2014 build and APUs

[Mac29]

So I'm thinking of holding off on another card and building a system next year. Been reading about how Haswell and Richland haven't quite reached the promised land but upcoming APUs will be able to game w/high settings for say a typical 23" lcd. Eventually. Probably not great at every game but with enough improvement that someone like me will skip a discrete card. At least for a while.

Is Kaveri or what I assume is Intel's Iris going to be a big enough improvement over Haswell and Richland to skip getting a graphics card in early 2014?

Also, is DDR4 going to start becoming mainstream next year?


Thanks,

Mac

 

[BallaTheFeared]

I believe for Intel Skylake will be their first uarch with DDR4 support.

That won't be out until the Haswell shrink to 14nm (Broadwell), so two years ~ IIRC.


I've been playing with my HD4600 for a few days, it's not enough even overclocked for most of the titles I have at 1080p. However there are some where it has no real problems, such as Dota 2.

I don't think iGPU is quite there yet for either side, based on my results and unscientific comparisons to Richland.

That said it's not bad, just don't go in looking for 1080p performance. 1366x768 is probably where the buck stocks for most titles, often with medium to high settings, you can go up from there even 1080p for some titles is possible it just depends on the game itself really.

The problem with graphics power is that even with dGPU you never actually have "enough", you can always use more power. And the power -> IQ/Res doesn't scale linearly, we'll need to see a big bump in iGPU performance just to hit decent settings in current titles at 1080p.

The trick there is that 1080p is becoming more and more like the new 768, with 4k coming, next gen consoles on the horizon, and the always present dGPU market pushing the envelope on IQ iGPU is going to continue to fight an uphill battle imo.

 

[frozentundra123456]

I believe for Intel Skylake will be their first uarch with DDR4 support.

That won't be out until the Haswell shrink to 14nm (Broadwell), so two years ~ IIRC.


I've been playing with my HD4600 for a few days, it's not enough even overclocked for most of the titles I have at 1080p. However there are some where it has no real problems, such as Dota 2.

I don't think iGPU is quite there yet for either side, based on my results and unscientific comparisons to Richland.

That said it's not bad, just don't go in looking for 1080p performance. 1366x768 is probably where the buck stocks for most titles, often with medium to high settings, you can go up from there even 1080p for some titles is possible it just depends on the game itself really.

The problem with graphics power is that even with dGPU you never actually have "enough", you can always use more power. And the power -> IQ/Res doesn't scale linearly, we'll need to see a big bump in iGPU performance just to hit decent settings in current titles at 1080p.

The trick there is that 1080p is becoming more and more like the new 768, with 4k coming, next gen consoles on the horizon, and the always present dGPU market pushing the envelope on IQ iGPU is going to continue to fight an uphill battle imo.

I agree. APUs are trying to hit a moving target. They are getting better, but so are discrete cards, and the demands of new games keep going up as well. For serious gaming on the desktop, I just dont see an APU as the best, or even adequate, solution. This could change, but I would not count on it, and would not try to predict any time frame should it occur.

To be honest, I dont really see anything on the horizon on the cpu front that will be a compelling reason to delay upgrading. AMDs APUs could, and I stress, could, benefit from optimizations related to similar console architectures, but my feeling is that they will still be thermally and TDP limited enough that a good discrete card will give better performance.

 

[gorobei]

depends on what type of gaming you are talking about. casual and non fps should be ok at 1080 with a few settings turned down.

kaveri is what most people are hoping is the ticket for apu(decent cpu and gcn gpu with shared memory). but it still wont be anywhere near a dedicated card even a low end 7790.

intel iris pro isnt likely to be released for desktop any time soon. and the performance still will be south of a gf650 in real games.

 

[Vesku]

Don't expect miracles in the bandwidth department. This german site loaded up on the AA making their 7750 DDR3 review not as informative as it could have been:

http://ht4u.net/reviews/2012/msi_ra...39.php&usg=ALkJrhi1G4TxkhzXnvN1ZfRJ3KdXukbpQQ

But you can still estimate that there will likely be a 30-50% difference at settings you would use knowing you have low bandwidth.

Consumer DDR4 isn't expected to ship in volume until end of 2014 beginning of 2015. Imo one of the reasons Haswell+ is listed for 2nd half of 2014, it would be a headache to roll out the next family and have DDR4 arrive in the middle of its life cycle. Better to target the transition for the DDR4 change over.

 

[Soulkeeper]

ddr3 has been around for much longer than any previous ddr revisions right ?

 

[piesquared]

There is also Wide I/O and HBM coming down the pipe and seems to line up nicely with Kaveri.

 

[frozentundra123456]

depends on what type of gaming you are talking about. casual and non fps should be ok at 1080 with a few settings turned down.

kaveri is what most people are hoping is the ticket for apu(decent cpu and gcn gpu with shared memory). but it still wont be anywhere near a dedicated card even a low end 7790.

intel iris pro isnt likely to be released for desktop any time soon. and the performance still will be south of a gf650 in real games.

As for Kaveri, I believe it has the same number of shaders as HD7750, so that is the upper limit of expectations I have for that, and it will actually be lower because of bandwidth restrictions.

As for Intel IGP on the desktop, Haswell was a step forward but still trails trinity, much less Kaveri and it will be 2 years before I expect any improvement.

So I expect even a low/mid range card like HD7770 to be faster than any foreseeable igp.

Edit: If intel released GT3 with the embedded dram, it will be fast for an igp, but expensive. The only place I see for it in the desktop is all-in-ones or SFF applications.

 

[mikk]

Broadwell GT4 will be the real iGPU revolution, not Kaveri or Haswell GT3e.

 

[frozentundra123456]

Broadwell GT4 will be the real iGPU revolution, not Kaveri or Haswell GT3e.

I am not familiar with that, but if/when is it coming to the desktop? I am excited about the possible igp improvements in mobile--maybe light gaming at decent settings will be possible.
But on the desktop, I still see a discrete card as the best solution for the forseeable future.

 

[VulgarDisplay]

If amd releases a similar apu to the ps4 sometime soon I think you could get pretty amazing performance out of it.

 

[mikk]

I am not familiar with that, but if/when is it coming to the desktop? I am excited about the possible igp improvements in mobile--maybe light gaming at decent settings will be possible.
But on the desktop, I still see a discrete card as the best solution for the forseeable future.

Broadwell is mainly a mobile only product, of course we should see all in one Desktop systems with Broadwell. Broadwell Quadcore is expected to come sometime in 2H 2014.

 

[SPBHM]

If amd releases a similar apu to the ps4 sometime soon I think you could get pretty amazing performance out of it.

what!? with 256bit GDDR5? slow CPU (extremely low performance per core compared to current desktop CPUs)

it makes no sense.

 

[VulgarDisplay]

what!? with 256bit GDDR5? slow CPU (extremely low performance per core compared to current desktop CPUs)

it makes no sense.

Yes, an apu with much better bandwidth and a GPU that is somewhere between a 7850 and 7870 that you could put an amazing aftermarket cooler on and over clock the living hell out of makes no sense.

Please show me benchmarks of the ps4's 8 core CPU to quantify your obvious trolling now.

 

[BallaTheFeared]

I think he was referring to the tablet cpu it is coupled with.

 

[VulgarDisplay]

I think he was referring to the tablet cpu it is coupled with.

The difference between a tablet CPU and a desktop CPU is often just form factor, tdp because form factor, and cooling solution. I would still love to see benchmarks to illustrate why a ps4 style apu would not make an awesome htpc/small form factor gaming rig.

 

[ShintaiDK]

The difference between a tablet CPU and a desktop CPU is often just form factor, tdp because form factor, and cooling solution. I would still love to see benchmarks to illustrate why a ps4 style apu would not make an awesome htpc/small form factor gaming rig.

Try set a SB/IB/HW to 1Ghz and mix it with a HD7850 and see how it goes. Then you would quickly know why.

 

[VulgarDisplay]

Try set a SB/IB/HW to 1Ghz and mix it with a HD7850 and see how it goes. Then you would quickly know why.

Why would a desktop apu be running at 1.0 GHz? Desktop not tablet.

 

[SPBHM]

Yes, an apu with much better bandwidth and a GPU that is somewhere between a 7850 and 7870 that you could put an amazing aftermarket cooler on and over clock the living hell out of makes no sense.

Please show me benchmarks of the ps4's 8 core CPU to quantify your obvious trolling now.

you would have to use soldered memory for that, which means no upgrades, also means high cost (GDDR5 is not as cheap as DDR3, and for system memory + graphics you will need at least 8GB I guess)

my "obvious trolling" is simply stating facts, the PS4 uses "Jaguar cores" with conservative clocks (2GHz or lower, possibly 1.6), so I can post this as proof of extremely low performance per core compared to desktop CPUs, even if you consider x8 this is around core i3 performance for MT, and Celeron 847 ST performance.

hardly something anyone would use for PC gaming with a fast GPU.

 

[NTMBK]

Why would a desktop apu be running at 1.0 GHz? Desktop not tablet.

The PS4 APU runs at 1.6GHz- an i7 Haswell clocked at 1GHz would give roughly equivalent performance (8 threads, low single threaded performance).

He makes a valid point- given that PC software is not optimized for high numbers of slow(ish) threads in general, you would be better off if they disabled half the cores and upped the clock speed to e.g. 2.4GHz.

 

[VulgarDisplay]

you would have to use soldered memory for that, which means no upgrades, also means high cost (GDDR5 is not as cheap as DDR3, and for system memory + graphics you will need at least 8GB I guess)

my "obvious trolling" is simply stating facts, the PS4 uses "Jaguar cores" with conservative clocks (2GHz or lower, possibly 1.6), so I can post this as proof of extremely low performance per core compared to desktop CPUs, even if you consider x8 this is around core i3 performance for MT, and Celeron 847 ST performance.

hardly something anyone would use for PC gaming with a fast GPU.

That is at 1.5 GHz. Ps4 apu I believe runs at 2.0ghz and that is mainly to keep power in check in the console form factor. I don't know what the max clock kabini can run at, but it is quite a bit higher than the chip from that review. Honestly with higher clocks it would be closer to trinity in that benchmark.

I also fail to see why you are all basically trying to say that it won't perform like a 4770k with titan trip sli so it isn't any good. It would be far cheaper, use way less power, and fit into tiny enclosures and likely let you max most games at 720p which would be great for a htpc.

 

[VulgarDisplay]

The PS4 APU runs at 1.6GHz- an i7 Haswell clocked at 1GHz would give roughly equivalent performance (8 threads, low single threaded performance).

He makes a valid point- given that PC software is not optimized for high numbers of slow(ish) threads in general, you would be better off if they disabled half the cores and upped the clock speed to e.g. 2.4GHz.

Some rumors say 1.6 GHz others say 2.0ghz. No one knows for sure as far as I can tell.

 

[Erenhardt]

If this is 1,5GHz,

Then desktop part operating with around 2-3 higher freq (3,0GHz-4,5GHz) will give 0,8-1,2 score in single threaded benchmark.
http://www.anandtech.com/show/6974/amd-kabini-review/3
Multithreaded 4 cores @1,5ghz scores 1,5 - scaling lineary to @4,0GHz would give 4,0 score with 4 cores.
That is quite a bit faster than fx-4300 (3,8-4,0 GHz)

Scaling to 8cores@4,0GHz: 8,0
Nothing to sneeze at!

hardly something anyone would use for PC gaming with a fast GPU.

Last time I checked no one said something like that about i7 4770

Question is, if the small jaguar core can get to those freqs and if it can, how much power it takes? We are talking about tablet core with 4770 performance!

 

[VulgarDisplay]

If this is 1,5GHz,

Then desktop part operating with around 2-3 higher freq (3,0GHz-4,5GHz) will give 0,8-1,2 score in single threaded benchmark.
http://www.anandtech.com/show/6974/amd-kabini-review/3
Multithreaded 4 cores @1,5ghz scores 1,5 - scaling lineary to @4,0GHz would give 4,0 score with 4 cores.
That is quite a bit faster than fx-4300 (3,8-4,0 GHz)

Scaling to 8cores@4,0GHz: 8,0
Nothing to sneeze at!

Last time I checked no one said something like that about i7 4770

Question is, if the small jaguar core can get to those freqs and if it can, how much power it takes? We are talking about tablet core with 4770 performance!

I think it maxes at 2.0ghz on the process it is manufactured at.

 

[SPBHM]

That is at 1.5 GHz. Ps4 apu I believe runs at 2.0ghz and that is mainly to keep power in check in the console form factor. I don't know what the max clock kabini can run at, but it is quite a bit higher than the chip from that review. Honestly with higher clocks it would be closer to trinity in that benchmark.

I also fail to see why you are all basically trying to say that it won't perform like a 4770k with titan trip sli so it isn't any good. It would be far cheaper, use way less power, and fit into tiny enclosures and likely let you max most games at 720p which would be great for a htpc.

clock speed was not revealed, but it's expected to be 1.6 or 2.0 GHz
http://www.anandtech.com/show/6972/xbox-one-hardware-compared-to-playstation-4/2

the highest clocked Jaguar based CPU announced runs at 2GHz (with a 25W TDP), it's also manufactured by TSMC, not on the process used for AMD desktop CPUs.

who talked about 4770K? I said ST performance is on the sub 2GHz Celeron league, and MT well under i5.

it would be slow for gaming on Windows, because the CPU portion is to slow.

It wouldn't be cheap with 256bit GDDR5... the PS4 CPU+IGP the way it is, is inadequate for dektops... why is it so hard to accept!?

We are talking about tablet core with 4770 performance!

your post is full of fantasies, if they can run this CPU at 4GHz, why aren't they doing it!?

fact is,

4 core Kabini

if they can run at 2GHz and 8 cores it would still be much slower than an i5 for MT, and slower than a 1.6 Celeron for ST.

and not all PC games can use 8 cores as efficiently as 3d rendering