The origin and evolution of APUs

Now it seems pretty obvious, but back in 2012, when it all started, it was not so obvious.

AMD had everything against it: an Intel that, at the time, was a fierce leader in consumer and server CPUs. An Nvidia that was even more dominant in graphics cards. And an audience that, let’s say, was not exactly enthusiastic about the brand.  

To make matters worse, they were presenting a fairly novel concept that broke with what was unanimously accepted back then: if you wanted to play games, you absolutely needed a dedicated GPU.

But AMD glimpsed the future. At least, part of it:

GPU and CPU could be included in the same chip and deliver decent gaming results.

And it created the concept of APU.

The A10-5800K: the first of its kind

Strictly speaking, the AMD A10-5800K was not AMD’s first APU, but it was the first one that made the idea start to truly make sense for gaming.

Integrated graphics already existed before, both from Intel and from AMD itself, but they were basic solutions: they were good for displaying an image, playing video (not all codecs) and little else. If you wanted to play games, even without too many expectations, the normal thing was to think about a dedicated graphics card.

The A10-5800K changed that perception quite a bit.

If we get technical, we are talking about an APU launched in 2012, with 4 cores, 4 threads, 3.8 GHz base frequency, turbo up to 4.2 GHz, 100W TDP and an integrated Radeon HD 7660D graphics chip. 

It was not a beast, obviously, but it did offer the real possibility of building a cheap PC and playing games without buying a separate graphics card. 

It did not compete with a serious gaming PC, but with entry-level dedicated cards, those 50 or 60 euro cards that PC parts sellers almost automatically included for people who did not know much, just so they could “play something”. 

Outlets like AnandTech or Tom’s Hardware placed its graphics performance close to models such as the Radeon HD 6450 or the GeForce GT 520, which were precisely those basic cards that had seemed essential until then.

It also had a very important particularity: it depended heavily on RAM. Since the integrated GPU had no memory of its own, it used system memory. That is why installing fast DDR3 was not a whim, but a fairly direct way to improve graphics performance without touching the graphics card.

Seen through 2026 eyes it may seem like little, but in 2012 the idea was very powerful: for about 120 euros you could buy a processor with a decent CPU and GPU on the same chip and build a small, cheap PC that was good enough to play at 720p with reasonable settings in quite a few games of the time. 

It was not “gaming master race”. It was making PC gaming possible without needing a huge tower, a powerful power supply and a dedicated graphics card from day one.

And that is the interesting thing about the A10-5800K: it pointed the way. The way of modest PCs, living-room systems, small desktops, laptops with decent integrated graphics and, seen in perspective, much of what several current devices represent today.

It was the first serious step in that direction.

Evolution of APUs

Fifteen years and many attempts later, it seems they were right and now it is the trend: both video game consoles (Xbox, PlayStation) and consolized PCs — handhelds, with Steam Deck leading the way, or desktops with the imminent Steam Machines— have used this approach. With AMD chips, of course.

Only Nintendo Switch and some other handhelds use Nvidia or Intel chips, but even these follow the same APU idea that Lisa Su’s people imagined.

And yes, if you want to play at the highest quality level on PC today, you still need a dedicated graphics card. But not just any card: a top one, because low-end and even mid-range models are being threatened by APUs.

By the way, the concept did not only affect gaming-focused machines; mini-PCs (just ask the Mac Mini) and ultrabook laptops aimed at tasks beyond office work followed the same line.

And all because AMD insisted on this concept, which, seen with time, could not have made more sense.

My own experience

In my case, I saw the point of this bet, because neither then nor now did I need to play at the absolute maximum. At that time I was mainly a console player, so my standards were lower than those of a PC pro gamer. 

So, a year later (in 2013) and after some hard research — there was no ChatGPT, nor Reddit at the time, but the forum El otro lado was extremely useful for it — I built a small and quiet enough PC for the living room with this configuration:

• APU: AMD A10-6800K.
• RAM: 2×4 DDR3 at 2133 MHz (the highest possible speed on DDR3).
• SSD: Samsung 840 EVO.
• Decent Asus motherboard.
• “Low-profile” Noctua cooler.
• SFF case and power supply that fit discreetly inside the furniture.

Everything worked wonderfully, both for gaming and for watching movies at 1080 in H264 and 5.1, which was the other reason for building the PC. A quiet machine with decent performance.

But I decided to take it a step further and, some time later, I added an AMD Radeon HD 7750 Low Profile GPU. 

Why, if I was supposed to be able to get by with the APU?

Well, because this dedicated GPU cost me less than €100, fitted perfectly in my case and, above all, worked together with the APU to create what was known as Dual-Graphics, an AMD technology that allowed the two graphics chips to work together to improve graphics, if the developer implemented it, which was not always the case.

Yes, once that piece was added, the whole setup was not the most recommendable one. 

If I had known from minute one that I was going to build a CPU + GPU combination, the parts would have been different. But my priority at first was to have a small, quiet PC to play games and watch movies properly in the living room. And the APU gave me that.

Adding the GPU later was more out of whim and tinkering than anything else. Because to play Street Fighter 4, the Pro of the time, Mass Effect and Tekken, which is what I played, at 720p resolution, the APU was more than enough to beat my noisy Xbox 360 from back then.

Conclusions

Seen in perspective, AMD’s APUs were one of those ideas that at first looked like a cheap solution and now look like a fairly accurate prediction of the future.

In 2012 it was not at all obvious that putting CPU and GPU on the same chip could be useful for playing games reasonably well. In fact, the normal idea was exactly the opposite: if you wanted to play on PC, even something simple, you bought a dedicated graphics card and that was it.

But AMD understood that there was another kind of user.

Not everyone wanted a huge, expensive, noisy PC designed to run everything on ultra. Some people wanted a small, cheap, quiet computer that was capable enough to play at 720p, watch movies in the living room and act as a media center without looking like a nuclear power plant.

That is where the APU concept made complete sense.

The A10-5800K was not perfect, not by a long shot. It could not compete with a serious dedicated graphics card and its performance today seems almost ridiculous. But that does not matter, because its importance lies not in what it could run then, but in what it was anticipating.

Steam Deck, PlayStation, Xbox, many modern laptops, mini-PCs and even part of the current threat to low-end graphics cards come from that same idea: integrating more graphics power inside the processor itself and making the whole device smaller, more efficient and simpler.

Honestly, I think AMD got it right. It took years to prove it, took plenty of criticism along the way and not all its APUs were equally interesting, but the underlying idea was good. So good that today we no longer even debate it.

We simply consider it one more option. And, in many cases — perhaps most — the best one.