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Hardware AMD A8-7600 (Kaveri) Review

Discussion in 'Article Discussion' started by Meanmotion, 14 Jan 2014.

  1. Meanmotion

    Meanmotion bleh Moderator

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  2. rollo

    rollo Modder

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    I know bit insists 30 FPS is approaching playable but for most people it ain't.

    Still no onboard APU or IGPU capable of 1080p which is strange considering a ps4 can now manage such a feat. Which if I'm not mistaken is a AMD APU they are using after all.
     
  3. Dogbert666

    Dogbert666 *Fewer Lover of bit-tech Administrator

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    Well the cutoff has to be somewhere, and 30 fps is a reasonable one. Remember we also focus on minimum results too, so on average you'd be getting 35-40fps with a minimum of 30fps. Nevertheless, the results are always there for each game so you can make up your mind about what suits you and what doesn't :)

    The A10-7850K has a more powerful GPU and a higher TDP - it's likely to do a better job at 1080p but don't expect massive jump. The PS4's APU has 18 active Compute Units, 3 times as many as the APU reviewed here, and developers have lower level access to the hardware meaning they can optimise games to run better on it as well. If AMD wanted to stick that many on a desktop APU, the chip itself would be massive, and power and heat consumption would be greatly increased too.
     
  4. Harlequin

    Harlequin Modder

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    cheers guys - cinebench is up to R15 now - R11.5 is *only* 4 years out of date


    edit:

    I must say though ` well done` on the new OCL and OGL benchmarks - compute is very relevant and ay system which can offload work needed for better performance , how ever it does it , is great for home users!

    and typo page 5:

    should be 3.3ghz base and 3.8ghz turbo ;)
     
    Last edited: 14 Jan 2014
  5. Harlequin

    Harlequin Modder

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    really


    you have never played an xbox or PS3 then. like ever.
     
  6. rollo

    rollo Modder

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    Can't say I've played Xbox no.

    Wipeout hd did 60 fps last i checked.

    As I said in another thread to some one looking to replace a 360 these Apus would all struggle to do the job at the resolution he was after. ( 1080p )

    Also surprised AMD sent you a pre built pc to test with never heard of such things before.
     
  7. sandys

    sandys Multimodder

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    PS4 has the benefit of GDDR5, runs more than double the number of CUs and has a higher clockspeed to boot.

    The Xbox One is closer to this with DDR3 hence why its doesn't perform so well but even there it has more CUs than this chip, it falls mid way between this and a PS4.

    I would of liked to see some overclocking, my a10 6700 gpu overclocks to somewhere in the region of 1.1-1.2Ghz which helps its performance particularly when backed up with a RAM OC, I do this with a CPU underclock to keep heat in check and play a few games already at 1080p with acceptable performance and quality in general, this chip should do quite well in a HTPC if it has same ability.

    Wipeout does 60fps but has some tricky dynamic resolution scaling to hit that consistent which you don't notice because its a damn fast game.
     
    Last edited: 14 Jan 2014
  8. Harlequin

    Harlequin Modder

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    wipehd is a `high def` version of wipeout pure and pulse..... - from the vita.... so not really a huge amount of extra data for the game engine to run at 60fps. And in fact I would go so far to say its rendering faster than 60 fps , just frame capped.


    and BT reviewed the A8 not the A10
     
  9. jrs77

    jrs77 Modder

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    The CPU-part is still absolut rubbish. And wiith the A10-7850k being the same price as an i5-4430, there's no reason to buy Kaveri for rigs you wan't to do work with.

    Hell, my old i5-3450 beats the A10-7850k in Cinebench R15 by allmost 100 points, with 20W lower TDP.
     
  10. Harlequin

    Harlequin Modder

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    because cinebench is a game- oh wait


    it can game at 1080p on medium details @ 30fps in BF4 with the on die gpu - something NO intel cpu can do.

    but you enjoy `playing` cinebench - I`ll go and game thank you.
     
  11. Dogbert666

    Dogbert666 *Fewer Lover of bit-tech Administrator

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    Ha, good spot, cheers.

    I would've done some had I the time! The samples came through stupidly late and I wanted to focus on getting as many comparable results as possible and also looking at the customisable TDP difference.
     
  12. GuilleAcoustic

    GuilleAcoustic Ook ? Ook !

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    JRS clrealy stated : "no reason to buy Kaveri for rigs you wan't to do work with".

    For little gaming it's perfectly fine, but still no use for 3D rendering or computational intensive tasks. A10 has more GPU core and higher frequency, so that might help. Waiting for the A1 review to make a decision, but with Linux into the equation I might end up with an i5 on a thin ITX board like the Asus Q87T.
     
  13. jrs77

    jrs77 Modder

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    I'm not playing PC-games anymore. I'm working with my rig, most of the time doing DTP, image-editing and rendering (not high-end rendering, but illustrations).

    I was eagerly waiting for Kaveri and hoped for good improvements on the CPU-side, but I guess I'll be doing the same as Guille and buy me a H87 mITX-board and simply slap an i7-4770 on it with a low-profile HD7750 1GB GDDR.
     
  14. Dogbert666

    Dogbert666 *Fewer Lover of bit-tech Administrator

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    Those usage scenarios could benefit from Kaveri, the problem is that there just aren't the applications available right now that can take full advantage of its architecture.
     
  15. Anakha

    Anakha Minimodder

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    So, not much new, still can't compute as fast as it's older Intel rivals. And another kick in the teeth for those who invested in AMD's high-end architecture - No new FX processors until 2015.
     
  16. azazel1024

    azazel1024 What's a Dremel?

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    Actually I am relatively impressed by the improvement. It still lags horribly in CPU performance to Intel's offerings, exmplified by the fact that Core i3 Ivy bridge parts can eat Kaveri's lunch in most CPU tests except wPrime. Even the higher end Kaveri parts don't bring anything to the tablet except higher clocks speeds, which aren't a massive improvement. Where as a step up to even a low end i5 brings twice the cores for the Intel processors and a close to doubling of multithreaded performance (which means from eating the AMD chip's lunch to destroying it).

    The AMD chip has a nice healthy lead in gaming though, I'll give it that. For massively better CPU performance and possibly better GPU performance and deffinitely lower power consumption, the low end Intel 65w Iris Pro quad core chip though could be a good option. Granted, a good $100 premium over the top end AMD Kaveri chip, but CPU performance should probably be a significant improvement over the AMD part, lower power consumption and probably roughly similar graphical performance (looking at what the top end Kaveri has versus the "entry level").

    I think the combined CPU/GPU performance is telling though. The Kaveri chips have a nice superior GPU, but the problem is, running it full tilt prevents the CPU from running full tilt (and or it causes the GPU to throttle back) because of thermal constraints. That combined with poor (in general) CPU performance means when both have to come to bear on a task, the low end Intel chips out perform the AMD chips (let alone the medium market Intel chips). So generally better CPU performance and generally better CPU+GPU performance, at the expense of generally somewhat worse GPU standalone performance.

    I know what I'd want.
     
  17. azazel1024

    azazel1024 What's a Dremel?

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    The problem is there just might not be all that many even years from now. GPGPU computing is expanding, OpenCL is getting adopted more and more, but the problem is, many computing problems can not be massively parralleled out. A lot of times you are limited to a single thread, or at most a very small number of threads, or a main thread and a few small secondary threads. So for a lot of applications, you are limited to single thread performance only, or at best limited improvements through parrallelism.

    If single thread performance doesn't improve, you can have better and better multithread performance or even more threads to run stuff on, but the main thread takes most of the processing grunt and limits you.

    GPGPU is not likely to ever to be able to be leveraged by "the vast majority of workloads". At best it'll be a wide spread minority, which leaves single thread performance as the majority, or single thread and low count multithreaded performance being the majority of workloads still.

    So I commend AMD for its work on their APUs. I think the issue is that Intel is still the best were it typically counts, single thread and in most cases, multithreaded performance (and deffinitely power consumption), but they have, generally, with some exception, decent if not as good GPGPU performance.

    I don't generally see giant leaps in performance between Kaveri and RIchland on GPU performance though. Its some good improvement, but Haswell seems to have a bigger gain on that end over Ivy than Kaveri does over Richland. Which means Intel is catching up. Slowly, but they certainly seem to be catching up (and they have VERY good combined CPU+GPU performance, ignoring that evidence in the benchmarks for combined performance, its what I have noticed in real use). Broadwell is supposed to another huge boost in GPU peformance over Haswell, which means AMD is going to need another big generational boost in whatever come next to try to maintain their lead.

    At a guess, Broadwell is going to close or eliminate the gap with Kaveri in GPU performance (I won't speculate take the lead) and then whatever AMD comes out with next will take the lead back, but a much smaller lead than Kaveri has over Haswell.
     
  18. rollo

    rollo Modder

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    Yeh i read the no new 8 core chips pre 2015 that's a major disappointment. Was expecting some semi high end chip to at least force intel to reduce prices a little.

    Expecting intels next chip to break £300 for the 4770k equivalent. AMDs none compete starting to bite end users in there pockets.

    If you want a APU you are not really that serous in pc gaming anyway. Bf 4 using bits benches did not run a 30 FPS on low harle so not sure where you got it will do medium.(18 on medium and 22 on low is hardly in the realms of playability.)

    Harle last I checked you own a top end AMD chip with 2 gpus. So your not exactly gaming on a APU either are you?
     
  19. loftie

    loftie Multimodder

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    ^What he said. At least one site has an A10 7850k reviewed, though I won't post it here as it seems poor form to do so. Besides it's big enough for you to find on google.
     
  20. jrs77

    jrs77 Modder

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    This sums it up exactly.

    Tasks like wordprocessing, image-rendering (final rendering, not preview without high-res textures!), moost of the fiilters in image-editing, etc are basically all dependant on single-thread performance.

    The few things that progit from GPGPU or multithreading are simply not worth getting a AMD APU, especially not when you can get an intel i5 at the same price.
     
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