APU Wars - Ongoing APU Review by AtenRa

[Shehriazad]

Let's see when you can get your hands on a 7870K...supposedly they actually do have a new stepping.

I saw a few lucky people already holding one in their hands :[]

 

[DrMrLordX]

Yeah, there's at least one etailer in Europe selling 7870ks right now. I have found one stateside that has them on pre-order. Looks like they'll retail for ~$155 which is actually a decent price. Kaveri isn't going back to the $180 price point.

 

[AtenRa]

A10-7850K was added in the OP on 19th May 2015 (OC as well)

 

[Erenhardt]

Nice.
I run OCCT power supply test on my sisters 7850K again to see if it throttles on new bios. It does, but now I know why. This little moster is soaking 220W from the wall. APU+Mobo+2x4GB 2400Mhz+1HDD is guzzling 200W! Overclocking have quite an impact on power consumption I guess.

In games there is no throttling. Probably because power consumption is way lower and motherboard VRMs can keep up!
Damn those power virus softwarez

 

[sm625]

Can you test the A8-7600 with one stick of DDR3-1600? Bioshock Infinity 720p High will do.

 

[AtenRa]

Can you test the A8-7600 with one stick of DDR3-1600? Bioshock Infinity 720p High will do.

I will tomorrow or Saturday.

 

[TheELF]

Can you test the A8-7600 with one stick of DDR3-1600? Bioshock Infinity 720p High will do.

Just a thing to keep in mind
http://support.2k.com/hc/en-us/articles/201338323--PC-Benchmark-Utility

For example, there are no enemies, and no associated graphic artifacts or textures. In most cases, the Benchmark results will be up to 20 frames per second higher than actual in-game framerates.

 

[sm625]

As long as the benchmark is the same across all GPUs it doesnt matter too much.

 

[AtenRa]

Can you test the A8-7600 with one stick of DDR3-1600? Bioshock Infinity 720p High will do.

A8-7600 65W TDP
Single memory stick Kingston LoVo 4GB 1600MHz 9-9-9 at 1,35V
Cat 14.12

Bioshock Infinity 720p High
Peak total system power = 68W
Min fps = 5,76
Avg fps = 21,03

Sleeping Dogs 720 Medium
Peak total system power = 70W
Min fps = 23,7
Avg fps = 30,8

Formula 1 2014 720p Ultra 4x MSAA
Peak total system power = 70W
Min fps = 16
Avg fps = 20

 

[frozentundra123456]

Wow, am I reading those charts right? Looking back at your earlier tests, seems like Boishock is about 1/2 as fast with single channel slower memory. Did not think it would make that much difference, even going to single channel.

 

[AtenRa]

Its not only the single channel, the Ram speed is even slower at 1600MHz vs 2133MHz. Games are very Memory Bandwidth intensive unlike most of the GPGPU applications.

 

[Shivansps]

the ram speed will not do much, SC really kills IGP perf.

 

[myocardia]

Wow, am I reading those charts right? Looking back at your earlier tests, seems like Boishock is about 1/2 as fast with single channel slower memory. Did not think it would make that much difference, even going to single channel.

You're talking about an iGPU that is already bandwidth-starved, when it is running dual-channel, with higher frequency RAM. When you cut it's RAM bandwidth in half by running single-channel (or slightly more than half, with the lower speed RAM), you're gonna get roughly half the framerates. All iGPUs are like this, btw.

 

[TeknoBug]

Its not only the single channel, the Ram speed is even slower at 1600MHz vs 2133MHz. Games are very Memory Bandwidth intensive unlike most of the GPGPU applications.

The iGPU is at fault for memory bandwidth, not games.

 

[AtenRa]

The iGPU is at fault for memory bandwidth, not games.

Its the application (Games) that need high memory Bandwidth, most GPGPU applications on the other hand need higher Shader performance.

You can see that in Luxmark (iGPU only) increasing the Shader performance by OCing the iGPU to 960MHz using 13333MHz memory it is faster than the iGPU at 720MHz using 2400MHz memory.

http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2394878

Same here in CL Benchmark, having higher shader performance makes
the iGPU faster than having higher memory bandwidth.

 

[AtenRa]

Ok same three games with dual 1600MHz memory

A8-7600 65W TDP
Dual memory Kingston LoVo 2x 4GB 1600MHz 9-9-9 at 1,35V
Cat 14.12

Bioshock Infinity 720p High
Peak total system power = 80W
Min fps = 20,26
Avg fps = 37,88

Sleeping Dogs 720 Medium
Peak total system power = 99W
Min fps = 41,2
Avg fps = 53,8

Formula 1 2014 720p Ultra 4x MSAA
Peak total system power = 83W
Min fps = 29
Avg fps = 35

 

[sm625]

A8-7600 65W TDP
Single memory stick Kingston LoVo 4GB 1600MHz 9-9-9 at 1,35V
Cat 14.12

Bioshock Infinity 720p High
Peak total system power = 68W
Min fps = 5,76
Avg fps = 21,03

Wow that is really unfortunate. I saw a kaveri notebook for a good price, but it only had 1x8GB. With one DIMM, it looks like it will roughly match an i5-5200U in gaming.

 

[NTMBK]

Its the application (Games) that need high memory Bandwidth, most GPGPU applications on the other hand need higher Shader performance.

Depends on what your GPGPU application is. Our one is very bandwidth hungry.

Most GPGPU benchmarks prefer shader performance, but they're about as representative as Dhrystone.

 

[mrmt]

Depends on what your GPGPU application is. Our one is very bandwidth hungry.

Most GPGPU benchmarks prefer shader performance, but they're about as representative as Dhrystone.

This. It's not by chance that Intel is pushing HMC, an even more powerful than HBM technology, to its Xeon Phi cards.

 

[AtenRa]

Wow that is really unfortunate. I saw a kaveri notebook for a good price, but it only had 1x8GB. With one DIMM, it looks like it will roughly match an i5-5200U in gaming.

What laptop and what Kaveri SKU ?? does the laptop support dual memory sticks ?? Or does the Kaveri SKU support more than 1600MHz memory ??

Also, even with a single memory channel the Kaveri will be faster than the Broadwell with a single channel memory. So you have to be careful if the Core i5 5200U has single or dual channel.

 

[TeknoBug]

I have an A4 5000 laptop, it only uses single channel, the 8330 iGPU is terrible on it.

 

[sm625]

What laptop and what Kaveri SKU ?? does the laptop support dual memory sticks ?? Or does the Kaveri SKU support more than 1600MHz memory ??

Also, even with a single memory channel the Kaveri will be faster than the Broadwell with a single channel memory. So you have to be careful if the Core i5 5200U has single or dual channel.

It is this one:

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/asus-15...gray/4882013.p?id=1219644187138&skuId=4882013

I think it is easily upgradeable to two sticks. But still, being forced to upgrade from an already sufficient 8GB is not very economical and saps the value from the purchase. It just makes the $329 i3-5005U notebook look that much more appealing. Same single thread score. Same gaming performance. Much better battery life. And only slightly less multithreaded score. All for 20% less money. I think AMD really kneecapped themselves by designing an APU that requires 2 memory channels when all the decent notebook deals only have one channel.

 

[AtenRa]

It is this one:

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/asus-15...gray/4882013.p?id=1219644187138&skuId=4882013

I think it is easily upgradeable to two sticks. But still, being forced to upgrade from an already sufficient 8GB is not very economical and saps the value from the purchase. It just makes the $329 i3-5005U notebook look that much more appealing. Same single thread score. Same gaming performance. Much better battery life. And only slightly less multithreaded score. All for 20% less money. I think AMD really kneecapped themselves by designing an APU that requires 2 memory channels when all the decent notebook deals only have one channel.

Does this Laptop comes with the A10-7400p ??? If yes then this is a 35W TDP Kaveri with 1866MHz memory support. It will completely destroy any 15W TDP Broadwell core i3-5xxxU in graphics even with a single stick.
I would sell the 8GB 1600MHz stick and buy a dual channel 2x 4GB 1866MHz.

Can you give me a link for the i3-5005U laptop ??

 

[sm625]

Does this Laptop comes with the A10-7400p ??? If yes then this is a 35W TDP Kaveri with 1866MHz memory support. It will completely destroy any 15W TDP Broadwell core i3-5xxxU in graphics even with a single stick.

Yes it comes with a A10-7400p. Your own benchmarks would seem to suggest that it wouldnt completely destroy any 15W TDP Broadwell core i3-5xxxU in graphics even with a single stick. That's why I asked for A8-7600 benchmarks with a single stick. It is the same 384 shader GPU, just clocked lower. Cutting out one stick of RAM caused the A8-7600 to go from 21 min fps to 6, which is what a desktop haswell i3 scores. I dont have exact numbers for a broadwell 15W, but the power reduction also would impact a A10-7400p compared to a A8-7600 so I figured they would both scale down about the same amount.

 

[monstercameron]

I saw a laptop with that bestbuy, looked decent. That apu is the 35w version of the fx-7500.