[AT] AMD A10-7800 Review: Testing the A10 65W Kaveri

[DrMrLordX]

Looked at this?

http://hexus.net/tech/reviews/cpu/72709-amd-a10-7800-28nm-kaveri/?page=2

Oh, so they changed the board.

Thanks. I knew the cpu could not be overclocked.....and maybe the GPU doesn't need to be since it has 384 GCN stream processors at 720 Mhz.

It can be overclocked, but you have to adjust the APU frequency/bclk/whatever they're calling it. In most cases, that freq is limited to 105 mhz or lower, though I have heard from at last one guy on here who claimed he could push his bclk past 110 mhz on air using the Asus Pro board. Given what went on with the one Asus Kabini board that could push high BLCK, it might be possible for Kaveri.

 

[SPBHM]

Oh, so they changed the board.



It can be overclocked, but you have to adjust the APU frequency/bclk/whatever they're calling it. In most cases, that freq is limited to 105 mhz or lower, though I have heard from at last one guy on here who claimed he could push his bclk past 110 mhz on air using the Asus Pro board. Given what went on with the one Asus Kabini board that could push high BLCK, it might be possible for Kaveri.

I would expect it to go a little higher, llano could go higher than 130 in some boards, I've seen Richland 6700 at 117 in some review, and just checking hwbot the record for the 7850K is 138, but maybe some MBs can't go higher than 105 and others can.

 

[DrMrLordX]

I would expect it to go a little higher, llano could go higher than 130 in some boards, I've seen Richland 6700 at 117 in some review, and just checking hwbot the record for the 7850K is 138, but maybe some MBs can't go higher than 105 and others can.

Interesting, 138 mhz bclk? That's more than enough for a healthy 7600 OC. Granted, working with locked multipliers can be frustrating, but . . .

btw, retail availability of either the 7600 or the 7800 seems rather poor right now. Cheapest I've see the 7800 for is ~$166. With the Egg selling the 7850K for $169 + free shipping right now, I see no reason to get the 7800.

 

[cbn]

Regarding HTPC, It is too bad the price of FM2 and FM2+ Mini ITX boards are so high compared to their Micro ATX counterparts.

 

[DrMrLordX]

btw, retail availability of either the 7600 or the 7800 seems rather poor right now. Cheapest I've see the 7800 for is ~$166. With the Egg selling the 7850K for $169 + free shipping right now, I see no reason to get the 7800.

Hate to quote myself, but I must issue a correction: the 7600 now has "actual" retail availability at Tiger Direct. Took em long enough!

 

[cbn]

Hate to quote myself, but I must issue a correction: the 7600 now has "actual" retail availability at Tiger Direct. Took em long enough!

I noticed the A8-7600 actually beats the A10-5800K in the following benchmarks.

(NOTE: Most of the APUs including A10-6800K, A10-5800K and A8-7600 used 2133 Mhz RAM according to a previous Kaveri review article --> http://www.anandtech.com/show/7677/amd-kaveri-review-a8-7600-a10-7850k/9. The rest of the APUs used 1866 )

But I wonder how the A8-7600 would compare to the Trinity and Richland A10s and A8s if the DDR3 speed was only 1600? (The RAM speed commonly found in pre-built desktops and DIY sales/bundles)

 

[DrMrLordX]

An excellent question. One wonders why they used different RAM speeds like that? It throws the results into doubt somewhat.

 

[cbn]

An excellent question. One wonders why they used different RAM speeds like that? It throws the results into doubt somewhat.

Just to clarify, the only APUs to use 1866 Mhz RAM were A10-6700T, A8-6500T and A8-5500, the rest of the APUs used 2133 Mhz.

 

[DrMrLordX]

I do agree, at least in principle, with their decision to use DDR3-2133 instead of 1600, since 1600 is more likely to show up in an OEM box than in a custom-built rig. Still, using different memory speeds in the review does skew things in favor of the test systems with faster memory. For uniformity's sake, they should have used the fastest possible memory speed available to all the APUs, which was probably DDR3-1866.

 

[basslover1]

Just to clarify, the only APUs to use 1866 Mhz RAM were A10-6700T, A8-6500T and A8-5500, the rest of the APUs used 2133 Mhz.

The A10-6790K also uses ddr-1866.

 

[AtenRa]

I do agree, at least in principle, with their decision to use DDR3-2133 instead of 1600, since 1600 is more likely to show up in an OEM box than in a custom-built rig. Still, using different memory speeds in the review does skew things in favor of the test systems with faster memory. For uniformity's sake, they should have used the fastest possible memory speed available to all the APUs, which was probably DDR3-1866.

Only the Kaveri APUs officially support 2133MHz Memory and A10-6800K from the Richland family. Every other APU officially supports 1866MHz memory (lower models only up to 1600MHz) and that's how they should have tested.
Unless you specifically want to bench at the same specs for every APU like i did for clock to clock comparison.