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AMD's Kaveri APU Debuts With GCN-based Radeon Graphics
crookedvulture writes "AMD's next-generation Kaveri APU is now available, and the first reviews have hit the web. The chip combines updated Steamroller CPU cores with integrated graphics based on the latest Radeon graphics cards. It's also infused with a dedicated TrueAudio DSP, a faster memory interface, and several features that fall under AMD's Heterogeneous System Architecture for mixed-mode computing. As expected, the APU's graphics performance is excellent; even the entry level, $119 A8-6700 is capable of playing Battlefield 4 at 1080p with medium detail settings. But the powerful GPU doesn't always translate to superior performance in OpenCL-accelerated applications, where comparable Intel chips are very competitive. Intel still has an advantage in power efficiency and raw CPU performance, too. Kaveri's CPU cores are certainly an improvement over the previous generation of Richland chips, but they can't match the per-thread throughput of Intel's rival Haswell CPU. In the end, Kaveri's appeal largely rests on whether the integrated graphics are fast enough for your needs. Serious gamers are better off with discrete GPUs, but more casual players can benefit from the extra Radeon horsepower. Eventually, HSA-enabled applications may benefit, as well."
It's $200 cheaper than an i3 4330? That's pretty impressive given that the i3 is $130, are AMD going to refund me $70 for buying their CPU?
Most of the people who decide they still need a full-sized desktop computer will be completely covered with one of the AMD A-series APUs, at a bargain price. Only the remaining 1 out of 5 users are power-users who need the highest CPU and/or GPU performance, and have to resort to expensive Intel CPUs and discrete graphics boards.
Ohh yes. Lets solder memory right on, increasing board complexity and gaining almost no advantage. The APU is meant to be a mixture of a "good enough" GPU, and a higher performance compute-unit for low memory problems, which there are a lot of. As for open source, AMD is actively committing work to the Linux kernel in both the mantle framework and better driver support. They are also working with Steam, because the SteamOS is Linux which means AMD needs decent Linux drivers if they plan to be used.
Yes, it is not a very good GPU when it comes to high end graphics because it has about 1/3rd the flops of a discreet GPU and it is memory bandwidth starved for those work loads, but for non graphics related work loads, it's perfect. It is the first of something new. How many people piss and moaned about FPUs when they came out? "derp, there's no software that uses them, so they must be useless". You need to have the platform before you can have the developers. Once the next gen consoles start taking off, expect games to be nearly directly ported and taking advantage of this new GPU paradigm.
The summary also spends a lot of time talking about how great Intel is. It makes sense that prices are not discussed because the submitter appears to be heavily biased, and price always favors AMD.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
Actually they are usually on the order of HALF what the Intel chips cost, for example an AMD quad will run you around $89-$99 whereas the entry quad from Intel runs right at $200.From the looks of it the quad A8-7600 is running at $120 which or a quad with decent graphics performance? Is a steal.
This is why I still build and sell exclusively AMD units as the "bang for the buck" just can't be beat. I have a friend that mainly plays older flight sims with a few mainstream titles and when he comes by the shop next month to get a kit? If i can find this put in a decent kit I'll be happy to recommend it. After all if it can play BF4 at 1080P it'll have no problem playing his games on his 720P set while still giving him plenty for his video streaming and office apps.
Of course the dirty little secret that neither AMD or Intel want to talk about is that if your PC is less than 7 years old its probably overpowered for what you do IF you are Joe and Jane Average. After all 7 years ago I was selling Phenom I quads with 4Gb of RAM and 400Gb HDDs and for Joe and Jane Average? That unit will spend most of its life idling because they simply can't come up with enough useful work to max out the cores. Heck even we gamers don't have to upgrade like we used to, my two boys and I all play FPS yet our 4 year old AMD X6s and the youngest's X4 have no problem playing the latest games when paired with an HD7750 or HD7790. Of course we aren't trying to play BF4 on 4K widescreens but ya know what? Most desktops here are 1600x900, a few 1080p and at those resolutions it plays the latest games just fine.
But for those people with the first gen Athlon X2s or even worse, the Pentium D like my friend has? I would have ZERO problem recommending this chip, it'll give you a quad CPU and decent graphics OOTB and you can always add a discrete down the line. A win/win in my book.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
Except "Intel InstantAccess" requires making system calls to allow the kernel to map GPU memory to user space. AMD's HSA requires nothing special at all. The GPU understands and honors protected mode, so you can arbitrarily pass pointers to and from the GPU with no system calls. You can even communicate between the GPU and CPU without system calls. AMD HSA even lets the GPU work with virtual memory. "Intel InstantAccess" only works with data that is in memory, AMD can issue page faults and let the OS load from the page file.
Benchmarks show that for pure CPU intensive tasks, the A10 APUs are roughly comparable to Haswell Core i3s (the entry level ones, at least). The i3-4150 costs $130-140, the last generation A10-6800K dropped to $130-140. The new A10-7850K is listed for $189 on Newegg. Considering this, the new A10-7850K is not very inciting at all. It's not even convincingly faster than A10-6800K, with the current drivers at least. AMD hinted that the new A10-7850K graphics performance will be on the level with Radeon HD7730 or 7750 ($100-120 graphics cards), but looking at the results, it's not near that.
If you just play older games or no games at all, or if you will be buying a dedicated GPU, Core i3 and the quad-core A10-6800K seem like a good deal. If you game a lot, adding a dedicated GPU seems like the best way to go.
As a long time AMD fan (if we whitebox build, it's always an AMD chip), I have to say "it depends".
For a lot of applications, per-core performance is what matters. And for the last few years, Intel beats AMD hands-down on per-core performance. As in 30-50% faster. That i3 for $200 is going to run rings around the AMD for $200. For a lot of single-threaded programs (many games are CPU-bound by a single thread), that 30-50% faster speed matters.
However, if your application is multi-threaded and the problem you are trying to solve (media transcoding) is easily done in parallel, then the AMD chips are a better fit.
The "Bulldozer" architecture was a dud. Lots of cores for cheap, but low performance per core under a lot of workloads. The Piledriver architecture is better and AMD is at least somewhat competitive again.
I'm very curious to see how well the new Steamroller (Kaveri) series chips perform.
Wolde you bothe eate your cake, and have your cake?