AMD Announces 4th Generation A-Series "Kaveri" Desktop APUs

[Mathragh]

Reviews are out

 

[de.das.dude]

http://www.techpowerup.com/forums/threads/amd-a10-7850-flank3r-preview-with-asus-a88x-pro.196850/

Can't find any reviews yet

 

[Fluffmeister]

AnandTech Review

http://www.anandtech.com/show/7677/amd-kaveri-review-a8-7600-a10-7850k

 

[Dent1]

Extreme Tech Review:

http://www.extremetech.com/computin...he-wait-for-the-first-true-heterogeneous-chip

 

[BiggieShady]

I don't get why they add together CPU cores and GPU GCN cores to come up with number 12, just to point out later how much different x86 and GCN cores really are. That number is not even a good measure for parallelism of the APU because GCN is architecture made for parallel tasks and x86 is not. Adding apples and oranges here.

 

[RCoon]

I've got to say, I'm a little disappointed that the TPU review for these isn't up yet. Kinda expected them to be on the same timeline as Anandtech at least.

 

[Ikaruga]

I respect and appreciate what AMD is doing with their APUs (because APUs are the future indeed), but they still going really bad with the pricing imho. You can get a dedicated GPU (let's say a R7 240 GDDR5) and an i3 for this kind of money, a config which will ask for less power and do more on most of the tasks the average user might use. They should drop it below $150 asap I think, that would be a different and also a much happier story.

 

[BiggieShady]

Kaveri seems great for steam machine without discrete GPU.

 

[ZetZet]

Kaveri seems great for steam machine without discrete GPU.

I think x4 750k + 7770 is still better for steam machine.

 

[Dent1]

I respect and appreciate what AMD is doing with their APUs (because APUs are the future indeed), but they still going really bad with the pricing imho. You can get a dedicated GPU (let's say a R7 240 GDDR5) and an i3 for this kind of money, a config which will ask for less power and do more on most of the tasks the average user might use. They should drop it below $150 asap I think, that would be a different and also a much happier story.

The pricing is fine. The Hawell i3 alone starts from $130 ish

You may be able to get a sandy or ivy bridge i3 CPU for sub $70, but its going to get neutralised in non-gaming tasks due to being a dual core.

Even if you slap a dedicated R7 240 on the i3 its still going to get spanked in gaming because the integrated GPU on the Kaveri is faster (512 stream cores vs 320 stream cores, no slow PCI bus).

So yes you can spend a get an outdated i3 and a dedicated R7 240, but the overall experience will still be a slower rig.

P.S. The pricing will settle in a few weeks. On launch days prices always balloon.

 

[Frick]

I respect and appreciate what AMD is doing with their APUs (because APUs are the future indeed), but they still going really bad with the pricing imho. You can get a dedicated GPU (let's say a R7 240 GDDR5) and an i3 for this kind of money, a config which will ask for less power and do more on most of the tasks the average user might use. They should drop it below $150 asap I think, that would be a different and also a much happier story.

They were released like just now. The pricing will stabilize. The only place that has them here lists the A10 7850K at €170, which is... Sort of expensive. The cheapest Haswell i3 is less than €110. But that is from the only store that has them listed. We'll see what happens in the coming weeks, but I have the feeling they won't drop that much...

That's something that hints on the potential of HSA.

http://www.extremetech.com/computin...-wait-for-the-first-true-heterogeneous-chip/5

 

[etayorius]

Kaveri is Bulldozer 2.0 "Reloaded", same crap AMD pulled with Zambezi, better MultiCore but worst SingleCore compared to previous gen, this is Bulldozer all over again.

On the GPU side and energy consumption is looking Great though.

 

[WhiteLotus]

They were released like just now. The pricing will stabilize. The only place that has them here lists the A10 7850K at €170, which is... Sort of expensive. The cheapest Haswell i3 is less than €110. But that is from the only store that has them listed. We'll see what happens in the coming weeks, but I have the feeling they won't drop that much...

That's something that hints on the potential of HSA.

http://www.extremetech.com/computin...-wait-for-the-first-true-heterogeneous-chip/5

HSA?

 

[Crap Daddy]

Same story, this time more expensive. They keep pointing at advantages of things that exist only in labs as mantle and hsa. The only true selling point is laptop grade gaming on desktop if anyone is interested. Otherwise for a little more there are far better alternatives.

 

[Frick]

HSA?

Formerly known as AMD Fusion. Have a read, I'm still wrapping my head around it. It boils down, I think more or less, to the CPU and GPU sharing resources. Intimately.

Same story, this time more expensive. They keep pointing at advantages of things that exist only in labs as mantle and hsa. The only true selling point is laptop grade gaming on desktop if anyone is interested. Otherwise for a little more there are far better alternatives.

The problem is, as others have pointed out, execution. Both Mantle and HSA probably have great potential. They just have to be used. "Just".

 

[WhiteLotus]

Cheers for that. I think an APU are great for small light gaming here and there, and that is where I am going so I have kept an interest in Kaveri for some time now.
Now its out I'll wait for a month or two for the price to settle down and maybe for some new mother boards to arrive that have some better chipsets/layouts. Then I can have a PS4 for gaming and a PC for general stuff for games the PS4 won't have (mostly strategy games, that let's be honest aren't the most graphically demanding games on the planet).

 

[Crap Daddy]

Then I can have a PS4 for gaming and a PC for general stuff for games the PS4 won't have (mostly strategy games, that let's be honest aren't the most graphically demanding games on the planet).

For DOTA sure, for Rome 2 Total War nope. But I see you have a 6850, why not reuse it with a Haswell i3 or even an FX 8320. Much much better deal than this Kaveri.

 

[Dent1]

Kaveri is Bulldozer 2.0 "Reloaded", same crap AMD pulled with Zambezi, better MultiCore but worst SingleCore compared to previous gen, this is Bulldozer all over again.

On the GPU side and energy consumption is looking Great though.

Actually, if you bothered reading any of the literature, Kaveri actually improves single threading performance whilst hindering improvement to multi core performance to almost the same degree.



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Edit: Off topic:

For anyone interested in battlefield 4 and games in general performance on Kaveri, they perform like a beast!!!! Keep in mind this is only the A8-7600, I'm sure the A10-7850k performs even better in games!

Higher is better:

Lower is better:

Lower is better:

Higher is better:

Lower is better:

Lower is better

Higher is better:

Lower is better:

Lower is better:

More reviews:
http://techreport.com/review/25908/amd-a8-7600-kaveri-processor-reviewed
http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/cpus/2014/01/14/amd-a8-7600-kaveri-review/1

 

[xorbe]

The 7600 at 45/65w looks really interesting for mini itx systems.

Seems like oc'ing was off limits for every 7850k launch day review.

And when are these actually going on sale? They are nowhere.

 

[HalfAHertz]

For some reason nobody did any temp and wattage measurements in their reviews other than bit tech...and it looks bad. The 7600 is way off the 45/65W mark compared to the intel systems.

 

[bencrutz]

For some reason nobody did any temp and wattage measurements in their reviews other than bit tech...and it looks bad. The 7600 is way off the 45/65W mark compared to the intel systems.

45W 7600 maxed out at 90Watts (CPU + GPU loaded) compared to a 54W 4330 that took 84Watts

i'd say it's an impressive improvement over richland. while it's 6 Watts more compared to intel's i3 4330 higer tdp, you do realize that intel always have an advantage on the lithography process over amd and the a8 have a beefier iGPU....

 

[Melvis]

For some reason nobody did any temp and wattage measurements in their reviews other than bit tech...and it looks bad. The 7600 is way off the 45/65W mark compared to the intel systems.

I dont think another 6 watts is that bad compared to the intel i3 really. Also considering the GPU on the APU is twice as powerful makes it look really good I think.\

LOL what he said^

Got Ninjaed

 

[HalfAHertz]

45W 7600 maxed out at 90Watts (CPU + GPU loaded) compared to a 54W 4330 that took 84Watts

i'd say it's an impressive improvement over richland. while it's 6 Watts more compared to intel's i3 4330 higer tdp, you do realize that intel always have an advantage on the lithography process over amd and the a8 have a beefier iGPU....

So if we have to equalize it compared to the i3, the 7600's power usage in "45W mode" is closer to 60W.

 

[Fourstaff]

45W 7600 maxed out at 90Watts (CPU + GPU loaded) compared to a 54W 4330 that took 84Watts

i'd say it's an impressive improvement over richland. while it's 6 Watts more compared to intel's i3 4330 higer tdp, you do realize that intel always have an advantage on the lithography process over amd and the a8 have a beefier iGPU....

Definitely impressive, but I think they shouldn't have such a conservative estimate since people who build using a pico ITX with 90w PSU will suffer greatly when a big load comes in and fries the PSU.

 

[Fairlady-z]

What is the fastest GPU that you could crossfire with the A10-7850? Is it a 7850gpu? I am thinking of maybe playing around with building a steam box system or a smaller gaming rig.