AMD Kaveri Review: A8-7600 and A10-7850K Tested
by Ian Cutress & Rahul Garg on January 14, 2014 8:00 AM ESTIntegrated GPU Performance: Sleeping Dogs
Sleeping Dogs is a benchmarking wet dream – a highly complex benchmark that can bring the toughest setup and high resolutions down into single figures. Having an extreme SSAO setting can do that, but at the right settings Sleeping Dogs is highly playable and enjoyable. We run the basic benchmark program laid out in the Adrenaline benchmark tool, and their three default settings of Performance (1280x1024, Low), Quality (1680x1050, Medium/High) and Xtreme (1920x1080, Maximum) noting down the average frame rates and the minimum frame rates.
Sleeping Dogs, Performance Settings
All the AMD APUs tested for this review manage to go above 30 FPS for Sleeping Dogs, with the top end APU nudging at the door of 60 FPS average.
Sleeping Dogs, Quality Settings
The GCN based Kaveri take the top two IGP spots, and Iris Pro is moving down the list by comparison.
Sleeping Dogs, Xtreme Settings
Iris Pro struggles a lot at 1080p in Sleeping Dogs.
Integrated GPU Performance: Company of Heroes 2
The final gaming benchmark is another humdinger. Company of Heroes 2 also can bring the house down, even at very basic benchmark settings. To get an average 30 FPS at any settings using integrated graphics is a challenge, let alone a minimum frame rate of 30 FPS. For this benchmark I use modified versions of Ryan’s batch files more suited for integrated graphics: 1280x1024 on minimum; 1680x1050 on Low and 1920x1080 on Medium.
Company of Heroes 2, Performance Settings
COH2 is demanding enough that even at 1280x1024 and low settings, no platform we tested today can hit 30 FPS average. The 95W Kaveri part does however outshine Richland by almost 25%.
Company of Heroes 2, Quality Settings
Company of Heroes 2, Xtreme Settings
With COH2 extreme settings, the Intel solutions are moving up the minimum FPS ranks to beat AMD.
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dbcoopernz - Tuesday, January 14, 2014 - link
I'd like an APU with enough GPU power to run all the high quality options in MadVR. Would make a very nice HTPC chip.thomascheng - Tuesday, January 14, 2014 - link
I think Mantle can make that happen, but will see how much support they get.MrSpadge - Tuesday, January 14, 2014 - link
Mantle has nothing to do with GP-GPU, that's not using DirectX anyway.JDG1980 - Tuesday, January 14, 2014 - link
My discrete 7750 couldn't handle Jinc scaling in MadVR (at least not without dropping frames on some 1080i test clips), so this is going to be another generation or two in the future.The PS4 APU could probably do it, if that was available in a generic PC form factor.
MrSpadge - Tuesday, January 14, 2014 - link
Add to that DDR4 and/or 4 memory channels, or at least a large on-package buffer like Crystal Well.yankeeDDL - Wednesday, January 15, 2014 - link
But the whole point of HSA is to get the GPU to do CPU work that it could do better (like FP).So you wouldn't need more CPU cores at all.
Look at it this way: AMD's CPU is less efficient than Intel's, while the GPU is more efficient.
Having a CPU-imbalanced APU, would put it in a tough(er) spot to compete against Intel. A GPU imbalanced, as Kaveri is, would improve the lead than it already has on the GPU side.
Now imagine that HSA kicks in, and the GPU lead translates directly in CPU lead ...
mikato - Wednesday, January 15, 2014 - link
This is true. I hope we see more articles as adoption of HSA starts to take hold.It is too bad they are far behind in CPU power, but AMD has the right strategy. Either way, some things are better done on the GPU. AMD just has more benefit than Intel to get things moving that way sooner with their GPU advantage and CPU disadvantage. Intel will have no choice but to follow that lead.
nissangtr786 - Tuesday, January 14, 2014 - link
http://www.extremetech.com/computing/174632-amd-ka...hsa does well on amd main thing they marketed in libreoffice.
Ryan Smith - Tuesday, January 14, 2014 - link
I'm normally not one to speak about other articles, but those are all OpenCL benchmarks. The OpenCL HSA driver won't be released for another quarter. And the HSA SDK is similarly far off.http://www.anandtech.com/show/7677/amd-kaveri-revi...
krumme - Tuesday, January 14, 2014 - link
What a bencmark of a review. I learned a lot. Great. Thanx.