The AMD A8-7670K APU Review: Aiming for Rocket League
by Ian Cutress on November 18, 2015 8:00 AM ESTAMD A8-7670K Conclusion
We have tested all of the new AMD APUs as they have trickled into the market, but there are a few obvious points that come up from comments and forums when we discuss them. To start, the base architecture in these APUs, though part of the Kaveri or Kaveri Refresh family, debuted in January 2014, making it nearly two years old. The underlying design that has been iterated upon three times for Kaveri — Bulldozer — is now four years old, released in October 2011. For all intents and purposes, because these processors are AMD’s latest desktop offerings, they are compared to Intel’s latest counterparts.
Despite AMD’s push into using their heterogeneous system architecture platform as a way to accelerate day-to-day tasks that involve any vector calculations (JPEG decode, video playback), as most benchmark workloads will show, the AMD APUs come out slower on the pure CPU aspect, and they're power-hungry due to the 28-nm lithography node on which they are produced (particularly compared to Intel's latest 14-nm node). I was at an event earlier this year where a technology journalist told AMD up front that they considered the 28-nm processors hot and slow, and that users were not likely to be interested in them.
To combat what AMD sees as an pervasive dislike of the platform, AMD has been focusing on three talking points in their marketing message in order to communicate the areas where they believe they have an advantage. This is, by its nature, a bit of a spiel on AMD's part, but at the same time, there are some nuggets of truth in these claims, as illustrated by our benchmark results.
AMD's first talking point is, of course, price. AMD considers their processors very price-competitive, especially for low-cost systems when you consider performance as a function of total system cost. AMD's second talking point is on the power-consumption issue. For some time now, AMD's line has been that they don't believe that most users think about power consumption when gaming, suggesting that for the markets they are targeting, it might not be an issue to begin with. AMD's third talking point is on graphics performance, where AMD believes that their integrated graphics (or dual graphics with an R7 discrete card) will easily win on price and performance, especially for e-sports titles currently favored by budget gamers.
For the validity of AMD's talking points, we can verify Nos. 1 and 3 with our benchmarks, dollar for dollar. Especially when a dual graphics profile for a game exists, the gaming performance will be better for the same price. However, one might argue that relatively few users use a PC just for games, and items such as JavaScript/HTML5 performance for social media interaction is also important, with this being the main barrier low-frequency APUs have to compete against (in comparison to equally priced Intel counterparts). As for talking point No. 2, it's debatable whether users really care about the power consumption of their system during gaming. A personal thought for this would be if the system fans were to spin up, then maybe it would play on the mind, especially if the system is being used to watch a film or play music. But typically, users concerned with this sort of power consumption tend to be over 25 years old and can afford to be more selective with their purchases, as opposed to e-sports gamers on tight budgets. Nevertheless, some users will wholeheartedly disagree.
Ultimately these points lie at the heart of AMD’s dilemma. On one hand, many users will avoid an APU due to specifications or experience, no matter the budget. On the other hand, AMD has a tight space to work in, but there are areas where their APUs hold an edge over Intel's CPUs. The trick for AMD right now is convincing skeptical buyers of this.
If we look beyond today’s review, everyone who cares about CPU performance is hoping that AMD's new microarchitecture in 2016, Zen, allows AMD to catch up to Intel in raw CPU performance. At present, AMD has released slides claiming a 40% increase in IPC for their new design. If AMD can deliver on their performance goals then this should significantly improve their standing as far as x86 CPU performance goes, though this will initially be aimed at the high-performance market. Otherwise for budget users or the e-sports crowd, we will have to wait and see what the Zen microarchitecture brings and how it will be implemented for APUs.
Until then, AMD's APUs still win for that Rocket League style of player, beating any equivalent Intel implementation at the same price. The A8-7670K, with a minor recent discount to $100, is essentially the center point of that APU stack, on AMD's latest process design tweaks. We overclocked our sample to 4.6 GHz, but your mileage may vary.
On a personal note, as you might expect, I build systems for my family. My father, who wanted an audio workstation, had a big enough budget to consider something with many cores and hyperthreading, focusing on low audio latency and a configuration that used software that took advantage of that. I've mentioned in these reviews that I outfitted my 15-year-old cousin-in-law with an APU and a discrete card for a small cheap dual graphics system that probably cost $400 or so. With it, he does school work, talks to his friends and plays a range of MOBA and MMO games without issues. He's rather happy with it.
For future reference, all of our regular benchmark results can also be found in our benchmark engine, Bench.
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Ian Cutress - Wednesday, November 18, 2015 - link
It's a 95W desktop part. It's not geared for laptops or NUCs. There are 65W desktop parts with TDP Down modes to 45W, and lower than that is the AM1 platform for socketed. Carrizo at 15W/35W for soldered such as laptops and NUC-like devices.Vesperan - Wednesday, November 18, 2015 - link
Apologies if I missed it - but what speed was the memory running at for the APUs?The table near the start just said 'JEDEC' and linked to the G-skill/Corsair websites. This is important given these things are bandwidth constrained - the difference between 1600mhz and 2133mhz can be significant (over 20 percent).
tipoo - Wednesday, November 18, 2015 - link
2133mhz, page 2Ian Cutress - Wednesday, November 18, 2015 - link
We typically run the CPUs at their maximum supported memory frequency (which is usually quoted as JEDEC specs with respect to sub-timings). So the table on the front page for AMD processors is relevant, and our previous reviews on Intel parts (usually DDR3-1600 C11 or DDR4-2133 C15) will state those.A number of people disagree with this approach ('but it runs at 2666!' or 'no-one runs JEDEC!'). For most enthuiasts, that may be true. But next time you're at a BYOC LAN, go see how many people are buying high speed memory but not implementing XMP. You may be suprised - people just putting parts together and assuming they just work.
Also, consider that the CPU manufacturers would put the maximum supported frequency up if they felt that it should be validated at that speed. It's a question of silicon, yields, and DRAM markets. Companies like Kingston and Micron still sell masses of DDR3-1600. Other customers just care about the density of the memory, not the speed. It's an odd system, and by using max-at-JEDEC it keeps it fair between Intel, AMD or others: if a manufacturer wants a better result, they should release a part with a higher supported frequency.
I don't think we've done a DRAM scaling review on Kaveri or Kaveri Refresh, which is perhaps an oversight on my part. Our initial samples had issues with high speed memory - maybe I should put this one from 1600 up to 2666 if it will do it.
Oxford Guy - Wednesday, November 18, 2015 - link
SInce you always overclock processor is makes little sense to hold back an APU with slow RAM.Oxford Guy - Wednesday, November 18, 2015 - link
It's not just the bandwidth, either (like 2666) but the combination of that and latency. My FX runs faster in Aida benches, for the most part, at CAS 9-11-10-1T 2133 (DDR3) than at 2400, probably due to limitations of the board (which is rated for 20000. Don't just focus on high clocks.Oxford Guy - Wednesday, November 18, 2015 - link
rated for 2000Ian Cutress - Thursday, November 19, 2015 - link
Off the bat, that's a false equivalence - we only overclocked in this review to see how far it would go, not for the general benchmark set.But to reiterate a variation on what I've already said to you before:
For DDR3, if I was to run AMD at 2666 and Intel at 1600, people would complain. If I was to run both at DDR3-2133, AMD users would complain because I'm comparing overclocked DRAM perf to stock perf.
Most users/SIs don't overclock - that's the reality.
If AMD or Intel wanted better performance, they'd rate the DRAM controller for higher and offer multiple SKUs.
They do it with CPUs all the time through binning and what you can actually buy.
e.g. 6700k and 6600k - they don't sell a 6600k at 2133 and 6600k at 2400 for example.
This is why we test out of the box for our main benchmark results.
If they did do separate SKUs with different memory controller specifications, we would test update the dataset accordingly with both sets, or the most popular/important set at any rate.
Besides, anyone following CPU reviews at AT will know your opinion on the matter, you've made that abundantly clear in other reviews. We clearly disagree. But if you want to run the AIDA synthetics on your overclocked system, great - it totally translates into noticeable real-world performance gains for sure.
Vesperan - Thursday, November 19, 2015 - link
Thanks Ian - I missed than when quickly going through the story this morning prior to work. Yet somehow picked out the JEDEC bit!I like the approach you've outlined, it makes sense to me. So - for what it's worth, you have support of at least one irrelevant person on the internet!
From what I saw from a few websites (Phoronix springs to mind) the gains from memory scaling decline rapidly after 2133mhz.
CaedenV - Wednesday, November 18, 2015 - link
I just don't understand the argument for buying AMD these days. Computers are not things you replace every 3-5 years anymore. In the post Core2 world systems last at least a good 7-10 years of usefulness, where simple updates of SSDs and GPUs can keep systems up to date and 'good enough' for all but the most pressing workloads. People need to stop sweating about how much the up-front cost of a system is, and start looking at what tier it performs at, and finding a way to get their budget to stretch to that level.I don't mean starting with a $500 build and stretching your wallet (or worse, your credit card) to purchase a $1200 system. I'm not some elitist rich guy; I understand the need to stick to a budget. But the difference between AMD and Intel in price is not very much, while the Intel chip is going to run cooler, quieter, and faster. Spending the extra $50 for the Intel chip and compatible motherboard is not going to break the bank.
Because lets face it; pretty much everyone is going to fall in one of 2 camps.
1) you are not going to game much at all, and the integrated Intel graphics, while not stellar, are going to be 'good enough' to run solitaire, phone game ports, 4K video, and a few other things. In this case the system price is going to be essentially the same, the video performance is going to be more than adequate, and the i3 is going to knock the socks off of the A8 5+ years down the road.
2) You actually do play 'real' games on a regular basis, and the integrated A8 graphics are going to be a bonus to you for the first 2-6 months while you save up for a dGPU anyways... in which case the video performance is going to be nearly identical between the i3 and A8, while the i3 is going to be much more responsive in your day-to-day browsing, work, and media consumption. Or, you are going to find that you outgrow what an i3 or A8 can do, and you end up building a much faster i5 or i7 based system... in which case the i3 will either retain it's resale value better, or will make a much better foundation for a home server, non-gaming HTPC, or some other use.
I really want to love AMD, but after cost of ownership and longevity of the system is taken into consideration, they just do not make sense to purchase even in the budget category. The only place where AMD makes sense is if you absolutely have to have the GPU horsepower, but cannot have a dGPU in the system for some reason. And even in that case, the bump up to an A10 is going to be well worth the extra few $$. There is almost no use in getting anything slower than an A10 on the AMD side.
But then again, AMD is working hard these days to reinvent themselves. Maybe 2 years from now this will all turn around and AMD will have more worthwhile products on the market that are useful for something.