Our original plan with Trinity was to focus on the chips graphics performance, particularly when paired with a low-end discrete Radeon. The price difference between the A10-5800K and chips like Intels Core i5-3550 allows for this sort of budgeting, and we wanted to see if the Trinity + Radeon combination would be faster than the i5-3550 with the same card. Our plans had to be adjusted at the last moment, when our motherboard an MSI FM2-A85XA-G65 caught fire.
If youve never experienced the joys of unexpectedly molten electronics, some of the finer points of the experience may be lost on you. Allow me to help fill the gap:
The volume of smoke produced at the per-component level is truly astonishing.
Burning silicon smells terrible. Fry a motherboard or CPU for 30 seconds and youll be wishing for a nice Styrofoam-and-tire fire for the next six months. Startling skunks just outside an open window may become a way of life as the epithelium cells inside your nostrils beg for relief, at any price.
If the fire starts while you are in the bathroom, it may be proof that a divine being is nursing a serious grudge.
In eleven years of hardware testing, this is only the third time Ive seen a system spontaneously ignite. I confirmed that all components, including the CPU cooler, were properly secured and functional. There were no abnormal temperatures, BIOS warnings, or voltage fluctuations prior to the burnout and the systems PSU remains fully functional. The system was plugged into a surge suppressor, which in turn was hooked to a UPS, and neither unit tripped or reported any problems.
This torched our chance of having much in the way of independent review coverage. Replacement hardware is on the way, and rather than toss up a few uneven skimpy graphs, weve decided to hold back on publishing until weve got a more robust set of data to publish.