AMD Kaveri APU quick look

stulid · 14 Jan 2014 at 13:39

STU_REV_AMD_A10-7850K_BAN2_zps315c084d.png~original

Here is a quick look and some tests of the new AMD Kaveri APU's, I have here the top end A10-7850K and lower A10-7700K.

In the box is your warranty guide, case sticker and small heatsink+fan with pre-applied paste.

Both these APU's are black editions and have an unlocked multiplier as denoted by the "K" in their model name and feature four new Steamroller cores and GCN IGP gfx.

A10-7700K specs,

Core speed - 3500MHz
Turbo speed -3800MHz

MMX instructions
SSE / Streaming SIMD Extensions
SSE2 / Streaming SIMD Extensions 2
SSE3 / Streaming SIMD Extensions 3
SSSE3 / Supplemental Streaming SIMD Extensions 3
SSE4 / SSE4.1 + SSE4.2 / Streaming SIMD Extensions 4
SSE4a
AES / Advanced Encryption Standard instructions
ABM / Advanced Bit Manipulation
AVX / Advanced Vector Extensions
BMI1 / Bit Manipulation instructions 1
F16C / 16-bit Floating-Point conversion instructions
FMA3 / 3-operand Fused Multiply-Add instructions
FMA4 / 4-operand Fused Multiply-Add instructions
TBM / Trailing Bit Manipulation instructions
XOP / eXtended Operations instructions
AMD64 / AMD 64-bit technology
EVP / Enhanced Virus Protection
Turbo Core 3.0 technology

Radeon R7 series IGP
Number of shader cores 384
Core speed 720MHz

A10-7850K

Core speed - 3700MHz
Turbo speed -4000MHz

MMX instructions
SSE / Streaming SIMD Extensions
SSE2 / Streaming SIMD Extensions 2
SSE3 / Streaming SIMD Extensions 3
SSSE3 / Supplemental Streaming SIMD Extensions 3
SSE4 / SSE4.1 + SSE4.2 / Streaming SIMD Extensions 4
SSE4a
AES / Advanced Encryption Standard instructions
ABM / Advanced Bit Manipulation
AVX / Advanced Vector Extensions
BMI1 / Bit Manipulation instructions 1
F16C / 16-bit Floating-Point conversion instructions
FMA3 / 3-operand Fused Multiply-Add instructions
FMA4 / 4-operand Fused Multiply-Add instructions
TBM / Trailing Bit Manipulation instructions
XOP / eXtended Operations instructions
AMD64 / AMD 64-bit technology
EVP / Enhanced Virus Protection
Turbo Core 3.0 technology

Radeon R7 series IGP
Number of shader cores 512
Core speed 720MHz

Below are CPU screenshots of these two new APU's and a previous generation A10-5800K (Trinity) APU which uses Piledriver cores at their maximum turbo frequency..

*Ignore the 0.4v Vcore of the A10-7700K as I think I grabbed that screen as it was about to throttle down under Cool 'n' Quiet.

Test setup.

A10-5800K
A10-7700K
A10-7850K
Kingston HyperX (2x4GB) 2400MHz RAM
Gigabyte A88X Sniper
Kingston HyperX 240GB SSD (RAID0)
Catalyst 13.35 beta17 drivers.
Windows 8.1

First test is CPU-Z at stock speeds.

Next up are some games,

BattleField 4,

•1920x1080 Medium Preset
•1680x1050 Medium Preset

Hitman Absolution,

•1920x1080 High preset
•1680x1050 Medium Preset

Bioshock Infinite,

•1920x1080 High Preset
•1680x1050 Medium Preset

Tomb Raider,

•1920x1080 High Preset
•1680x1050 Medium Preset

STU_REV_KAVERI_GAMES_zps08cc6627.jpg~original

One thing to note is that I can test Bioshock a thousand times and the max fps report varies constantly, the minimum and average fps remain constant.

Next are some synthetic benchmarks,

For Unigine Heaven4.0 and Valley I used the same settings as used in the forum threads found here,
http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18487976
http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18489026

Very stressful settings for a little APU to cope with.

Next is 3Dmark Firestrike, the full benchmark can be found here.

STU_REV_KAVERI_FIRESTRIKE_zpse703875c.jpg~original

Next is Asus Realbench2.0 which can be found here.

STU_REV_KAVERI_REALBENCH_zps8f810b99.jpg~original

STU_REV_KAVERI_REALBENCH_HM_zpsf33eedc9.jpg~original

STU_REV_KAVERI_REALBENCH_IE_zps3cabc515.jpg~original

STU_REV_KAVERI_OPENCL_zpse70aee47.jpg~original

STU_REV_KAVERI_REALBENCH_SC_zpsb339cf15.jpg~original

X264 was ran, you can find this benchmark here.

STU_REV_KAVERI_X264_zps08d10d29.jpg~original

PCMark 07,

Catzilla 1.1 was next up running at 720p from Here.

Cinebench R11.5

STU_REV_KAVERI_CINEBENCHR11BENCH_CPU_zpsfdf6a498.jpg~original

STU_REV_KAVERI_CINEBENCHR11BENCH_OGL_zpse8754528.jpg~original

Cinebench R15

3D mark 11,

PC Mark08,

Overclocking.

Using the Snipers BIOS I managed to get the A10-7850K to a stable 4.4GHz by adding +0.054v to the Vcore and setting LLC to medium.

Of other note is that to get the A10-7700K to work perfectly with the RAM at 2400MHz it required +0.036v adding to the north bridge voltage, the A10-5800K and A10-7850K required no such adjustments.

Thanks to Ethermaster for the graphs and banner.

clocka · 14 Jan 2014 at 13:58

do some x264 encoding tests please.

stulid · 14 Jan 2014 at 14:00

clocka said:
do some x264 encoding tests please.

I have, look at the charts.

clocka · 14 Jan 2014 at 14:04

stulid said:
I have, look at the charts.

i mean proper benchmarks, 720p and 1080p and compare it to haswell versions of pentium, core i3 and core i5.

stulid · 14 Jan 2014 at 14:06

clocka said:
i mean proper benchmarks, 720p and 1080p and compare it to haswell versions of pentium, core i3 and core i5.

You buy me haswell versions of the pentium and i3 etc then I will.

stulid · 14 Jan 2014 at 17:30

This is the cTDP function, allows you to limit the APU to 45W or 65W.

clocka · 14 Jan 2014 at 17:57

nice, what are cpu and gpu frequencies when you lower it to 45w?

humbug · 14 Jan 2014 at 18:13

Thanks Stulid

A few clock for clock comparisons to Lynfield / Bloomfield @ 3.7Ghz (HT off, just 4 threads like Kaveri) keep in mind that this i7 930 is running a 900Mhz overclock at 3.7Ghz.

SuperPI

Kaveri: 1MB 17.922
Bloomfield: 1MB 11.000

X264FHD

Kaveri: 13.16 FPS
Bloomfield: 15.4 FPS

Cinebench R15

Kaveri: 92 SC
Bloomfield: 112 SC

Kaveri: 318 MC
Bloomfield: 424 MC

wPrime 2.10

3DMark Firestrike CPU Physics http://www.3dmark.com/3dm/2186342

Bloomfield: 6578

3DMark11 CPU Physics http://www.3dmark.com/3dm11/7810939

Bloomfield: 6062

Martini1991 · 14 Jan 2014 at 18:24

Done the Cinebench comparisons wrong there Humbug.

I like Stulid's charts, always easy to read.
Can it get any higher for benching? Or was 4.4GHZ the max you felt comfortable with?

stulid · 14 Jan 2014 at 18:28

Martini1991 said:
Can it get any higher for benching? Or was 4.4GHZ the max you felt comfortable with?

That's a value it passed everything at.

It can do 4.5Ghz on some tests but then freeze up during Realbench.

Maybe more Vcore may help, but I ain't putting a stupid value into the BIOS.

stulid · 14 Jan 2014 at 18:31

clocka said:
nice, what are cpu and gpu frequencies when you lower it to 45w?

This I can do for you,

Its switching between 3GHz,

To 3.5Ghz,

Vcore according to CPU-Z has taken a drop also.

humbug · 14 Jan 2014 at 18:32

Fixed. thanks Martin.

Martini1991 · 14 Jan 2014 at 18:32

stulid said:
That's a value it passed everything at.

It can do 4.5Ghz on some tests but then freeze up during Realbench.

Maybe more Vcore may help, but I ain't putting a stupid value into the BIOS.

Fair enough, especially on this process currently, who knows what they can do yet.

humbug said:
Fixed. thanks Martin.

It's fair to say AMD haven't reached Lynnfield IPC (Hell, I don't even think they've managed their own original 10% performance improvement quota as 6800K's will clock better than this 7850K's and knack them, that said, they will have meant stock) let alone AMD's own slides and upto 20% IPC improvements!, what'd it manage that on? One or two FPU light tasks?

But then in other ways, it's made some really good increases (As Stulids results show), really bummed about the IGP bandwidth however.

Either way, when it replaces the A10 6800K's price point, it's still a cracking product for what it is.

Furyus · 14 Jan 2014 at 18:47

Very good read and review.
+1 stulid!

stulid · 14 Jan 2014 at 18:48

C:\AMD\AMD_LiteCoin_13.35.1001_Beta1_Win8.1_Win7_Jan13_2014

Wonder what this does

humbug · 14 Jan 2014 at 18:49

What, where did that come from ^^^^ ?????

Martini1991 said:
Fair enough, especially on this process currently, who knows what they can do yet.

It's fair to say AMD haven't reached Lynnfield IPC (Hell, I don't even think they've managed their own original 10% performance improvement quota as 6800K's will clock better than this 7850K's and knack them, that said, they will have meant stock) let alone AMD's own slides and upto 20% IPC improvements!, what'd it manage that on? One or two FPU light tasks?

But then in other ways, it's made some really good increases (As Stulids results show), really bummed about the IGP bandwidth however.

Either way, when it replaces the A10 6800K's price point, it's still a cracking product for what it is.

Its really disappointing TBH, they have concentrated on GPU Parallel compute performance, its unbeatable for that as an APU, i'm sure the power consumption is also down significantly, its a great HTPC chip, but thats about it.

Its no good for you and me with the CPU performance still lagging so far behind Intel its useless for anyone wanting it for gaming.

It seems AMD have completely given up on Enthusiast Gaming level CPU's.
No FX SR chips in sight, even if there was, they would be what, 5% faster? the only place we can turn to is expensive Intel CPU's, thats not good for competition, not good at all.

kitch9 · 14 Jan 2014 at 18:53

How does it run BF4 at 720p? I'm thinking of putting one together for a mate.

stulid · 14 Jan 2014 at 18:55

kitch9 said:
How does it run BF4 at 720p? I'm thinking of putting one together for a mate.

I can do that, give a few mins (more like 30)

kitch9 · 14 Jan 2014 at 19:01

stulid said:
I can do that, give a few mins (more like 30)

Nice, thanks. These apus are only really good for 720p really I think with the limited bandwidth they have.

Martini1991 · 14 Jan 2014 at 19:06

The thing is, the CPU and the GPU are up to 1080, it's just the memory bandwidth.
It's a bottlenecked GPU to be frank, I just don't get it..

Competitor rules

***AMD Kaveri APU quick look***

AMD Kaveri APU quick look