Who Controls the User Experience? AMD’s Carrizo Thoroughly Tested
by Ian Cutress on February 4, 2016 8:00 AM ESTBenchmark Results: Professional and OpenCL
Here are our results from our Professional and OpenCL tests. A reminder of our systems, including their graphics:
| System Overview | ||||
| µArch | APU + GPU | Memory | Channel | |
| HP Elitebook 745 G2 | Kaveri | A10 PRO-7350B (19W) R6, 384 SPs, 533 MHz |
8 GB | Dual |
| HP Elitebook 745 G3 | Carrizo | PRO A12-8800B (15W) R7, 512 SPs, 800 MHz |
4 GB | Single |
| Toshiba Satellite E45DW-C4210 |
Carrizo | FX-8800P (15W) R7, 512 SPs, 800 MHz |
8 GB | Single |
| HP Pavilion 17z-g100 |
Carrizo | A10-8700P (15W) R6, 384 SPs, 800 MHz |
8 GB | Single |
| Lenovo Y700 | Carrizo | FX-8800P (15W) R7, 512 SPs, 800 MHz R9 385MX, 512 SPs, 900-100 MHz |
16 GB | Single |
PCMark 08
PCMark08, developed by Futuremark, is a simple press play and run benchmarking tool designed to probe how well systems cope with a variety of standard tasks that a professional user might encounter. This includes video conferencing with multiple streams, image/file manipulation, video processing, 3D modelling and other tools. In this case we take the three main benchmark sets, Creative, Home and Work, and run them in OpenCL mode which aims to take advantage of OpenCL accelerated hardware. For fun we also put in the PCMark08 Storage workset.
Both of the Home and Work tests show something starteling in the Kaveri system beating all the 15W Carrizo parts. This comes back to what we saw on WebXPRT on the last page – these workloads are very bursty in nature, requiring the system to wake up, run a small amount of work, and go back to sleep. It would seem that this requires a lot more effort from the Carrizo platforms than the Kaveri ones (perhaps by nature of the lower idle power draw starting point on Carrizo) which impacts time critical performance metrics.
If we take the CPU frequencies of the two Elitebook systems, starting with the 745 G2 (Kaveri)
Here the standard frequency tends to be in the 3300 MHz region, moving down to lower frequencies when more threads are needed. But for the 745 G3 (Carrizo):
Here the CPU frequency is obviously mostly at the 2500 MHz mark, sometimes bursting up to 3400 MHz (It’s actually more of a 2:1 split in favor of 2500 MHz).
You might argue that the temperature of the design might be to blame. Both Elitebooks are in the same chassis, so let us see:
(take note of the scales)
Here it shows the G2 wanting to stay below 60C, whereas the G3 is happy to go almost to 80C, albeit with an average temperature which is nearer 50C. This means that the G2 can arguably keep the higher frequencies for longer.
Just to weigh in on the other 15W Carrizo designs in the Toshiba Satellite and HP Pavilion:
In both cases, similar to the G3, the main frequency for the test is actually the lower 2500/2300 frequency, with the system moving up to the higher frequency state around a third of the time, rather than staying at the higher state and moving back down. This is what is causing the Kaveri system to win out in these sorts of workloads (though likely at a power penalty).
On the storage front, having a mechanical drive is a killer here.
Agisoft Photoscan
Photoscan is professional software that takes a series of 2D images (as little as 50, usually 250+) and 'performs calculations' to determine where the pictures were taken and if it can create a 3D model and textures of what the images are of. This model can then be exported to other software for touch-ups or implementation in physics engines/games or, as the reader that directed me to it, national archiving. The tool has four phases, one of which can be OpenCL accelerated, while the other three are a mix of single thread and variable thread workloads. We ran the tool in CPU only and OpenCL modes.
When pure CPU performance matters, having the higher thermal headroom matters most. But moving it to the OpenCL mode shows that those extra TDP points can matter a lot on load balancing:
There are two things to note here. One, something seems to have gone very wrong with the G3, and I’m sure those numbers are erroneous and need to be re-run or the 4GB of memory is actually a hindrance here. The second is that the combination R7/R9 graphics in the Lenovo, despite not being in Crossfire, can both be used in OpenCL mode. This pushes a speed up of almost 30%.
Linux Bench
Linux Bench is a collection of Linux based benchmarks compiled together by ServeTheHome. The idea for this is to have some non-windows based tools that are easy enough to run with a USB key, an internet connection and three lines of code in a terminal. The tests in Linux Bench include standard synthetic compute, compression, matrix manipulation, database tools and key-value storage.
Unfortunately Linux Bench refused to run on any of the HP systems for relatively unknown reasons – the fact that it was all the HP models perhaps means that there is something firmware related which is causing the LiveCD to not boot properly. Nonetheless, the results are here for completeness.
| Linux Bench | ||
| Toshiba Satellite E45DW-C4210 (15W) |
Lenovo Y700 (35W) |
|
| C-Ray Hard Test / seconds | 365 | 267 |
| 7-Zip Compression MIPS | 5718 | 6110 |
| 7-Zip Decompression MIPS | 7320 | 9733 |
| NAMD (steps per time) | 1.72 | 2.46 |
| NPB MOPS (per sec per thread) | 365 | 321 |
| OpenSSL Sign | 220 | 296 |
| OpenSSL Verify | 13518 | 19465 |
| Redis 1 | 13210 | 12034 |
| Redis 10 | 41494 | 38760 |
| Redis 100 | 33445 | 31949 |
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
175 Comments
View All Comments
karakarga - Friday, February 5, 2016 - link
Including all, AMD and nVidia both at their funeral state! They can not possibly open 22, 14, 10 etc. micron fabric.Intel spended 5 billion dollars to open their new Arizona factory, they will pass lower processes there as well. AMD and nVidia can not get, even a billion dollar profit in these years. It is impossible for them to spend that much money to a new low process factory.
Those little tweaks can not help them to survive....
testbug00 - Friday, February 5, 2016 - link
They don't build factories. TSMC and Samsung (and GloFo to a lesser extent) build factories and do R&D for these processes. Nvidia, AMD. Samsung, Qualcomm, MediaTek and many other companies design chips to the standards of TSMC/Samsung/GloFo and pay money for wafers and running the wafers through the fab.The cost for this per wafer is meant to get all that money back in a few years. And than the process keeps on running for over 10 years sometimes.
It is getting more expensive to get to smaller nodes and the performance increase and power decrease is getting smaller. And costs more to design chips and run wafers. So it is getting harder to find the funds to shrink. Which is one of the reasons Intel has delayed their 10nm process.
yannigr2 - Friday, February 5, 2016 - link
Thanks for this review. Really needed for sometime. It was missing from the internet, not just Anandtech.As for the laptops, they say as much as there is to tell. Small Chinese makers, who no one knows they exist, would built better laptops than these. HP, Toshiba and Lenovo in this case, multibillion international giants that seems have all the technicians and the R&D funds necessary, end up producing Laptops with "strange" limitations, bad choices, low quality parts and in the end put prices that, even with all those bad choices and limitations, are NOT lower than those on Intel alternatives. It's almost as if Intel makes the choices for the parts in those laptops. Maybe their is a "trololol" sticker on them somewhere hidden addressed to AMD. I guess that way those big OEM don't make Intel too angry and at the same time, if there is another legal battle between AMD and Intel in the future, they will have enough excuses to show to the judge in their defense, if accused that they supported a monopoly.
ToTTenTranz - Friday, February 5, 2016 - link
This article is what makes Anandtech great. Just keep being like this guys, your work is awesome!I'm going to spend some time clicking your ads, you deserve it :)
As for the "poll" about who's to blame, IMHO it is:
1 - AMD for letting OEMs place Carrizo in designs with terrible panels and single-channel solutions. It's just not good for the brand. "You can't put a Carrizo with single-channel cheap RAM because that's not how it was designed. You want to build bottom-of-the-barrel laptop? We have Carrizo-L for you."
I'm pretty sure Intel has this conversation regarding Core M and Atom/Pentium/Celeron solutions. I know AMD is in a worse solution to negotiate, but downplaying Carrizo like this isn't good for anyone but Intel.
In the end, what AMD needs is a guy who can properly sell their product. Someone who convince the OEMs that good SoCs need to be paired with decent everything-else.
$500 is plenty for a 12/13" IPS/VA screen (even if it's 720/800p), 128GB SSD and 4+4GB DDR3L. Why not pull a Microsoft's Surface and build a decent SKU for that price range so that other OEMs can follow? Contract one OEM to make the device they envisioned, sell it and see all others following suit.
2 - OEMs for apparently not having this ONE guy who calls the shots and knows that selling a crappy system automatically means losing customers. And this ONE other guy (or the same) for not knowing that constantly favoring Intel with their solutions is bound to make the whole company's life miserable if Intel's only competitor kicks the bucket. The consumer isn't meant to know these things, but the OEMs certainly are.
It's 2016. We're way past the age of tricking the customer to buy a terrible user experience through big numbers (like "1TB drive woot"). He/She will feel like the money just wasn't and next time will buy a mac.
Want a $300-400 price point? Get a Carrizo-L with a 128GB SSD and a 720p IPS panel. Want $500-700 Price point? Get a Carrizo with dual-channel, 256GB SSD and 900p/1080p IPS screen.
joex4444 - Friday, February 5, 2016 - link
Anything under 1080p is simply not usable. All these 1366x768 panels are just awful. I have an old netbook with one (12.1") and I've put a small SSD in there and loaded it with Ubuntu. I cannot have a Google Hangouts window open and a web browser open wide enough to view most pages. Basic web browsing + IM - 1366x768 completely fails at the task.testbug00 - Friday, February 5, 2016 - link
768p panels are fine if they are good quality, in 11" laptops.900p good up to 13", and 1080p minimum for 14+.
Honestly I wish we stayed with 8:5 14x9, 16x10, 19x12z
jabber - Saturday, February 6, 2016 - link
Indeed, 768p is fine on my 11" Samsung Chromebook but I would not tolerate it on anything bigger. IMO 1600x900 should be the minimum screen res for budget machines. 1080p for midrange and whatever you like for higher end.jjpcat@hotmail.com - Monday, February 8, 2016 - link
Resolution is not as important as the quality of the panel. I used a Lenovo X1 Carbon. It has a 14" 1080p screen. But it's a TN panel and that just makes it a pain in the ass. I am amazed that Lenovo uses such a lousy panel in its $1k+ laptop while some 10" sub-$200 tablets use IPS.testbug00 - Friday, February 5, 2016 - link
Toshiba can make a $400 chromebook with a good 1080p display. Fully agreed.1080p panel, make it thicker so you can put a larger battery and so the laptop can handle up to 35W from the APU. Do dual channel.
When plugged change APU power mad to 35W, when in battery make it 15W. Probably can be done for $500 for a 15" laptop with an A8. $50/100 upgrade to 128/256GB SSD and $50/100 upgrade to A10/FX.
Dobson123 - Friday, February 5, 2016 - link
"The APU contains integrated ‘R6’ level graphics based on GCN 1.0, for 384 streaming processors at a frequency of 533 MHz."Isn't it GCN 1.1?