2013 AMD Elite Performance APU Platform (Mobile Richland)
by Jarred Walton on May 23, 2013 2:10 AM EST
Somehow or another, we missed covering the Richland APU launch. With AMD launching Kabini and Temash today and reiterating the features and parts in the Richland APU lineup, we felt it was a good time to quickly go over what Richland offers. Note that AMD is not yet announcing the desktop Richland parts, so we’re looking at the mobile offerings for now. Here’s the list of the Richland APU models, with three standard voltage parts and four LV/ULV offerings:
Fundamentally, Richland is a tweaked version of last year’s Trinity APU, with slightly higher CPU and GPU clocks. There’s reportedly some tuning to help Richland reach higher Turbo Core speeds more often, but we have not yet tested a Richland APU so we’re not sure how much of an improvement we’ll see in the real world; we’ve heard 5-25%, depending on the specific application.
The top performing A10-5757M model improves on performance offered by the A10-4600M, with the CPU core clocked at 2.5-3.5GHz and the GPU clocked at 600-720MHz. That gives the GPU a base clock that’s 103MHz higher than its Trinity predecessor, with a maximum clock that’s 34MHz higher. Meanwhile, the CPU cores have a base clock that’s 200MHz higher and a maximum Turbo clock that’s 300MHz higher. Depending on the task and the actual clock speeds of Trinity and Richland, the minimum performance increase should be at least 5% while maximum performance could increase by as much as 25%—all within the same 35W TDP.
The next step down is the A8-5557M, taking over for the outgoing A8-4500M. As with Trinity, the A8 model gets cut to 256 Radeon cores, but the GPU clocks remain roughly the same as the above A10 (720MHz maximum, but a lower 554MHz base clock). On the CPU side, the A8-5557M is also clocked 200MHz higher on the base clock with a maximum Turbo Core 3.0 clock that’s 300MHz higher (2.1-3.1GHz). Again, depending on the task, the Richland A8 APU should be anywhere from 5% to perhaps as much as 25% faster than the Trinity A8 APU.
The two low-voltage A8/A10 APUs feature a fully enabled GPU with 384 cores, and performance should be noticeably improved over the LV Trinity parts. The A10-5745M could be up to 50% faster than the previous A10-4655M (base GPU clock of 533 compared to 360), and maximum GPU clock is likewise a healthy 25% higher. The A8-5545M also has a base GPU clock increase of 40% compared to the A8-4555M with a maximum Turbo that’s 30% higher.
The above pattern of moderately improved CPU clocks with larger improvements in GPU clocks continues with the remaining A6 and A4 offerings. Unlike the A8 and A10 models, the A4 and A6 models feature two CPU cores and 192 or 128 Radeon cores. All three models look to improve performance relative to Trinity by the same 5-25%, depending on what you’re doing.
While the above improvements are generally impressive, at least on paper, it’s worth mention that Trinity in general had plenty of headroom, particularly on the GPU. Using MSI Afterburner for instance, I’ve been able to clock my Trinity prototype laptop at 750MHz on the GPU core and still run reliably. The limiting factor is often the cooling of the laptop rather than the silicon—not surprising considering the desktop APUs are basically the same chips at higher TDPs and significantly higher clocks. But regardless of headroom on Trinity, Richland brings better performance to all of the associated APUs.
Several laptops with Richland APUs have already been announced, and we hope to have hardware for testing in the next month. As before, the associated slides from AMD’s presentation are available in the gallery below.
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testbug00 - Sunday, May 26, 2013 - link
AMD has a different version of turbo. derp.different things work differently.
aalvisk - Thursday, May 23, 2013 - link
Looks great. I'm in a need for a laptop in the upcoming months so the a10 could be the one powering it. The performance is well enough for my taste. Gotta wait for these to become available in my country thoughKhenglish - Thursday, May 23, 2013 - link
Jarred you managed to overclock a trinity GPU? Are you sure? From my experience all it does it lock the GPU to turbo (685MHz), which is why you get a performance increase without actually overclocking. I've had afterburner and GPU-z say I was running over 2GHz...JarredWalton - Thursday, May 23, 2013 - link
Hmm...perhaps you're right. Afterburner at least is showing 750MHz, but I would need to do some benchmarking to see if it's actually helping.JarredWalton - Friday, May 24, 2013 - link
So AFAICT, with MSI Afterburner I am able to OC Trinity. I'm not sure which is right, but Afterburner reports the overclocked speeds in 1MHz increments whereas GPU-Z shows larger jumps -- e.g. I saw 720MHz when clocked at 750, and at 760MHz GPU-Z shows 758MHz. I'll do some tests now to see if the OC is real or not....johnny_boy - Tuesday, May 28, 2013 - link
I can overclock my A10-5800K GPU on my AsRock board. The linux utility (AMDOverdriveCtrl) appears to be reporting correct clock speeds. My board is such that I can lock the GPU speed at a certain value, or have it throttle up to a fixed value when needed. I have mine now ramping up to 1013mhz from 800mhz stock.MFK - Monday, May 27, 2013 - link
I feel like AMD needs to throw out their current naming scheme and introduce some coherency and clarity into their naming convention.What is the interplay between FX & Phenom processors?
What is the difference between the high end FX processors and the high end A class APUs other than the lack of integrated graphics?
I know the answers to these questions. But does the general public?
Maybe I'm just not grasping their intent and making a fool of myself?
Myrandex - Wednesday, May 29, 2013 - link
Note that Newegg has been selling a Desktop Richland APU for some time now...Jason
Beenthere - Saturday, June 1, 2013 - link
As far as the general public knowing the difference between the various AMD or Intel products, it's of little concern. Mainstream consumers primarily look for hardware that will do what they need and at the lowest price. Only enthusiasts pay much attention to the hardware specifics.You can expect Richland chips to run at higher frequencies for longer periods of time compared to Trinity for two reasons. One is that AMD has refined the power regulation to the various areas of the APU so areas that don't need to be running at high frequencies when they have little load, are throttled back as is their power consumption and thus thermal load so other areas of the APU can run faster. Second few have noticed but the Richland chips that AMD announced the other day are not just a refined Trinity chip. If you look really closely at the chip you will notice a significant design change that will contribute to running at higher frequencies for longer periods of time without hitting the TDP or sectional thermal limits. You'll need to squint your eyes very closely to see the detail but it's there for all the world to see.
http://products.amd.com/en-us/NotebookAPUSideBySid...
Gaugamela - Saturday, June 1, 2013 - link
This is just a stop-gap Trinity refresh to hold put into notebooks untill Kaveri is ready. With Kaveri AMD seriously needs to give a big jump in GPU/CPU performance.