AMD Launches Mobile Kaveri APUs
by Jarred Walton on June 4, 2014 12:01 AM ESTAMD Kaveri FX-7600P GPU Performance Preview
Given the 3DMark results we just showed as well as the increase in CPU performance, I was very interested to see what Kaveri could do in terms of gaming performance. Here I have to temper my comments somewhat by simply noting that the graphics drivers on the prototype laptops did not appear to be fully optimized. One game in particular that I tested (Batman: Arkham Origins) seemed to struggle more than I expected, and there are other games (Metro: Last Light and Company of Heroes 2) that will bring anything short of a mainstream dGPU to its knees. I've posted the Kaveri Mainstream and Enthusiast scores in Mobile Bench, but they're not particularly useful as most of the scores are below 30 FPS. Here, I'll focus on our "Value" settings, which are actually still quite nice looking (Medium detail in most games).
As expected, in most of the tests the Kaveri APU is able to surpass the gaming performance of every other iGPU, and in some cases it even comes moderately close to a discrete mainstream dGPU. There's a sizeable gap between the Trinity/Richland APUs and Kaveri in most of the games I tested, which is great news for those looking for a laptop that won't break the bank but can still run most modern games.
Getting into the particulars, Skyrim seems to be hitting some bottleneck (possibly CPU, though even then I'd expect Kaveri to be faster than Richland), but the vast majority of games should run at more than 30 FPS. There was one system with a pre-release Mantle driver installed that was running Battlefield 4 reasonably well at low/medium details, and with shipping laptops and drivers (and perhaps DDR3-2133 RAM) I suspect even Metro might get close to 30 FPS. Of course, we're only looking at the top performance FX-7600P here, so we'll have to see what the various 19W APUs are able to manage in similar tests.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
125 Comments
View All Comments
kirilmatt - Friday, June 6, 2014 - link
These chips are an amazing step for AMD. They have moved from i3-level CPU performance up to i5 level in some cases. People seem to neglect the potential of dual graphics in these laptops. With a GCN GPU, big gains could be seen. There would be less energy usage for more performance in games. The 19W FX looks like the best chip that they offer. AMDs previous ULV offerings have been dead awful. The OEMs are sure to ruin it though by putting them in inferior hardware.MLSCrow - Friday, June 6, 2014 - link
Just think about this...considering that Kaveri is actually a pretty decent APU, especially for the mobile market, just imaging what Carrizo is going to be like. I honestly believe that Carrizo will be the first APU that will actually be considerable in terms of an enthusiast gaming laptop/ultrabook. When AMD moves to 20nm, we will finally have HD7870 performance in an iGPU and that is when APU's will completely take over the market as that puts out acceptable performance even for a hardcore gamers.Add to that an all new x86 core built from the ground up by Jim Keller, mixed with a 16nm process by the time it comes out...and hell, we may even get what all AMD fans are dreaming of right now, an 8 or 16 core APU with the iGPU performance equivalent of an HD7970 or perhaps even R9-290x.
johnny_boy - Saturday, June 7, 2014 - link
The 19W FX part is nice. These make great chips for linux laptops since you get good gpu performance without having to deal with dual graphics and graphics switching, a horrendous affair on linux (though improving). If they put this in a moderately well-built machine in the $600-800...UtilityMax - Sunday, June 8, 2014 - link
The tests are kind of meaningless. As others pointed out, AT compares AMD's 35W TDP part with Intel's 18W TDP designs. Moreover, those lower power Intel CPUs are dual core while the Kaveri A10s are quad core. Bring Intel's mobile quad core i7 or at least a 35W Core i5 (dual core) part, and there'd be no comparison. AMD would be far behind in any bench that doesn't use GPU.Andrew H - Wednesday, August 13, 2014 - link
After reading, I was a bit disappointed that that didn't have the socket type. After doing some digging, those of us currently using the 5750M (Socket FS1r2) will NOT be able to swap in the new FX-7600P (Socket BGA/FP3).Shame, guess I'll have to wait for MSI to get on the bandwagon and I can order a motherboard/cpu combo that fits in their universal 17" chassis.
Source: http://www.cpu-world.com/CPUs/Bulldozer/AMD-FX-Ser...