AMD Kaveri Review: A8-7600 and A10-7850K Tested
by Ian Cutress & Rahul Garg on January 14, 2014 8:00 AM ESTLlano, Trinity and Kaveri Die: Compared
AMD sent along a high res shot of Kaveri's die. Armed with the same from the previous two generations, we can get a decent idea of the progression of AMD's APUs:
Llano, K10 Quad Core
Trinity and Richland Die, with two Piledriver modules and processor graphics
Kaveri, two modules and processor graphics
Moving from Llano to Trinity, we have the reduction from a fully-fledged quad core system to the dual module layout AMD is keeping with its APU range. Moving from Richland to Kaveri is actually a bigger step than one might imagine:
| AMD APU Details | ||||
| Core Name | Llano | Trinity | Richland | Kaveri |
| Microarch | K10 | Piledriver | Piledriver | Steamroller |
| CPU Example | A8-3850 | A10-5800K | A10-6800K | A10-7850K |
| Threads | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 |
| Cores | 4 | 2 | 2 | 2 |
| GPU | HD 6550 | HD 7660D | HD 8670D | R7 |
| GPU Arch | VLIW5 | VLIW4 | VLIW4 | GCN 1.1 |
| GPU Cores | 400 | 384 | 384 | 512 |
| Die size / mm2 | 228 | 246 | 246 | 245 |
| Transistors | 1.178 B | 1.303 B | 1.303 B | 2.41 B |
| Power | 100W | 100W | 100W | 95W |
| CPU MHz | 2900 | 3800 | 4100 | 3700 |
| CPU Turbo | N/A | 4200 | 4400 | 4000 |
| L1 Cache |
256KB C$ 256KB D$ |
128KB C$ 64KB D$ |
128KB C$ 64KB D$ |
192KB C$ 64KB D$ |
| L2 Cache | 4 x 1MB | 2 x 2 MB | 2 x 2 MB | 2 x 2 MB |
| Node | 32nm SOI | 32nm SOI | 32nm SOI | 28nm SHP |
| Memory | DDR-1866 | DDR-1866 | DDR-2133 | DDR-2133 |
Looking back at Llano and Trinity/Richland, it's very clear that AMD's APUs on GF's 32nm SOI process had a real issue with transistor density. The table below attempts to put everything in perspective but keep in mind that, outside of Intel, no one does a good job of documenting how they are counting (estimating) transistors. My only hope is AMD's transistor counting methods are consistent across CPU and GPU, although that alone may be wishful thinking:
| Transistor Density Comparison | ||||||||
| Manufacturing Process | Transistor Count | Die Size | Transistors per mm2 | |||||
| AMD Kaveri | GF 28nm SHP | 2.41B | 245 mm2 | 9.837M | ||||
| AMD Richland | GF 32nm SOI | 1.30B | 246 mm2 | 5.285M | ||||
| AMD Llano | GF 32nm SOI | 1.178B | 228 mm2 | 5.166M | ||||
| AMD Bonaire (R7 260X) | TSMC 28nm | 2.08B | 160 mm2 | 13.000M | ||||
| AMD Pitcairn (R7 270/270X) | TSMC 28nm | 2.80B | 212 mm2 | 13.209M | ||||
| AMD Vishera (FX-8350) | GF 32nm SOI | 1.2B | 315 mm2 | 3.810M | ||||
| Intel Haswell 4C (GT2) | Intel 22nm | 1.40B | 177 mm2 | 7.910M | ||||
| NVIDIA GK106 (GTX 660) | TSMC 28nm | 2.54B | 214 mm2 | 11.869M | ||||
If AMD is indeed counting the same way across APUs/GPUs, the move to Kaveri doesn't look all that extreme but rather a good point in between previous APUs and other AMD GCN GPUs. Compared to standalone CPU architectures from AMD, it's clear that the APUs are far more dense thanks to big portions of their die being occupied by a GPU.
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boozed - Tuesday, January 14, 2014 - link
You must be a hoot at parties.boozed - Wednesday, January 15, 2014 - link
And I hit reply on the wrong bloody comment. My apologies...monsieurrigsby - Wednesday, January 29, 2014 - link
I'm a bit slow to the party, but talk of discrete GPUs leads me to the main question I still have that I don't see explained (possibly because the authors assume deeper understanding of CPU/GPU programming), and haven't seen discussed elsewhere. (I've not looked *that* hard...)If you have a Kaveri APU and a mid/high-end discrete GPU that won't work with Dual Graphics (if it arrives), what processing can and can't use the on-APU GPU? If we're talking games (the main scenario), what can developers offload onto the onboard GPU and what can't they? What depends on the nature of the discrete card (e.g., are modern AMD ones 'HSA enabled' in some way?)? If you *do* have a Dual Graphics capable discrete GPU, does this still limit what you can *explicitly* farm off to the onboard GPU?
My layman's guess is that GPU compute stuff can still be done but, without dual graphics, stuff to do with actual frame rendering can't. (I don't know enough about GPU programming to know how well-defined that latter bit is...)
It's just that that seems the obvious question for the gaming consumer: if I have a discrete card, in what contexts is the on-APU GPU 'wasted' and when could it be used (and how much depends on what the discrete card is)? And I guess the related point is how much effort is the latter, and so how likely are we to see elements of it?
Am I missing something that's clear?
monsieurrigsby - Wednesday, January 29, 2014 - link
Plus detail on Mantle seems to suggest that this might provide more control in this area? But are there certain types of things which would be *dependent* on Mantle?http://hothardware.com/News/How-AMDs-Mantle-Will-R...
nissangtr786 - Tuesday, January 14, 2014 - link
I told amd fanboys the fpu on intel and the raw mflops mips ofintel cpu destroy current a10 apus, its no real suprise all those improvement show very little in benchmarks with kaveri steamroller cores. amd fanboys said it will reach i5 2500k performance, I said i3 4130 but overall i3 4130 will be faster in raw performance and I am right. I personally have an i5 4430 and it looks like i5's still destroy these a10 apu in raw performance.http://browser.primatelabs.com/geekbench3/326781
browser.primatelabs.com/geekbench3/321256
a10-7850k Sharpen Filter Multi-core 5846 4.33 Gflops
browser.primatelabs.com/geekbench3/321256
i5 4430 Sharpen Filter Multi-core 11421 8.46 Gflops
gngl - Tuesday, January 14, 2014 - link
"I personally have an i5 4430 and it looks like i5's still destroy these a10 apu in raw performance."You seem to have a very peculiar notion of what "raw performance" means, if you're measuring it in terms of what one specific benchmark does with one specific part of the chip. There's nothing raw about a particular piece of code executing a specific real-world benchmark using a particular sequence of instructions.
chrnochime - Tuesday, January 14, 2014 - link
Who cares what CPU you have anyway. If you want to show off, tell us you have at least a 4670k and not a 4430. LOLkeveazy - Tuesday, January 14, 2014 - link
It's relevant that he used the i5 4430 in his comment. Compare the price range and you'll see. These AMD apu's are useless unless your just looking to build a PC that's not meant to handle heavily threaded tasks.tcube - Thursday, January 16, 2014 - link
Ok... heavily threaded tasks ok... examples! Give me one example of one software 90% of pc users use 90% of the time that this apu can't handle... then and ONLY then is the cpu relevant! Other then that it's just bragging rights and microseconds nobody cares about on a PC!Instead we do care to have a chip that plays anything from hd video to AAA 3d games and also is fast enough for anything else and don't need a gpu for extra cost, power usage heat and noise! And that ain't any intel that fits on a budget!
keveazy - Saturday, January 18, 2014 - link
I'll give you 1 example. Battlefield 4.