The Official Kaveri Review Thread (A10-7850K, etc)

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Gloomy

Golden Member
Oct 12, 2010
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I think AMD knows their IPC is lagging, and it's why they are pushing Mantle which effectively does away with CPU bottlenecks supposedly.

AMD is pushing Mantle for no other reason than they had the right bag of IP at the right time and won both consoles, then decided they wanted to have a go at business incorporating Microsoft's storied triple-E strategy.
 
Feb 19, 2009
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I wasn't impressed when reading Anand's review of iGPU gaming, ridiculous settings gives a slideshow, who buys a cheap APU and game at those settings?

Reading here: http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/foru...1-amd-kaveri-a10-7850k-a8-7600-review-24.html

Now I am officially impressed. 1080p gaming at normal/medium settings, fluid gameplay in all newer titles. Whats even more impressive is BF4 at 1080p with low/medium is running so fast.

http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/foru...1-amd-kaveri-a10-7850k-a8-7600-review-26.html

And they ran their Ram at 1600mhz!

KAVERI-APU-83.jpg


KAVERI-APU-80.jpg


Very happy with this performance improvement. At these low range of FPS, a bump to around 37 fps makes a massive difference to playability.
 
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Torn Mind

Lifer
Nov 25, 2012
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Price is a killer for these Kaveri chips. $190 at Newegg for the A10-7850K is a major minus...

Also, I'm not surprised with the CPU performance. There has never been a large next gen(30% or greater) performance improvement within the same microarchitecture in the last ten years. Netburst to Conroe was a change in architecture...
 

Enigmoid

Platinum Member
Sep 27, 2012
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Has anyone noticed that AMD wants to compare it to the a10-6700T, a CPU which is almost nowhere to be found and was never used in any system?

Is it just me or does kaveri seem good for a cheap gaming laptop? Esp. 1366x788 models?

Considering that the a10-5750m runs most applications at 3.2 ghz (up to 3.5 ghz turbo) and is a 35W part (though put a CPU + GPU load on it and clocks will drop).....and a lot of review sites show kaveri 45W using more power than richland 45W.... That said, mobile chips are binned higher but I still do not see this doing more than matching i5m haswell (even ULV i5 haswell which is around 10-20% faster than the a10-5750m) and performing notably worse than i7m quads.

It appears that kaveri is optimized for a power envelope of roughly 40-80W. Not really low enough for mobile (unless their brainless CEO would release a 45W mobile SKU). Not high enough for high performance (relatively speaking) on the desktop given foundry issues.

http://translate.google.com/transla...eview-test,testberichte-241474-9.html&act=url

50% increase in FPS (26--> 39) with 50% increase in memory bandwidth (1600-->2400) for this game at the tested resolution.

http://www.tomshardware.de/amd-kaveri-apu-review-test,testberichte-241474-4.html

Gaming performance increase seems okay (and unlike AT or TR they tested at generally reasonable settings) .... until you read the test setup.

16 GB DDR3 2133 AMD Kaveri
16 GB of DDR3 2133 @ 1866 AMD A10-6800K, A8 6500T

So when you factor the memory differences in kaveri is basically the same speed (like AT showed at lower settings).

Minimal to no improvement in the memory controller (synthetics tests may show an improvement but its not carrying out in a lot of gaming scenarios).

Just barely and in a totally obscure cumulative average. Considering that the Phenom II was a 130W part without any graphics, at that level having an APU less that half of which is dedicated to CPU cores, is actually quite impressive.

AMD is obviously moving sideways, they finally caught up with themselves in regards to GCN, they committed to a lot of innovative stuff, they rule the consoles, you don't need a vice or a razor to cool them! For anyone without a graphics card, Kaveri is a safe recommendation.

With all the discussion, about who APUs are for? Now, maybe there are people out there who drop more than a grand on a gaming PC, to play it 10 hours a week and have the best possible experience. But I suspect, from a time when I used to own graphics cards, there are plenty of blokes who'd want to get a lot of mileage out of the purchase of a pricey discrete GPU card, which in retrospect usually is a bad decision.

Casual gaming can imply staying say below 100W TDP, sticking with shorter, smarter, independent games, instead of chasing the biggest high, be it total Immersion in a Sim, the most spectacular Battlefield stunt kill or the shiniest armor in an RPG. For the first time it's viable, you even can test and run any game and then decide to commit to an allegedly better experience. Computing is stuck in a holding pattern anyway, waiting for mobile to catch up.

People who say a frequency gimped, i3, with pitiful graphics, disabled energy saving states and 20 degees worth of thermal insulation is a better choice than a fully featured, top of the line APU, those people are full of something, but it ain't wisdom. OK, Maybe in an ultra-book an i3 makes sense, or in a office nettop.

The funny thing is that for the longest time it seemed that notebooks were going to replace desktops, but actually AMD is better than ever positioned in the growing HTPC, console segment than say the blasted ultrabooks, or thousand dollar graphics cards in their respective markets.

To be fair, intel has improved just as much, if not more than AMD from an efficiency standpoint.

Casual gaming implies cheap. Not TDP limited. Casual can also imply tablet or ultrabook level games.

But Kaveri is again in a no man's land on the desktop. Not enough performance. Not cheap enough to fight cheap cpu + dgpu. Decent for casual use but again, overpriced for most people as a pentium (or a6) can do everything they need (email, browsing, youtube, etc, maybe facebook games).

PII x6 handily outperforms kaveri in applications.
 
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Aug 11, 2008
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I wasn't impressed when reading Anand's review of iGPU gaming, ridiculous settings gives a slideshow, who buys a cheap APU and game at those settings?

Reading here: http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/foru...1-amd-kaveri-a10-7850k-a8-7600-review-24.html

Now I am officially impressed. 1080p gaming at normal/medium settings, fluid gameplay in all newer titles. Whats even more impressive is BF4 at 1080p with low/medium is running so fast.

http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/foru...1-amd-kaveri-a10-7850k-a8-7600-review-26.html

And they ran their Ram at 1600mhz!

KAVERI-APU-83.jpg


KAVERI-APU-80.jpg


Very happy with this performance improvement. At these low range of FPS, a bump to around 37 fps makes a massive difference to playability.

What "newer" titles did they test? I dont see any demanding recent titles there like Metro LL or Crysis 3 to name a couple.
Also there is no comparison to a low end cpu like the x4 750k with a discrete card like the HD7750 GDDR5, which is what it needs to beat or match to make any sense in a desktop, except maybe a SFF situation.
 
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Feb 19, 2009
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miniITX HTPC is my preferred target for APUs. But there's a case for a cheap gaming build too. Less power use, or low noise setups (less heat output, no need for extra fans) than low end cpu + low-end discrete GPU.

As for what newer games? You may have missed BF4.. its the popular online shooter thats.. popular.

If it runs BF4 at 37 fps with 1600mhz ram at 1080p, its good enough for me. I would buy it.

I'm planning on building with this case: http://www.cubitek.com/products/mini-series/mini-cube <- its a thing of beauty.
 

TeknoBug

Platinum Member
Oct 2, 2013
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Yeh, well Kaveri's market isnt the dGPU market, its the HTPC, Grandma, School, casual market. Regardless, AMD isnt viable for anything other than that market anymore, even the FX line is pathetic. No point in looking at AMD to provide us with anything other than great dGPU's because as far as CPU's go Intel has(except the x2 and x4) and will always be the only option when it comes to us gamers.

Well the choices for CPU's from AMD isn't going to be that great when it comes to hardcore gaming or such, from what I saw there's no future for AM3+ nor anymore mid-high end CPU's for now.

Yes my Phenom II X6 1090T still performs somewhat better than my FX 4350 does.
 
Feb 19, 2009
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AMD CPUs aren't relevant for high end gaming for a long time now.

What they need to do and I think they have accomplished it, is to make an APU that can game very well at 1080p. Richland was nearly there. But seeing these benches at 1080p with normal settings really proves to me that Kaveri "IS THERE", finally. AMD will take my money, I will build a small mITX HTPC gaming machine for the lounge room. Plug in a controller and wireless keyboard/mouse and its my version of a flexible console.
 
Aug 11, 2008
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miniITX HTPC is my preferred target for APUs. But there's a case for a cheap gaming build too. Less power use, or low noise setups (less heat output, no need for extra fans) than low end cpu + low-end discrete GPU.

As for what newer games? You may have missed BF4.. its the popular online shooter thats.. popular.

If it runs BF4 at 37 fps with 1600mhz ram at 1080p, its good enough for me. I would buy it.

I'm planning on building with this case: http://www.cubitek.com/products/mini-series/mini-cube <- its a thing of beauty.

I have a desktop with an i5 and a HD7770 that sits right next to my desk. The only noise that is somewhat annoying is the spinning of the mechanical hard drives. As for power usage, the additional power use of a HD7750 and a low end cpu is minimal over a 95 watt APU, and definitely worth it to me for the additional performance. If you are interested in a SFF, then sure it makes some sense, but I am talking about general desktop gaming use.
 
Feb 19, 2009
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I have a desktop with an i5 and a HD7770 that sits right next to my desk. The only noise that is somewhat annoying is the spinning of the mechanical hard drives. As for power usage, the additional power use of a HD7750 and a low end cpu is minimal over a 95 watt APU, and definitely worth it to me for the additional performance. If you are interested in a SFF, then sure it makes some sense, but I am talking about general desktop gaming use.

Entirely on a different price level, you comparison is not valid. APUs target cheap, low power gaming builds or HTPC. Lets not pretend its awesome for anything else.
 

Lonbjerg

Diamond Member
Dec 6, 2009
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Entirely on a different price level, you comparison is not valid. APUs target cheap, low power gaming builds or HTPC. Lets not pretend its awesome for anything else.

They also target subpar settings/FPS...you'd be better off with a console...not that it is saying much...
 

Gloomy

Golden Member
Oct 12, 2010
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Which makes AMD more money: a retail chip sale, an OEM chip sale, or a console sale?
 

ultimatebob

Lifer
Jul 1, 2001
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I'm shocked that the CPU is still losing against a 3-year old Sandy Bridge processor.

Yeah... what's even sadder is how the top end Kaveri part (the A10-7850K) was getting smoked by a cheaper Core i3 processor in many of the CPU bound benchmarks.

Still, it's nice to see integrated graphics that can play modern games at 1080p with a decent frame rate.
 

JDG1980

Golden Member
Jul 18, 2013
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Yeh, well Kaveri's market isnt the dGPU market, its the HTPC, Grandma, School, casual market. Regardless, AMD isnt viable for anything other than that market anymore, even the FX line is pathetic.

The FX-6300 is pretty good from a price/performance standpoint. It's cheaper than an i3, and unless you exclusively run single-threaded or FPU-heavy tasks, will usually give better overall performance. It's not as efficient in terms of power usage, but most enthusiasts/gamers don't really care about that - if you are running a 250W video card, an extra 50W or so on the CPU doesn't matter too much.
 

blackened23

Diamond Member
Jul 26, 2011
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Entirely on a different price level, you comparison is not valid. APUs target cheap, low power gaming builds or HTPC. Lets not pretend its awesome for anything else.

The problem is, it's hard to make a case for this over an i3 + low end dGPU. The i3 would be better in anything CPU limited in terms of gaming, which at low resolutions, is a lot of titles, with better power consumption as well. You can save 30-40 bucks with an APU but really...30-40 bucks....I dunno. Or it could be an even cost depending on which low end dGPU you buy. Not that much money. And the i3 Haswell's are much cheaper than the 7850, which is priced in the stratosphere given its rather low performance.

I mean, it is a good HTPC chip, don't get me wrong. I don't disagree. For that niche, they're nice chips. But they're not good progressions over Richland, which is really disappointing.
 
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Enigmoid

Platinum Member
Sep 27, 2012
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The FX-6300 is pretty good from a price/performance standpoint. It's cheaper than an i3, and unless you exclusively run single-threaded or FPU-heavy tasks, will usually give better overall performance. It's not as efficient in terms of power usage, but most enthusiasts/gamers don't really care about that - if you are running a 250W video card, an extra 50W or so on the CPU doesn't matter too much.

I know. 6300 + mild OC on stock cooler is probably the best bang for your buck chip when paired with a dgpu.

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applicati...uC9CTfX414hVGg

$110.

Best budget gamer CPU considering you can hit 4.0 ghz easily on the stock cooler.

http://us.ncix.com/products/?usaffiliateid=1000031504&sku=74741&vpn=HD7750-1GD5-V2&manufacture=ASUS

6300 + 7750 = $188.

Much more powerful combination than kaveri (any cost overrun can be made up by the fact that this build takes the cheapest RAM you can find). CPU is much stronger and the additional cores make it more future-proof than kaveri (or a low end i3/pentium).
 

cbn

Lifer
Mar 27, 2009
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Current price differences for Core i3 and AMD A10/A8 APU Pre-built Systems:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...CE&amp;PageSize=20 (Core i3 starts @ $369)

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...000687(A8-6500 (A8-6500 APU starts @ $479)

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...&amp;SID=u00000687 (A10-6700 APU starts @ $499, but I do notice they are now listing free Battlefield 4 game)

Using the Current Fry's sale for Pre-builts here is what I am coming up with:

http://www.frys-electronics-ads.com...-PC-with-4th-Gen-Intel-Core-i3-4130-Processor (Core i3 for $348)

http://www.frys-electronics-ads.com...80-UR22-Desktop-PC-with-AMD-A8-6500-Processor (A8-6500 for $448)

Now granted the Core i3 systems come with 4GB RAM vs. 8GB for the AMD systems, but that still a pretty big disparity in pricing IMO.
 
Aug 11, 2008
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Entirely on a different price level, you comparison is not valid. APUs target cheap, low power gaming builds or HTPC. Lets not pretend its awesome for anything else.

I wasnt talking about my system in any respect except that a normal desktop, stock cooler, and discrete card is not obtrusively noisy.

If you want to talk price, that is the point of why the 7850k does not make sense.

New egg prices: Athlon x4 750k = 79.00
HD 7750 GDDR 5 = 99.00

Total price 180.00, the same as or less than 7850k, and better performance. Plus you can save 10 dollars or so on the ram.
 
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Feb 19, 2009
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The problem is, it's hard to make a case for this over an i3 + low end dGPU. The i3 would be better in anything CPU limited in terms of gaming, which at low resolutions, is a lot of titles, with better power consumption as well. You can save 30-40 bucks with an APU but really...30-40 bucks....I dunno. Or it could be an even cost depending on which low end dGPU you buy. Not that much money. And the i3 Haswell's are much cheaper than the 7850, which is priced in the stratosphere given its rather low performance.

I mean, it is a good HTPC chip, don't get me wrong. I don't disagree. For that niche, they're nice chips. But they're not good progressions over Richland, which is really disappointing.

Compare a low end discrete, 7750 or 7770:
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/radeon-hd-7770-7750-benchmark,3135-8.html

Power use? >200W:
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/radeon-hd-7770-7750-benchmark,3135-14.html

APU are in another league that low end CPU/low end discrete cannot touch, much more power efficient and cheaper.

Low end gaming, you dont GAF about cpu limitation because your crap GPU isn't going to push anywhere enough frames per second to encounter the cpu limits on Kaveri.
 

Haserath

Senior member
Sep 12, 2010
793
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Compare a low end discrete, 7750 or 7770:
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/radeon-hd-7770-7750-benchmark,3135-8.html

Power use? >200W:
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/radeon-hd-7770-7750-benchmark,3135-14.html

APU are in another league that low end CPU/low end discrete cannot touch, much more power efficient and cheaper.

Low end gaming, you dont GAF about cpu limitation because your crap GPU isn't going to push anywhere enough frames per second to encounter the cpu limits on Kaveri.

They used a LGA 2011 platform for that testing. Idle watts was 90W compared to 30W for an efficient LGA 1150 setup, and it was on a 32nm 3960X. The power use was still only around 200W with the 7770.

The test setup also had a 1000W PSU... Not exactly optimal for such a low power setup.