The AMD A8-7650K APU Review, Also New Testing Methodology
by Ian Cutress on May 12, 2015 10:00 AM ESTProfessional Performance: Windows
Agisoft Photoscan – 2D to 3D Image Manipulation: link
Agisoft Photoscan creates 3D models from 2D images, a process which is very computationally expensive. The algorithm is split into four distinct phases, and different phases of the model reconstruction require either fast memory, fast IPC, more cores, or even OpenCL compute devices to hand. Agisoft supplied us with a special version of the software to script the process, where we take 50 images of a stately home and convert it into a medium quality model. This benchmark typically takes around 15-20 minutes on a high end PC on the CPU alone, with GPUs reducing the time.
Photoscan prefers full threads and high IPC, so the low end i3, AMDs APUs and the G3258 all perform within a similar margin.
Cinebench R15
Cinebench is a benchmark based around Cinema 4D, and is fairly well known among enthusiasts for stressing the CPU for a provided workload. Results are given as a score, where higher is better.
Despite the single thread performance, in multithreaded the gap between Pentium, i3-T, APU and i3 is similar to that seen in Photoscan.
HandBrake v0.9.9: link
For HandBrake, we take two videos (a 2h20 640x266 DVD rip and a 10min double UHD 3840x4320 animation short) and convert them to x264 format in an MP4 container. Results are given in terms of the frames per second processed, and HandBrake uses as many threads as possible.
It's a similar story here, especially when we bring up 4K encoding in Handbrake. The APUs outperform the G3258 and the more expensive i3-T, but the i3-4330 is marginally quicker.
Hybrid x265
Hybrid is a new benchmark, where we take a 4K 1500 frame video and convert it into an x265 format without audio. Results are given in frames per second.
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testbug00 - Tuesday, May 12, 2015 - link
Well, Broadwell is supposed to be out in 2013 according to Tick Tock. So, Intel's at least 1.5 years to their party. However, doing smaller nodes is REALLY hard. So, hard to blame them.azazel1024 - Tuesday, May 12, 2015 - link
Err, no. Haswell was 2013 and Ivy was 2012. Broadwell would have been summer of 2014. It ended up being a mostly paper launch in late fall 2014, with parts meaningfully showing up winter of 2015 and Intel mentioned up front that Broadwell would be a mostly mobile release.So they are perhaps 6 months late on Broadwell, but unless something different happens, Intel is still claiming summer/fall for Skylake, which puts them right back on the original schedule (and probably also why Broadwell is limited, Intel has known about their 14nm node issues for awhile, so they limited it to get the node out there and more experience on it and then jumping in to Skylake with both feet).
Ian Cutress - Tuesday, May 12, 2015 - link
I have the i5-5200U here in a BRIX that I can test, though it's worth noting that the 5200U list price is $281, more than any APU.takeship - Tuesday, May 12, 2015 - link
I was just thinking it wouldn't be too far off as a total cost comparison - a tall body i5 nuc + win 8 license + ram and scrounged up HDD/ssd is just about $600, which isn't too far above what a simple box with this would run. And my suspicion is that you don't give up too much gfx perf going down to the i3 and saving a hundred. Bandwidth being the bottleneck that it is.Refuge - Tuesday, May 12, 2015 - link
This SKU is new, but the chip is just a re-badge.extide - Tuesday, May 12, 2015 - link
A rebadge from what, exactly? No... It's not a rebadge, its just a lower model sku in a lineup that we have already seen. That is not what a rebadge is. We have not seen this core in this (or a similar) config released with a different sku before.Edens_Remorse - Wednesday, May 27, 2015 - link
Quit confusing the ignorants(shut up spell check, it's a word).duploxxx - Tuesday, May 12, 2015 - link
untill by the end of the year you start to see DX12 benchmarking :) and this more power silicon gets a free bump.25W is btw the difference in just a light bulb near your desktop or the minimal powerconsumption you have of dedicated gpu for the lack of onboard Intel GPU power :)
Michael Bay - Tuesday, May 12, 2015 - link
Yes, while all the action is in mobile segment. Where, you guessed it, AMD has no foothold.Not even mentioning DX12 being largely irrelevant this AND next year outside of useless synthetics.
duploxxx - Wednesday, May 13, 2015 - link
Carrizo is all about Mobile :)useless synthetics and benchmarking is all where Intel shines, the result bares show only better result, reall life daily use you don't even notice.