The Official Kaveri Review Thread (A10-7850K, etc)

[blackened23]

Well, it certainly does seem like a hard sell compared to an i3 with a low end dGPU. I'm not quite understanding why AMD would throw themselves into the HTPC niche.

 

[Rickyyy369]

Kaveri has the opportunity to be great in the mobile space, but it looks like quite the dud on the desktop. It has a very good opportunity to grow and evolve over the next couple of months if HSA and mantle become more widespread. But without applications that can take advantage of those features, it is a thoroughly disappointing release.

 

[Phynaz]

AMD doing more shenanigans according to Tech Report:

AMD's plan to protect Kaveri involved only sending out the A8-7600 and competitive parts. They obviously wanted to protect their new chip from the scrutiny it would get for being no faster in CPU benchmarks at 95W.

http://techreport.com/discussion/25908/amd-a8-7600-kaveri-processor-reviewed#792897

 

[9enesis]

TBH ...those power measurements at various reviews are (to put it mildly) nothing to draw conclusions about....

 

[AtenRa]

Well, it certainly does seem like a hard sell compared to an i3 with a low end dGPU. I'm not quite understanding why AMD would throw themselves into the HTPC niche.

OEM-1 to AMD = We want low TDP APUs for SFF Desktop
OEM-2 to AMD = We want low TDP APUs for SFF Desktop
OEM-3 to AMD = We want low TDP APUs for SFF Desktop
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OEM-n to AMD = We want low TDP APUs for SFF Desktop

Now look at Newegg all those Intel SFF Desktops. There are 21x Core i3 and 59x Core i5 Slim/SFF Desktops in that page. If you didnt know already, 90%+ of Desktop Users don't debate/fight about Kaveri and Core i3/5 in Hardware forums like AT, they simple get a SFF desktop with integrated GPU for work/office/home. :whiste:

The 45W A8-7600 is the best AMD Product of the last 3-5 years, it may not be the fastest and is not competing in the HighEnd but it has the potential to be the most successful AMD Desktop product so far.

 

[erunion]

From the Anandtech review :

The reality is quite clear by now: AMD isn't going to solve its CPU performance issues with anything from the Bulldozer family. What we need is a replacement architecture, one that I suspect we'll get after Excavator concludes the line in 2015.

The reality is that AMD is never going to catch up. Its been years of waiting and hoping the next release would bring the needed big breakthrough. But its not coming, AMD doesnt have some superarch waiting in the wings. AMD is now in via territory.

 

[OCGuy]

Great chip for someone looking for a cheap laptop.

 

[jaydee]

Yes, it appears that the clock speed loss of GloFo 28nm has basically wiped out the gains of Steamroller. To make it worthwhile on FX, they would have to back-port to 32nm, which is doable, but might not be worth the time and effort. At this point I suspect they have their best hardware designers working on the "cat" cores.

They probably could have replicated the clock speeds even at 28nm, but they would have had to do a 140W TDP part again, which gets crushed by the tech media. They probably did the right thing here, lowering the clock speeds, limiting the TDP to 95W. Fact of the matter is, a higher clocked $250 140W Kaveri would have been crushed by the Haswell i5 anyway.

AMD still isn't really competitive in the mid-range, but at least they are *starting* to realize who they aren't. They aren't a high-end x86 competitor. They could be a mid-range, SFF gaming PC chip producer, but it's going to up to the OEMs to figure this out. I don't think they have the budget to do their own 45W moderately bigger, gaming "NUC" (think Mac Mini sized or a little bigger) for $500-600 (incl RAM, SSD, HD, OS), but it's exactly the type of product that can Intel cannot answer to right now. As small of a niche market that it may be, at least it would be a "win" for AMD, which would be their first in quite some time.

 

[Phynaz]

If you didnt know already, 90%+ of Desktop Users don't debate/fight about Kaveri and Core i3/5 in Hardware forums like AT, they simple get a SFF desktop with integrated GPU for work/office/home. :whiste:

With an i3 in it that does everything they want it it to, is faster for work/office/home, and costs less than Kaveri.

This is Derpdozer all over again, complete with all the broken performance promises - albeit without the monster power consumption. A three year old Athlon is just as fast of a CPU. Maybe a five year old Athlon is too.

History continues to repeat itself, even the moar cores mantra carried over - Kaveri has 12 cores!

 

[ElFenix]

really don't get much for going up to 95 watts with this process.

 

[Sweepr]

http://www.hardware.fr/articles/913-7/cpu-performances-applicatives.html


Overall slightly behind Richland in CPU tests. A huge fail, I thought Steamroller brings at least 15% better IPC without frequency regression.

You're being modest. Maybe I was spoiled by the early predictions, but all the improvements to the core really made us think there was an impressive +30% IPC boost coming. After all even BD -> PD saw superior IPC gains and PD was considered a ''minor'' tweak.

According to Hardware.fr review 3.7GHz Phenom II 980 (2009 Deneb core) is still faster than 3.7-4.0GHz A10 7850K (2014 Steamroller core) - both applications and games.

 

[Erenhardt]

Toms (DE) showed how much the low power kaveri loves bandwidth:

Looks like a good replacement for casual PC that I have:
Athlon X2 2.2GHz + HD4670 1GB DDR3
A8-7600 is so close to A10-7850k that it is hard to justify the $60 premium.

 

[bullzz]

and there were people calling haswell a failure for increasing CPU perf by "only" 10%..

 

[Kallogan]

Total fail. Only amd can make a new gen that can't beat its previous gen. GG. They're really planning on selling this ?

 

[cbn]

If you didnt know already, 90%+ of Desktop Users don't debate/fight about Kaveri and Core i3/5 in Hardware forums like AT, they simple get a SFF desktop with integrated GPU for work/office/home. :whiste:

By that logic, people would just choose one of the Kabini SFF Pre-builts then (if they wanted AMD).

The 45W A8-7600 is the best AMD Product of the last 3-5 years, it may not be the fastest and is not competing in the HighEnd but it has the potential to be the most successful AMD Desktop product so far.

If it is priced right in the pre-built desktops, then yes, it may stand a chance.

....but I did not see this happen for the previous AMD A10 and A8 APU desktops.

 

[daxzy]

Well, I was pretty set on replacing my HTPC with a Kaveri. I could live with the CPU performance (although it's disappointing it can't best Richland consistently), but the GPU performance was much lower than I thought.

I ended up ordering a Haswell/H77 combo and will probably put a discrete R7 class later on.

 

[MisterMac]

I'm with Meloz on this one.


The iGPU inside trinity\richland is weaker but there's not a revolutionary difference to Kaveri\GCN cores - lets say a health improvement on kaveri.
Power consumption is a massive issue for the mobile form factors(basically why trinity\richland was non-existant in US\EU "ultrabook" formfactors) - and with the desktop formfactors for hobbiyst gamers 7750 + Pentium = 30 to 50% more performance across the board for the SAME or slightly less price.

For lowend gaming it makes no sense - and is not upgradeble as a low end Pentium solution.

Then there this HTPC stuff - that WAS NOT enough to sell it before yet somehow they're banking it on happening this time?

All the magic creativity crap HUMA\HSA\Mantle that's supposed to give them a fighting chance is MIA - and not even roadmapped and probably 6 months away at minimum.
"We're AMD - we made some bad choices... so here's more of the same including a price hike!! Buy now guys!"

No one ever said "Oh gee golly i wish richland\trinity would be awesome in the GPU department under a 45\65w spec!"... yet here we are?
IPC improvements weaker than Piledriver - but with included lower clocks just in case things we're going a little ... TOO fast for grandpa.
Don't want him having a shock!


Those cat cores better start growing up - cause BD needs to go to rest fast for AMD to survive the x86 market.

 

[PPB]

really don't get much for going up to 95 watts with this process.

Carrizo being top 65w now looks like a good decision, based from what we have seen here.

 

[Slomo4shO]

Toms (DE) showed how much the low power kaveri loves bandwidth:

Looks like a good replacement for casual PC that I have:
Athlon X2 2.2GHz + HD4670 1GB DDR3
A8-7600 is so close to A10-7850k that it is hard to justify the $60 premium.

In truth, the 7600 should be priced around $90-100 and the 7850K shouldn't be more than $140.

Also, do you have a link to the Toms review that includes the above graph?

 

[blastingcap]

Is it just me or does kaveri seem good for a cheap gaming laptop? Esp. 1366x788 models?

 

[Phynaz]

and there were people calling haswell a failure for increasing CPU perf by "only" 10%..

Lol, I forgot about that!

 

[mikk]

Is it just me or does kaveri seem good for a cheap gaming laptop? Esp. 1366x788 models?

We haven't seen mobile Kaveri yet and it's probably not coming before H2 2014.

 

[GRAFiZ]

Seems like a very solid CPU choice for a gaming only PC.

Seriously, if all you're going to do is game, this seems like a great option when paired with a high end video card.

:shrug:

 

[cbn]

Toms (DE) showed how much the low power kaveri loves bandwidth:

In truth, the 7600 should be priced around $90-100 and the 7850K shouldn't be more than $140.

Also, do you have a link to the Toms review that includes the above graph?

http://translate.google.com/transla...eview-test,testberichte-241474-9.html&act=url

50% increase in FPS (26--> 39) with 50% increase in memory bandwidth (1600-->2400) for this game at the tested resolution.

 

[BallaTheFeared]

Is it just me or does kaveri seem good for a cheap gaming laptop? Esp. 1366x788 models?

Power seems way too high for a laptop doesn't it?

I think Haswell fills that niche better, since it's iGPU is capable of running the exact same games at 768.