GPU + APU Questions

[nirvana68]

How much of a performance upgrade comes with having an APU and a GPU? Does AMD's APU work better with certain chipsets?
I would appreciate even a link to some good articles explaining how they work together if it is too complicated for a forum reply. I don't need scholarly education about it, but rather a grasp of the basic process. Although, I am not opposed to learning more in-depth.

Thank you in advance :-D

 

[24601]

Pairing an APU with a GPU hoping for additional gains on top of the performance of the dedicated GPU is almost always pointless.

 

[nirvana68]

Well that's unexpected, but I appreciate the information.

 

[MeldarthX]

Right now; depends on how you want to set up crossfire; which cards;

Honestly if I was going to get APU *which I am soon for another kid's pc* is the A88 chipset; its FM2+ which mieans it will handle Kaveri which is out jan 15th; more data on it will be in Decemeber.

Honestly depends on what you want to; light gaming; htpc? how big the screen is etc.......details; details

 

[frozentundra123456]

Toms hardware recently did an article on this, but I can't seem to find it. In any case, the conclusion was basically that even though frame rates increased in some cases, the overall experience was not improved over the apu alone because of micro stutter issues. If you already have a card, you could try it out yourself, but I certainly would not buy a card specifically for use in crossfire. Just better off to get a cheaper CPU and use the money saved for a more powerful discrete card.

Things could change with Kaveri and amds new frame pacing drivers, but no one really knows yet. Actually to me being able to do assymetric crossfire without issues is the only real advantage I see to an apu in a conventional desktop. Otherwise one is better off with a cheaper CPU like the athlon x2 650k and a discrete card, especially since right now there are fantastic prices on 78xx amd cards.

 

[bystander36]

This is Tom's Hardware's review on it: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/dual-graphics-crossfire-benchmark,3583-10.html

They found that although Fraps readings were a little higher, the overall experience was worse than just using a discrete card on its own.

 

[24601]

This is Tom's Hardware's review on it: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/dual-graphics-crossfire-benchmark,3583-10.html

They found that although Fraps readings were a little higher, the overall experience was worse than just using a discrete card on its own.

And it isn't going to change until AMD/ATi implement at least the GPU portion of the Xbox One or Playstation 4 into their desktop APUs. That's not going to happen until at least DDR4 and even then you will only be able to gainfully pair them with something like a 7790.

 

[NTMBK]

Hopefully Kaveri will fix the issues of Dual Graphics- it is based on the same GPU tech as Hawaii, which has a much better solution to doing Crossfire over the PCIe bus. (It's called XDMA, look it up.) If this tech makes it into Kaveri then Dual Graphics may become worth considering- but if it doesn't, it's worse than useless.