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AMD Launches New Higher-End Kaveri APUs A10-7800 and A6-7400K
MojoKid (1002251) writes "AMD updated its family of Kaveri-based A-Series APUs for desktop systems recently, namely the A10-7800 and the A6-7400K. The A10-7800 has 12 total compute cores, 4 CPU and 8 GPU cores, with average and maximum turbo clock speeds of 3.5GHz and 3.9GHz, respectively. The A6-7400K arrives with 6 total cores (2CPU, 4 GPU) and with the same clock frequencies. ... The AMD A10-7800 APU's performance is somewhat mixed, though it is a decent performer overall. Its Steamroller-based CPU cores do not do much to make up ground versus Intel's processors, so in the more CPU-bound workloads, Intel's dual-core Core i3-4330 competes favorably to AMD's quad-cores. And in terms of IPC and single-thread performance Intel maintains a big lead. Factor graphics into the equation, however, and the tides turn completely. The GCN-based graphics engine in Kaveri is a major step-up over the previous-gen, and much more powerful than Intel's mainstream offerings. The A10-7800's power consumption characteristics are also more desirable versus the Richland-based A10-6800K."
Based on the most commented articles, I thought this was a site for politics and social issues. What the hell is this technical bullshit doing here?
These aren't exactly new news. I've had a 7850k since March/April. It's a nice CPU, with my main complains being that
a) It gets hot very quickly
b) The accompanying heatsink/fan is crap
The nice part:
The APU is quite nice for gaming. I haven't had any issues running most games at 1080p with graphics settings cranked, especially mantle-enabled stuff (BF4, etc). I've got dual-monitors, but I haven't played much which takes advantage of that so while gaming it's usually 1 for the game and another running monitoring/benchmarking.
It won't likely compare well to a hardcare rig with beefy dedicated graphics cards. Against my mid-level gaming rigs that had a mid-range graphics card, the APUt compared nicely, with the advantage of being more compact when using a mini-itx board.
Why is the recommended RAM clock speed for AMD chips significantly higher than for Intel ones? A modern i3 is designed for 1333MHz, but performance will be hampered for an AMD APU if you don't go with 2400MHz.
Not everybody plays Crysis. I noticed you only mentioned CPU performance. I think the whole package is great. I can build a really small system that can do some passable 3D for little money.
CPU workloads tend to be something that so long as you've a bit of fast cache, memory speed isn't that important. That cache buffer is enough to get you extremely high performance. Not the case with GPU workloads. They are very memory bound. If you look at high end GPUs they have stupid amounts of RAM bandwidth compared to CPUs.
Well, if you try and do both on one chip, you are gonna need fast RAM if you want it to work well.
It may not be the cheapest thing for business use or the fastest thing for uber-gamers, but it's better than any of the Intel chips you mentioned at being a DVR/Steam 'big picture" HTPC, which is why I'd be interested in it.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
It's good for niches of users, like those who insist on building a small PC (to compensate for a too big penis?) or why not the family Windows PC where users only care about being able to run a game at all (either now or four years down the road).
Else, the CPU performance is sure fairly disappointing (and Windows itself is disappointing, ugly and manages to be both simplistic and complex, I miss the days you could use 2000/XP and be done)
If I was building a SFF PC, I'd use be using Intel so it doesn't cook itself to death. Remember, these new APUs run a lot hotter than they have any right to with respect to their workload.
The Amarri pray for god, the Caldari pray for profit. the Gallente pray for peace, but the Minmatar pray their ships hol
I take it you don't do a lot of multitasking or use VMs. My current 2.1ghz triple core phenom is fast enough on each core for the things I actually do, I'm upgrading to an 8 core 4.0ghz processor primarily for the additional cores. Being able to dedicate an entire core or two to a pair of VMs is much more useful to me than playing Crysis.
Are you doing any transcoding or commercial detection/removal? That's the sort of multi-threaded and/or GPGPU workload I'd expect AMD's chip to be better for.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
I really hate the current naming conventions for CPU's.
you go buy a computer and it only says Intel Core i5... WTH. Is it sa Gen 1 i5 or a Gen 4 i5 there's a big difference. Sure I can look it up and check out specifics but how the heck is a regular consumer supposed to know?
and then lets not get started on the Xeon... what we can't even add a simple identifier to the name? a 2002 Xeon sure as heck isn't the same as a 2013 Xeon chip.
Then AMD... just feels like a cluster-F--- of names and numbers.
GPU's really aren't much better.
Seriously is it so hard to name the products and a consumer readable fashion?
Atleast in the Pentium era we had Pent-1, Pen1-MMX, Pent-2, Pent-3, K-6, K-7, K-8
Heck I'd even go for an abuse of the x86 naming and go with 368, 486,... 1286, 1586 with some informative text on the end indicating the number of cores, etc...
Performance is comparable if we compare against Intel's lowest end CPU?
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
But you can set the thing to 45 watt. You just need some airflow and very good heatsink.
Well, if you want CPU performance get a 35 watt Intel i3 ; the AMD CPU is worse and slightly hotter but will better run games (and some rare GPGPU or HSA software). That's all. And if I was building a SFF PC, I'd probably look for quad core Atom (or the same named Celeron), Kabini and successors or even Tegra K1 (but that one isn't strictly a PC)
Umm.. These benchmarking sites, and comment threads like this one constantly miss the point.
The AMD A-Series processors do NOT equal intel chips when you run synthetic CPU benchmarks.
The AMD A-Series absolutely KILLS IT when your goal is to throw together a dirt-cheap gaming rig on a budget.
If all you need is a new motherboard, CPU & RAM, and you intend to reuse your old case, hard drives, and peripherals - The AMD A10 chips and their integrated Radeon graphics offer outstanding FPS for the dollar when compared to the alternative of building an intel system w/discrete Nvidia GPU.
Did you really think people are sticking AMD APUs in cases with neon-accented cutout windows and holographic 3D skull case stickers to optimize their VBA performance in large Excel workbooks?
No, they want consistent 90 fps in Shooter DuJour, and they want it for only a few hundred bucks.
THIS SPACE INTENTIONALLY LEFT BLANK.
Yeah, set it for 45w max and you end up with the CPU side of it constantly getting throttled and the performance sliding even further into the dirt. But you're right about GPU dependant loads. But if that was my usage case, I'd probably wait for Isis Pro to trickle down to Intel's low-end.
The Amarri pray for god, the Caldari pray for profit. the Gallente pray for peace, but the Minmatar pray their ships hol
Hmm. Still waiting for AMD to toss out a higher end product that fixes the issues with Steamroller. Their roadmap seems to indicate that they have no intentions of fixing it (at this point in time), nor are they intending to put much focus on the higher end (they are focusing on APUs more than CPUs...which is weird, given that their higher end stuff from the CPU / GPU end has got to be bringing them in loads of dosh). What I want from AMD is a fixed Bulldozer / Steamroller, even if that means soldering on an extra FP unit per module and what have you. If they want to make me really happy, they should make their Opteron holdings overclockable, with motherboards to match. Which brings to mind Asus & friends...they have got to be bored waiting for a new chip to ship from AMD so they can refresh their motherboard line up. Crosshair Formula-Z is getting pretty gnarly at this point...
Asus and friends are probably getting bored waiting for AMD to do anything worthwhile period, aside from just releasing new versions of their chipset.
The Amarri pray for god, the Caldari pray for profit. the Gallente pray for peace, but the Minmatar pray their ships hol
They seem to have missed some really important benchmarks.
Clearly on the graphics side, the APU kills the i5.
The interesting thing was HSA which allows low latency CPU/GPGPU workloads, which allows the (relatively slow) GPU to work on a MUCH wider range of problems than any comparable product. Early indications, such as the LibreOffice spreadsheet program had the A10 killing even the top end i7s.
For other less extreme examples, the A10 was comfortably outpacing the i5 by a factor of 2 or more.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
Except the i3 has hardware video acceleration too and uses less power. It'll be a quieter HTPC and still perform media workloads better and quieter.
What most people don't realize is that the desktop version is basically an afterthought. The chip has been optimized for laptops, where it does make some sense (adding a discrete GPU is not an option after purchase and laptops with discrete GPUs are quite more expensive, so the comparative advantage is more important). AMD knows they can't win on the desktop, which is why they didn't bother with extreme caches, 4-module (8-core) versions and cherry-picked chips with crazy TDPs. Personally, I'm much more excited with the laptop version of Kaveri, such as the 7350B in the HP EliteBook 745 G2.
Anyway, for the price it makes a really great casual gaming PC, especially for people who are price sensitive and can't afford a +$100 discrete GPU (in some places this is a decent chunk of a month's salary...).
It is a chip for cheap machines without high performance requirements. Sort of an entry level CPU and entry level GPU in one, with a bit more emphasis on the GPU than the i3.
And where you call the AMD "slightly less underpowered" in GPU, the i3 is arguably overpowered for typical office applications. Read, the A10-7800 can do those adequately.
Overall I think the A10-7800 has its market, for home use where you want to do a bit of everything or maybe as HTPC. It is nothing very impressive, but neither is an i3 without discrete graphics card.
C - the footgun of programming languages
They will probably make some version for the server market, but it will certainly be on another socket. The socket AM3+ does support ECC (if you choose the right motherboard, ASUS usually do...) but the upgrade path is probably stuck forever at the FX8350. It isn't a bad chip, actually quite good for multithreaded loads, but it's getting old... If you want ECC for cheap you could buy a lower-end socket AM3+ processor like the FX4350, otherwise Xeon is clearly the better choice.
Number of cores or core frequency is irrelevant.
It's about how much work can be done for a given amount of power.
If a dual core CPU running at half the frequency outperforms a quad core cpu, something is very wrong.
Yeah, set it for 45w max and you end up with the CPU side of it constantly getting throttled and the performance sliding even further into the dirt. But you're right about GPU dependant loads. But if that was my usage case, I'd probably wait for Isis Pro to trickle down to Intel's low-end.
Benchmarks from the smaller 7600 only show a modest performance hit from going to 45W, approximately 10%. Isis Pro is a brute force solution to the problem (huge on-chip RAM) and is likely to stay quite expensive for a while because of die-size and limited production. A discrete GPU is probably the better option at that price point (ie replace the cheapest $450 Iris pro with $450 cpu + GPU), unless if low power consumption is an absolute priority.
Affordable on-chip graphics RAM may become standard in future AMD and intel processors but I wouldn't hold my breath...
Nor I. If I need GPU performance, I'm always going to go discrete with nVidia hardware. For efficiency, I'll take the i3's that make a joke out of these APUs.
The Amarri pray for god, the Caldari pray for profit. the Gallente pray for peace, but the Minmatar pray their ships hol
Although I don't do it on my current HTPC, if I got one of these I'd be interested in removing commercials and/or transcoding to MPEG4 (or Theora, etc.). I would hope and expect that something so embarrassingly-parallel yet not implemented in hardware would be faster on one of these AMDs.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
The socket AM3+ does support ECC (if you choose the right motherboard, ASUS usually do...)
Yeah, I have standardized on Asus for all my builds, and the ECC support is one of the reasons.
If you want ECC for cheap you could buy a lower-end socket AM3+ processor like the FX4350
My most recent build was an FX8xxx part. FX8350 I think.
otherwise Xeon is clearly the better choice.
I have made the choice to not give Intel any of my money if I can help it. I don't like the unethical games Intel plays (example).
Processors are so fast these days anyway, that the difference between the best AMD and the best Intel are not that big a deal for my purposes. And while AMD loses on absolute performance, they generally win on performance-per-money-spent.
lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
The technical reason is probably along the lines of the memory controller in the chip doesn't support it.
The memory controller hasn't been in the chipset since before the K8 architecure over 10 years ago
Theres value to be had if you use advanced CPU features, because all AMD processors tend to have the high-end features (ECC support, etc). Intel charges you through the nose if you want that stuff-- think that Pentium has virtualization support or AES-NI? The AMD sure does.
Actually, HD 5000 seems roughly as fast, if not somewhat slower, but it doesn't have access to the task's paged memory, so no zero-copy algorithms here.
Ezekiel 23:20
That's the point. AMD is putting a lot more into the GPU on chip so if what you want is graphics and you don't care so much about CPU, they are a good deal. Why buy more CPU than you need and get crap graphics?
Sadly, ECC RAM support was removed since Kaveri. You have to buy a 2012 AMD Piledriver if you want ECC support.
If Intel dropped all chip prices 25% across the board, AMD would be bankrupt then have a monopoly forever. Unfortunately they're just too damn greedy and completely lacking in foresight.
"Yeah, I have standardized on Asus for all my builds, and the ECC support is one of the reasons."
God I hope you never have to RMA with them. Last time I did it, they wanted me to send them $600, THEN they'd send me a new GPU, THEN I could ship mine back, THEN they'd redeposit the money in my account.
I just tossed the card and bought something other than Asus.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
People keep pretending single thread performance matters, even though there is hardly any practical use for it for the avg consumer.
It is especially bad once you are after notebooks. Most notebooks sold are i3-5-7 with Intel's poor iGPU.
The only tasks that put some load on my PCs are:
a) games
b) video encoding
AMD does both better than intel, thanks to:
a) VASTLY superior GPU (besides performance, there is also quality / problems with games)
b) more cores
Hardware video acceleration only helps you if you are using codecs that existed before the chip was manufactured. Widespread use of next-generation codecs such as H.265 is coming soon along with 4K content, so the ability to decode new video formats in software (possibly OpenCL GPU-assisted software) will matter. The extra power consumption for software decoding is death in a mobile environment because of the battery life hit, but using a few extra watts isn't that big a deal on a system that is plugged in.
Name dual core CPU running at half frequency that outperforms one of the new quad core AMD CPUs at mulit-threaded tasks, pretty please.