Is a dedicated HD 6670 still better than an APU?

[skaughtz]

Or have APUs finally caught up in graphics power?

I recently consolidated some older computer parts and built a little media machine for music and streaming. It has a A8-7670k, 8GB of DDR3 1866 RAM, and a 1GB DDR5 Radeon HD 6670 in it. It serves my needs just fine, but I was curious if the integrated GPU on the A8 (R7 7670k) would outperform the 6670? I know it utilizes the system memory, but would the extra memory for the APU trump the faster memory in the GPU? Real world benchmarks for pretty much all of the APUs are difficult to find.

 

[lyssword]

Yeah, the kaby lake 620 would be roughly same as your 6670 or better, and 2200G smokes (about twice as fast)

https://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/NVIDIA/GeForce_GTX_750_Ti/25.html
vega on ryzen is roughly equal to 750ti (which is like 5% better than gt1030) when OC'd, and radeon 7750 is 50% faster than 6670. So I'd expect at least 2x perf difference.

 

[SPBHM]

6670 lacks proper support since 2015, the 7670k IGP is GCN at least with driver updates,

6670 will simply crash in some newer games it's fast enough to run, or present other glitches, but for older games it should be faster since the IGP is limited by bandwidth, on newer games I can see the IGP being faster and it's certainly a lot more compatible and stable.

Vega IGP should have an easy time beating the 6670 because it's much faster and has much higher memory performance compared to the previous APUs

 

[frozentundra123456]

Yeah, the kaby lake 620 would be roughly same as your 6670 or better, and 2200G smokes (about twice as fast)

https://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/NVIDIA/GeForce_GTX_750_Ti/25.html
vega on ryzen is roughly equal to 750ti (which is like 5% better than gt1030) when OC'd, and radeon 7750 is 50% faster than 6670. So I'd expect at least 2x perf difference.

Got any direct comparison with the 2200 and a 750 Ti? Those seem like pretty optimistic expectations for the 2200. Maybe with a good overclock it could reach a stock 750 Ti, but the 750 Ti can be overclocked at well. The 2400 will be better, but is considerably more expensive as well. Agreed though, either would be a lot faster than the 6670.

 

[SirDinadan]

I benchmarked the GTX 750 Ti vs GT 1030 and recently the Vega 8 OC vs GT 1030.

With both on stock clocks the 750 Ti is usually more than 15% faster than the GT 1030. In some modern games like Wolfenstein 2, Forza 7 the GTX 750 Ti is more than 1.5x faster.
The 2200G @1600 MHz gfx clock has the same performance as the GT 1030.

 

[VirtualLarry]

The 2200G @1600 MHz gfx clock has the same performance as the GT 1030.

Is that enough performance (and CPU-wise too), to play GTA V, say, at 1080P low/med?

 

[ZGR]

My GTX 650 can do GTA V at 1080p30 with low settings, so I'm pretty sure it can.

 

[SirDinadan]

Is that enough performance (and CPU-wise too), to play GTA V, say, at 1080P low/med?

Yeah, sure! Even the A10-7860K is good enough for ~30 FPS with 1080p and normal.
But I have encountered some strange loading / popping issues recently - and I can't recall that this was a thing, say, a year ago. The CPU usage jumps to 100% and the game fails load assets / stutters big time. Strange, but apparently one can fix it with tuning the priority of the game thread.

 

[skaughtz]

So I thought I would follow up with this for kicks and if anyone is curious.

I ran three benchmarks from the basic (free) version of 3DMark for two different system configurations at stock speeds because apparently I have too much time on my hands:
A8-7670k
Radeon HD 6670 1GB DDR5 / Radeon R7 (iGPU set at 2GB of video memory)
2x4GB G.Skill Ares 2133mhz DDR3

I ran each test twice, but the differences in the results were negligible. These are one set of scores:

Fire Strike (DirectX 11) ("For high performance Windows gaming PCs") (... neither could run this worth a damn)
6670
*3DMark Score: 1186
*Graphics Score: 1231
*Physics Score: 4228
*Combined Score: 505
*Graphics Test 1: 5.53 fps
*Graphics Test 2: 5.19 fps
*Physics Test: 13.43 fps
*Combined Test: 2.35 fps
R7
*3DMark Score: 1541 (+29.9%)
*Graphics Score: 1711 (+39.0%)
*Physics Score: 4250 (+0.5%)
*Combined Score: 571 (+13.1%)
*Graphics Test 1: 8.36 fps (+51.2%)
*Graphics Test 2: 6.71 fps (+29.2%)
*Physics Test: 13.49 fps (+0.5%)
*Combined Test: 2.66 fps (+13.1%)

Sky Diver (DirectX 11) ("For gaming laptops and mid-range PCs")
6670
*3DMark Score: 3774
*Graphics Score: 3593
*Physics Score: 4796 (+3.0%)
*Combined Score: 4015
*Graphics Test 1: 17.51 fps
*Graphics Test 2: 15.43 fps
*Physics Test
** 8 threads: 96.15 fps (+7.6%)
** 24 threads: 51.77 fps (+5.4%)
** 48 threads: 28.05 fps (+3.0%)
** 96 threads: 0.00 fps
*Combined Test: 16.53 fps
R7
*3DMark Score: 5293 (+40.2%)
*Graphics Score: 5381 (+49.8%)
*Physics Score: 4657
*Combined Score: 5769 (+43.7%)
*Graphics Test 1: 24.37 fps (+39.2%)
*Graphics Test 2: 24.77 fps (+60.5%)
*Physics Test
** 8 threads: 89.32 fps
** 24 threads: 49.12 fps
** 48 threads: 27.23 fps
** 96 threads: 0.00 fps
*Combined Test: 23.74 fps (+43.7%)

Cloud Gate (DirectX 11/10) ("For Windows notebooks and home PCs")
6670
*3DMark Score: 6972 (+3.2%)
*Graphics Score: 11268 (+6.7%)
*Physics Score: 2987
*Graphics Test 1: 50.36 fps (+6.8%)
*Graphics Test 2: 47.70 fps (+6.6%)
*Physics Test: 9.48 fps
R7
*3DMark Score: 6758
*Graphics Score: 10562
*Physics Score: 2990 (+0.1%)
*Graphics Test 1: 47.16 fps
*Graphics Test 2: 44.75 fps
*Physics Test: 9.50 fps (+0.1%)

I was a little surprised about the last test, but the results are pretty clear. The R7 is better optimized (not that you are playing anything demanding on an iGPU) and smokes the 6670 for its intended purposes (3DMark also has a DirectX 12 test, but the 6670 can't do DX12). I thought the DDR5 memory would make the 6670 superior, but software apparently makes all the difference.

Mystery solved.

 

[skaughtz]

6670 lacks proper support since 2015, the 7670k IGP is GCN at least with driver updates,

6670 will simply crash in some newer games it's fast enough to run, or present other glitches, but for older games it should be faster since the IGP is limited by bandwidth, on newer games I can see the IGP being faster and it's certainly a lot more compatible and stable.

Vega IGP should have an easy time beating the 6670 because it's much faster and has much higher memory performance compared to the previous APUs

Dudeman called it.

 

[NTMBK]

Thanks for running the benchmarks!

 

[lyssword]

new gen vs old gen APU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zb6Enk_Wz8A