Kaveri review : tested 13 recent games, vs Intel Iris Pro / Hybrid CF included

[DGLee]

Actually I ran all those benchmarks prior to Kaveri's embargo is lifted. Only translating them in English takes that much time thank to my poor English ability. Anyway, let's have a look:

My review consists of two parts - Part 1 is for Processor Graphics inside Kaveri while Part 2 is being planned to deal with Kaveri's coverage at the domain of traditional CPU as well as its HSA features. Today I will show you the former one.

Test hardwares are as follows:

Before the test begins, I estimated Kaveri's Processor Graphics performance by using VGA calculator I designed. It's a simple, first-order fractional equation consists of GPU's compute performance(number of shader * core clock), texture fillrate(number of TMU * core clock), rendering performance(number of ROP * core clock) and VRAM bandwidth(bitrate * VRAM clock) as its terms. (further about this equation, see this: http://udteam.tistory.com/535 - by using this, I speculated that Hawaii will be faster than GTX TITAN while full-blown GK110 will also retake the crown from Hawaii even prior to Hawaii's release) First result for A10-7850K, which has 8 Graphics Core(= 512SP/32TMU/8ROP) within it.

Second is for A10-7700K / A8-7600 both have 6 Graphics Core(= 384SP/24TMU/8ROP).

Well, the results suggests that Kaveri's Processor Graphics is virtually competitive to entry level discrete graphics card. At the same time, however, it also implies that +128SP is not actually helpful (difference between 7850K and 7700K/7600 is less than 7%) and this means performance hesitator is not SP/TMU part. Rather, ROP partition and poor memory bandwidth are more likely. So why AMD cultivate that much amount of SPs despite all? I think, AMD's intention is aimed for Post HSA era. Huge amount of SPs are employed not only for graphics acceleration but also as compute resources, thus to allow them a whole "856 GFLOPS" in one chip. (further will be dealt in Part 2)

Well, the intro was too long. Let's see the numbers!
All tests are done at 1280x720(HD) / 1600x900(HD+) with highest possible graphics quality settings.

-----

1. 3DMark 11
(Entry / Performance Preset)

2. 3DMark 13
(Cloud Gate / Fire Strike)

3. Aliens vs Predator
(Texture : Very High, Shadow : High, AF x16, SSAO On, Tessellation On, Advanced Shadow On, AA Off)

4. Batman : Arkham City
(DX11 Features : MVSS and HBAO, DX11 Tessellation : High, Detail Level : Extreme, AA & PhysX Off)

5. Bioshock : Infinite
(UltraDX11 with Diffusion Depth of Field)

6. Crysis : Warhead
(64bit, DX10, Enthusiast, AA Off)

7. DiRT : Showdown
(Ultra Preset, AA Off)

8. Hitman : Absolution
(Quality Level : Ultra, AA & FXAA Off)

9. Just Cause 2
(Texture/Shadow/SSAO : High, Water/Objects Detail : Very High, All others On except AA)

10. Metro 2033
(DX11 with DOF, Quality : Very High, AF 16x, AA & PhysX Off)

11. Metro : Last Light
(DX11, Quality : Very High, AF 16x, Motion Blur : Normal, Tessellation : Very High, AA & PhysX Off)

12. Sleeping Dogs
(Graphics Level : Extreme, AA : Normal)

13. Tomb Raider : Reboot
(Quality : Ultra, AA Off)

That's all for this review. Here are summarizing graphs:

Thanks for reading (or attempt to read) my article. Have a nice day!

 

[Crap Daddy]

Great review!

 

[THE_EGG]

Indeed a great review. Nice work to include other GPUs like you have done too.

 

[bpgt64]

Great review. I have been wondering how the new APU would stack against an Intel with similar Discrete GPUs. Really annoyed at the AMD rebranding in compairing the 7770/7850 to R7 250??R9 270??

 

[RCoon]

Wait so you're telling me hybrid crossfire actually WORKS now?
Damn, AMD, you did OK.

 

[jcgeny]

may be you could also had the price of cpu and vga at end of bars of the 2 latest graphics plus the average fps .
for the rest : intel should buy nvidia or stop trying to make gpu ; the gfx makers should smoke more ganja - grass when they visit M$ : they would invent "Lovely Names" for your creations instead of serial numbers .....and they use the same at same time [hd]7770 or [gtx]770 ....
how can a cool "noob father" find the right card with title like that ?

 

[FreedomEclipse]

.
for the rest : intel should buy nvidia or stop trying to make gpu

Intel buying Nvidia - Never gonna happen.

as for the rest its a bit silly is it not? why should Intel stop making iGPUs? so what if their not as good as AMDs APUs when it comes to gaming? not everyone is a gamer or requires the power of an APU or a dedicated graphics card.

my dads got a i3 4130 with a integrated HD4000/4600 - couldn't be more happier with it.

 

[Crap Daddy]

Intel buying Nvidia - Never gonna happen.

as for the rest its a bit silly is it not? why should Intel stop making iGPUs? so what if their not as good as AMDs APUs when it comes to gaming? not everyone is a gamer or requires the power of an APU or a dedicated graphics card.

my dads got a i3 4130 with a integrated HD4000/4600 - couldn't be more happier with it.

Well, Iris Pro in i7-4750HQ is about the same level as the iGPU in Kaveri and it's a a mobile 47W chip, while the CPU is much better. These are the good news. The bad news is that it costs over $400. Intel has no intention in competing in this low range integrated GPU gaming segment. For a casual PC user, some very light games and fast desktop experience a Haswell i3 is a much better choice than Kaveri, surprisingly enough from a price point of view. On the other hand AMD's own x4 740k with a 7770 would smoke this APU for entry level gaming while it cost the same. I'm struggling to see the point of these chips as they are right now.

 

[ZetZet]

Still not enough imo. I don't understand why don't they develop hybrid crossfire with r9 270+++ Because if you don't need graphics you use iGPU and if you need them you are still better off buying 4 core athlon with r9 270.

 

[bpgt64]

Still not enough imo. I don't understand why don't they develop hybrid crossfire with r9 270+++ Because if you don't need graphics you use iGPU and if you need them you are still better off buying 4 core athlon with r9 270.

You're missing the point of the APU I believe.
1 . Laptop/Mini PC APU by itself = Awesome Compact Graphics performance for the form factor ie laptops/thinclients.
2. Desktop APU = Entry level graphics, with the option to add a Discrete card for improvement at 1080p.
3. Performance Desktop. FX Core CPU with high end GPU (R9 290) = High End above 1080p graphics.

There's bound to be some overlap between levels 2 and 3.

 

[BiggieShady]

On the other hand AMD's own x4 740k with a 7770 would smoke this APU for entry level gaming while it cost the same. I'm struggling to see the point of these chips as they are right now.

Ultra thin steam machines without discrete gpu?

 

[Frick]

......

guys, keep that shit on general nonsense.



That crossfire scaling is amazing when it works.

 

[GLD]

I have been using my TA790XE motherboard for almost 4 years now. Anyway...I wonder if a Kaveri/Bolton upgrade would be better then a FX/990/970 upgrade? The higher memory bandwidth and the pci-e 3.0 with the Kaveri/Bolton looks real nice.

Anyone compared the Kaveri to a Phenom II/FX quad core yet?

 

[Fourstaff]

Cleaned. Stay on topic guys. Thanks.

 

[FordGT90Concept]

Intel buying Nvidia - Never gonna happen.

I think the odds of it happening grows with the rise of ARM. If NVIDIA can't maintain a niche product as they've been able to do so far, Intel would likely rather buy them up for their IP than let them go under. The FTC would likely permit it too.


1600x900? That's barely outside of CPU-limited territory. Needs higher resolution to stress the GPUs.

 

[jcgeny]

finally , here also like at hardware-secrets , some are in the need of rewriting post and topics.... a page was removed and sermonized with a "Cleaned. Stay on topic guys. Thanks."

that is absolutely not playboy'$ mansion in "here" or "staff members BEDs.."

 

[Tatty_Two]

finally , here also like at hardware-secrets , some are in the need of rewriting post and topics.... a page was removed and sermonized with a "Cleaned. Stay on topic guys. Thanks."

that is absolutely not playboy'$ mansion in "here" or "staff members BEDs.."

If posts are off topic then they get deleted, the Op deserves his or her thread invite appropriate responses, after all that's why they started it.

 

[Melvis]

Im impressed, by far the best APU's to date, performance seems really good even compared to the more expensive Intel CPU. More APU builds I see in the future thats for sure.

 

[west7]

thinks for the article nice to see that hybird crossfire work

 

[LeonVolcove]

no 1080p test?

 

[Assimilator]

Iris Pro acquits itself well, shame about the price and availability though.

no 1080p test?

If you look at the numbers you'll see that even the fastest iGPU + dGPU combo is struggling at 1600x900, so no point in trying 1920x1080.

 

[LeonVolcove]

Iris Pro acquits itself well, shame about the price and availability though.



If you look at the numbers you'll see that even the fastest iGPU + dGPU combo is struggling at 1600x900, so no point in trying 1920x1080.

Agreed, but you must the their settings first. Most of them are using High/Very High/Ultra settings which Kaveri are not suppose to handle
And the reason why i asking "No 1080p test?" is because most people out there are already using 1080p monitor or TV

 

[psyko12]

Nice review, this'll be a good read for my friend who's doubting to get an APU and on a tight budget!

 

[Vario]

To be honest it kind of sucks, I built a budget system built around a AMD Phenom II 965 Black Edition clocked at 4.0ghz, 16GB of 1333 Cas 9 Ram and a Radeon HD 7850 2GB

Heres my stock score with that system, no overclock.
Stock Phenom II 965 x4 and Stock HD7850 2GB
3DMark Score
P4895
Graphics Score
5176
Physics Score
4251


Fully overclocked 4.0ghz Phenom II 965 x4 and 1180 Core HD7850 2GB
3DMark Score
P6129.0
Graphics Score
6792.0
Physics Score
4810.0

DGLee shows Kaveri scoring 4100 with APU Hybrid Crossfire R7 250


My point is it sucks as a budget option. You can build rigs with better graphics cards and older high end cpu's like 1366 i7 or Phenom IIs and achieve better performance with the same cost.


Its kind of a joke when you consider the requirements of costly faster ram, the hazards of crossfire drivers.
Not to mention, they jumped ship to FM2+ pretty fast, I was considering a A10 5800k instead of the Phenom2 and the Phenom2 trounced it with identical performance at $55 versus $130.

If I had gone with the A10 5800k instead of AM3+, I'd have been on a dead socket of FM2 and would be confined to buying a new FM2+ motherboard, assuming if this APU technology ever takes off using the R9 series. Probably by then it will be FM3+. AMD is as bad as Intel with changing sockets now. Everyone was telling me AM3+ was a dead socket as a big drawback to that purchase decision. Well so is FM2 now. Just like FM1. I wouldn't recommend buying an APU at all.