'v skimmed and it seems like a solid budget offering.

If it wasn't for the fact that it uses ATI graphics I'd be interested in it but that's my hang up as I dislike their drivers.

[Kougar]

Well, the review I saw stated the AMD Trinity part had around a 5-15% performance loss compared to its nearest Intel priced equivalent, on CPU performance. That's bad, but it is also isn't all doom and gloom.

That said... it's cheapest Intel equivalent has no turbo mode and is a cut down i3 running at way lower clocks. So that's bad, because Intel has chips performing significantly better on offer. Intel also has Haswell around the corner.

Now that the reviews are live I don't think it really changes anything. AMD got what they wanted (and some extra bad press they didn't want) out of the arrangement.