AMD Kaveri Review: A8-7600 and A10-7850K Tested
by Ian Cutress & Rahul Garg on January 14, 2014 8:00 AM ESTTesting Platform
For our Kaveri testing AMD sent us two APUs – the top 95W A10-7850K SKU and the configurable TDP version of the A8-7600 APU, the latter of which can be set at 45W or 65W through the BIOS. The A8-7600 was tested in both power configurations, ultimately the difference between them both being only a few hundred MHz. The 65W configuration is only 200 MHz off the A10-7700K base frequency, and incidentally they both turbo to the same frequency of 3.8GHz.
Kaveri will be the first APU put through the mangle in terms of my new 2014 benchmarking suite, focusing on more compute tasks, video conversion in different software, and more real world scenarios geared for the prosumer.
We must thank the following companies for their contribution to the test beds:
- Many thanks to AMD for supporting us with their APUs, AMD Radeon Memory and test system
- Many thanks to ASRock for supporting us with their FM2A88X Extreme6+ and FM2A88X-ITX+ motherboards and the loan of APUs
- Many thanks to G.Skill for supporting us with their RipjawsX and RipjawsZ memory kits
- Many thanks to OCZ for supporting us with their 1250W Power Supplies and Vertex SSDs
- Many thanks to Samsung for supporting us and AMD with their 840 EVO SSD
- Many thanks to Antec for supporting us and AMD with their 750W High Current Pro PSU
- Many thanks to Xigmatek for supporting us and AMD with their Nebula SFF chassis
Our test setup for AMD is as follows:
AMD APU TestBed | ||||||||
SKU | Cores |
CPU / Turbo |
DRAM MHz |
Power | IGP | SPs |
GPU MHz |
|
Kaveri APUs | A10-7850K | 2M/4T |
3.7 GHz 4.0 GHz |
2133 | 95W | R7 | 512 | 720 MHz |
A8-7600 | 2M/4T |
3.3 GHz 3.8 GHz |
2133 | 65W | R7 | 384 | 720 MHz | |
A8-7600 | 2M/4T |
3.1 GHz 3.3 GHz |
2133 | 45W | R7 | 384 | 720 MHz | |
Richland APUs | A10-6800K | 2M/4T |
4.1 GHz 4.4 GHz |
2133 | 100W | 8670D | 384 | 844 MHz |
A10-6700T | 2M/4T |
2.5 GHz 3.5 GHz |
1866 | 45W | 8650D | 384 | 720 MHz | |
A8-6500T | 2M/4T |
2.1 GHz 3.1 GHz |
1866 | 45W | 8550D | 256 | 720 MHz | |
Trinity APUs | A10-5800K | 2M/4T |
3.8 GHz 4.2 GHz |
2133 | 100W | 7660D | 384 | 800 MHz |
A8-5500 | 2M/4T |
3.2 GHz 3.7 GHz |
1866 | 65W | 7560D | 256 | 760 MHz | |
Memory |
AMD Radeon 2 x 8 GB DDR3-2133 10-11-11 1.65V G.Skill RipjawsX 4 x 4 GB DDR3-2133 9-11-11 1.65V G.Skill RipjawsZ 4 x 4 GB DDR3-1866 8-9-9 1.65V |
|||||||
Motherboards |
ASRock FM2A88X Extreme6+ ASRock FM2A88X-ITX+ |
|||||||
Power Supply | OCZ 1250W ZX Series | |||||||
Storage | OCZ 256GB Vertex 3 SSDs | |||||||
Operating System | Windows 7 64-bit SP1 with Core Parking updates | |||||||
Video Drivers |
Graphics Driver Build 13.300 RC2 for Radeon R7 Catalyst 13.12 for all others |
Unfortunately we were not able to source a 65W Richland part in time, however a midrange 65W Trinity part was on hand. The important thing to note is that within each power bracket, both the CPU frequencies and the supported memory changes depending on the architecture and the binning process AMD uses. The benchmarks in this review are run at the processors' maximum supported frequency, rather than any AMD Memory Profiles which the processor can also support via overclocking. This has implications in conjunction with the IPC or MHz difference.
For this review we also took a few Intel processors of varying TDPs:
Intel TestBed | ||||||||
SKU | Cores |
CPU / Turbo |
DRAM MHz |
Power | IGP | SPs |
GPU MHz |
|
Sandy Bridge | i5-2500K | 4C/4T |
3.3 GHz 3.7 GHz |
1600 | 95W | HD 3000 | 12 | 850 |
Ivy Bridge | i3-3225 | 2C/4T | 3.3 GHz | 1600 | 55W | HD 4000 | 16 | 550 |
i7-3770K | 4C/8T |
3.5 GHz 3.9 GHz |
1600 | 77W | HD 4000 | 16 | 550 | |
Haswell | i3-4330 | 2C/4T | 3.5 GHz | 1600 | 54W | HD 4600 | 20 | |
i7-4770K | 4C/8T |
3.5 GHz 3.9 GHz |
1600 | 84W | HD 4600 | 20 | ||
i7-4770R + Iris Pro |
4C/8T |
3.2 GHz 3.9 GHz |
1600 | 65W | HD 5200 | 40 | ||
Memory | ADATA XPG 2 x 8 GB DDR3L-1600 9-11-9 1.35V | |||||||
Motherboards | ASUS Z87 Gryphon | |||||||
Power Supply | OCZ 1250W ZX Series | |||||||
Storage | OCZ 256GB Vertex 3 SSDs | |||||||
Operating System | Windows 7 64-bit SP1 with Core Parking updates | |||||||
Video Drivers |
15.28.20.64.3347 for HD 3000 15.33.8.64.3345 for HD 4000+4600 |
Unfortunately our stock of i5 and i3 processors is actually rather limited – Intel prefers to source the i7s when we review those platforms, but I was able to use a personal i3-3225 from my NAS and we sourced the Haswell i3 as well. Given that Ganesh has the BRIX Pro in for review, I asked him to run as many benchmarks from our gaming suite as I could, to see how well Intel's Haswell eDRAM (Crystalwell) equipped processors stand up to Kaveri’s GCN mêlée.
For reference we also benchmarked the only mid-range GPU to hand - a HD 6750 while connected to the i7-4770K.
Overclocking and Underclocking the A10-7850K
As part of the final testing for this review we did some basic overclocking on the A10-7850K processor. Despite our processor being an engineering sample, we would assume that it is as close/identical to the retail silicon as you can get, given that this is meant to be a review on which people make purchasing decisions.
Our A10-7850K CPU starts out with a peak voltage under load of 1.24 volts when running OCCT. From this point we clocked back to 3.5 GHz and 1.100 volts, with a full-on CPU load line calibration and adjusted turbo mode to equal the base clock. Our standard overclocking test applies – OCCT for five minutes, PovRay, and new for 2014, a run of LuxMark. At our settings, we test the system for stability by running these tests. If the system fails, the CPU voltage is raised 0.025 volts until the system is stable during testing. When stable, the system multiplier is then raised and our testing moves on to the new MHz range.
Our results are as follows:
There was an unexpected jump in the voltage required to move from 3.5 GHz to 3.6 GHz (likely hitting the limits of what we can easily attain on this process). The system would not remain stable until 1.225 volts as set in the BIOS.
We also did the power tests, measuring the power draw at the wall as the delta between idle and OCCT load:
As expected, raising the voltage has a significant effect on the power consumption of the processor. One thing I should point out is that even at stock, the power delivery VRMs were getting very hot to touch – so much in fact that the system generated significant errors without an active fan on them. This got worse as the system was overclocked. I am not sure if this is an effect of the platform or the motherboard, but it will be something to inspect in our motherboard reviews going forward.
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nader_21007 - Saturday, January 18, 2014 - link
Can you show me what improvement haswell did over previous gen? TDP going from 77W to 84W, meanwhile performance droped in most cases. Can't you see the charts in this review?Principle - Tuesday, January 14, 2014 - link
Andrew, that depends based on size, budget, etc...and I own an AMD Piledriver CPU and could never tell you when it was supposedly slower, maybe a game takes a couple seconds longer to load, but after that its all the same.And I have used Intel CPUs too, and have hiccups and lag multitasking with them in real life, that never happens on my AMD systems. If you get an i5 and an AMD GPU, that would be great and last with the GPU compute advantage of AMD GPUs and the Mantle potential.
These Kaveri have a lot of value at launch for the entertainment center PCs, or ITX platforms because at 65W or even 45W it delivers a lot of performance in one chip that you can keep cool and quiet in a small package. Also good for all in one PCs built into the monitor. Not for the avid gamer right now, but a little more future proof than an Intel CPU in my opinion.
ImSpartacus - Thursday, January 16, 2014 - link
If you're not gaming, is it really that hard to "future-proof" your CPU?I feel like most low end CPUs will perform "basic" non-gaming tasks for many years to come.
andrewaggb - Tuesday, January 14, 2014 - link
To be clear, I'd get an i5 quad core with a 260x or 270x. I realize they aren't at all in the same price range, but it's good performance per dollar.I was expecting Kavari to have 10% better cpu performance and 25% better gpu performance. This has equal cpu performance and essentially equal gpu performance. It has other improvements, but that's a serious dissappointment on the performance side of things.
I've already got 3 i5 quad cores with a 6870, 7850, and 270x in each and I'm happy with them. Just though Kaveri might be good enough, and it is for older stuff and minecraft and whatnot.
But it seems like yet another year that paying the extra money and having some longevity is going to be the right move.
Quite frankly my oldest system, the i5 750 with a 6870 would mop the floor with kaveri in everything but power consumption.
yankeeDDL - Wednesday, January 15, 2014 - link
You're kidding right?It practically doubled the performance per watt of Richland (45W Kaveri almost always outpaces 100W Richland) and that's disappointing?
It's true that Richland was way behind, but the improvement is massive.
There's still a glaring gap with Intel's CPU, but it is smaller.
Just as much as the glaring gap on the GPU side (but this time on AMD's favor) got wider.
HSA is the key for AMD to push the GPU advantage over to the CPU to compensate. If it works, then Kaveri will be really up to, or better of the core I5 which cost more than 2X ... "IF" ...
Jaybus - Thursday, January 16, 2014 - link
I'm not convinced HSA is the future. It is a diminishing returns issue. The only difference between HSA and SMP is different types of cores are being used. The bus arbitration and coherency issues are exactly the same. Neither is scalable to dozens of cores, let alone hundreds. HSA has the same limitations as SMP. Something like Knights Corner's ring bus and message passing is more likely the future. Near term, there is an advantage to HSA. Long term will rely on a much faster chip-to-chip interconnect to transfers and segmented memory to avoid the arbitration and coherency issues. CMOS silicon photonics maybe. That would enable optical busses orders of magnitude faster than PCIe, or in fact much faster than any chip-to-chip electronic bus, and that would make something like Knights Corner's ring bus the future path to high core counts.jimjamjamie - Thursday, January 16, 2014 - link
A genuinely interesting and insightful comment, thanks.artk2219 - Tuesday, January 14, 2014 - link
Until you play a game that uses more than 2 threads, or have tasks running in the background while gaming, then you'll wish you had those two extra threads. Seriously I wish people would quite trying to recommend dual cores for gaming or even general use, unless its in a machine for the type of person that only does one or two things thing at a time. Dual cores are showing their age now, its only going to be worse a year or two from now. Also why would you spend 90 on a Pentium dual core when you could spend 80 on an Athlon 750k or that same 90 on a 760k. They have similar single thread performance and stomp the g2120 in multithreaded situations, plus they're unlocked so you can overclock to your hearts content. Im not saying that Kaveri isn't overpriced right now, they could stand to drop 20 dollars for the top two chips and 10 for the last chip reviewed. But they just launched and those prices will change, and in the end its easier to point people to one part for all of their needs than it is to point them to two.http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Sub...
Nagorak - Wednesday, January 15, 2014 - link
The Intel processors are more energy efficient. That's one reason.artk2219 - Wednesday, January 15, 2014 - link
Fair enough, but its a negligible difference once you factor in the discrete GPU that you would be pairing it with anyways. Cooling it shouldn't be anymore of a problem than cooling the same setup with the DGPU, granted there aren't really any fm2+ itx boards so that may be a problem if you're going for a tiny size, but thats about it.