AMD Kaveri Review: A8-7600 and A10-7850K Tested
by Ian Cutress & Rahul Garg on January 14, 2014 8:00 AM ESTIntegrated GPU Performance: BioShock Infinite
The first benchmark in our test is Bioshock Infinite, Zero Punctuation’s Game of the Year for 2013. Bioshock Infinite uses the Unreal Engine 3, and is designed to scale with both cores and graphical prowess. We test the benchmark using 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.
Bioshock Infinite, Performance Settings
For BI: Performance we see the Iris Pro being top of the IGPs, although the next six in the list are all AMD. The Kaveri cores are all between the 6800K and 5800K for this test, and all comfortably above 60 FPS average.
Bioshock Infinite, Quality Settings
For the quality settings, the Iris Pro starts to struggle and all the R7 based Kaveri APUs jump ahead of the A10-6800K - the top two over the Iris Pro as well.
Bioshock Infinite, Xtreme Settings
The bigger the resolution, the more the Iris Pro suffers, and Kaveri takes three out of the top four IGP results.
Integrated GPU Performance: Tomb Raider
The second benchmark in our test is Tomb Raider. Tomb Raider is an AMD optimized game, lauded for its use of TressFX creating dynamic hair to increase the immersion in game. Tomb Raider uses a modified version of the Crystal Engine, and enjoys raw horsepower. We test the benchmark using 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.
Tomb Raider, Performance Settings
The top IGP for Richland and Kaveri are trading blows in TR.
Tomb Raider, Quality Settings
The Iris Pro takes a small lead, while the Kaveri 95W APU show little improvement over Richland. The 45W APU however is pushing ahead.
Tomb Raider, Xtreme Settings
At the maximum resolution, the top Kaveri overtakes Iris Pro, and the 45W Kaveri it still a good margin ahead of the A10-6700T.
Integrated GPU Performance: F1 2013
Next up is F1 2013 by Codemasters. I am a big Formula 1 fan in my spare time, and nothing makes me happier than carving up the field in a Caterham, waving to the Red Bulls as I drive by (because I play on easy and take shortcuts). F1 2013 uses the EGO Engine, and like other Codemasters games ends up being very playable on old hardware quite easily. In order to beef up the benchmark a bit, we devised the following scenario for the benchmark mode: one lap of Spa-Francorchamps in the heavy wet, the benchmark follows Jenson Button in the McLaren who starts on the grid in 22nd place, with the field made up of 11 Williams cars, 5 Marussia and 5 Caterham in that order. This puts emphasis on the CPU to handle the AI in the wet, and allows for a good amount of overtaking during the automated benchmark. We test at three different levels again: 1280x1024 on Low, 1680x1050 on Medium and 1920x1080 on Ultra. Unfortunately due to various circumstances we do not have Iris Pro data for F1 2013.
F1 2013, Performance Settings
F1 likes AMD here, although moving from Kaveri to Richland at the high end seems a bit of a regression.
F1 2013, Quality Settings
Similarly in the Quality settings, none of the Intel integrated graphics solutions can keep up with AMD, especially Kaveri.
F1 2013, Xtreme Settings
On extreme settings, at 1080p, the top Kaveri APU manages to hit over 30 FPS average during the benchmark. The other A8 Kaveri data is not too far behind.
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HanzNFranzen - Saturday, January 18, 2014 - link
Yea, 90% of people use Battlefield 4 90% of their time on the PC... You missed the question.keveazy - Saturday, January 18, 2014 - link
Doesn't matter.If you buy a PC, it's better to make sure it's solid and ready to handle applications that require strong physical cpu performance unless your still living the 90s dude.
My point is, AMD's highest end kaveri 7850k chip today is priced at the same range as Intel's low end i5 cpus. From here, you take your pic. If you wanna have a system that has worse graphics than ps4, go AMD.
kmi187 - Sunday, January 19, 2014 - link
If you've actually lived in the 90's you would know that cpu power was a lot more important back then than it is now. You didn't have hardware (gpu) acceleration for video and all that jazz to put less stress on the cpu.Also you do realize the PS4 runs on AMD hardware right?
medi02 - Tuesday, January 28, 2014 - link
What on earth are you talking about? What is a "solid PC"? One that fails at games?cryptik - Monday, March 30, 2015 - link
Today (30 Mar 2015) the AMD A8-7600 is the same price ($99) as the Intel Pentium G3460. The "lowest end" i5 CPU is $189. You're simply a liar who has no idea what he's talking about.vAngz - Sunday, January 26, 2014 - link
I believe you and others are missing the point. Can you play Battlefield 4 on medium settings @ 1080p using only the i5 4430, without using a discrete graphics card, and it still be playable above 30fps?Even though the chips are the same price (at most places), you can actually play BF4 using only the A10 7850K, which is not possible with the i5 4430. I bring this up mainly because you brought up BF4. When, rather if, Mantle is ever activated on BF4, things will change and we will see even better performance on the A10-7850K and later gen AMD APUs.
So, yes, you can get better performance out of the i5 4430, but you will need to spend more money on a discrete graphics card to use it for gaming, such as for BF4. I believe this what sets the AMD APUs apart from Intel offerings at the moment. We need to compare apples to apples.
I could be wrong, but I haven't seen anywhere in my research where anyone is getting that kind of performance out of i5 4430 without a discrete graphics card added into the mix. If you have a link on such info please share it with us. Thanks.
keveazy - Friday, February 7, 2014 - link
Your not getting it either. My mistake in my previous post is I didn't mention Battlefield 4 Multiplayer.That's where the APU will fail. It will fail in both the Cpu performance and Gpu performance. The APU is still the better choice at light gaming.
theduckofdeath - Wednesday, January 15, 2014 - link
I think he's referencing that processor simply because it's a pretty powerful, fairly low-priced processor for all of those who can live without all of those over-clocker tweaks...just4U - Tuesday, January 14, 2014 - link
You talk about 2500K performance and yet the majority of people I come across are not even working with that. The vast majority are still in the C2D/8800 like performance arena. What would be nice to see from some of these review sites in their performance analysis is if stuff like this makes sense to finally bite the bullet and get rid of the old dog..just4U - Tuesday, January 14, 2014 - link
Ian .. that's something I think you should look at btw.. we do get a fair number of lurkers /w some posting up questions like that about how it compares to the old warhorses their on. Hell even for those of us with old parts kicking around it's something to consider. Do we scrounge up some cheap ddr2 psu.. hand me down hard drives and pair it up for that box in front of the television or do we say no.. this makes far more sense and it's new.