Who Controls the User Experience? AMD’s Carrizo Thoroughly Tested
by Ian Cutress on February 4, 2016 8:00 AM ESTBenchmark Results: Web and Synthetic
Here are our results from our web and synthetic tests. A reminder of our systems:
| System Overview | |||||
| µArch | APU | Base / Turbo MHz |
Memory | Channel | |
| HP Elitebook 745 G2 | Kaveri | A10 PRO-7350B (19W) | 2100 / 3300 | 8 GB | Dual |
| HP Elitebook 745 G3 | Carrizo | PRO A12-8800B (15W) | 2100 / 3400 | 4 GB | Single |
| Toshiba Satellite E45DW-C4210 |
Carrizo | FX-8800P (15W) | 2100 / 3400 | 8 GB | Single |
| HP Pavilion 17z-g100 |
Carrizo | A10-8700P (15W) | 1800 / 3200 | 8 GB | Single |
| Lenovo Y700 | Carrizo | FX-8800P (15W) | 2100 / 3400 | 16 GB | Single |
Google Octane 2.0
Lots of factors go into web development, including the tools used and the browser those tools play in. One of the common and widely used benchmarks to judge performance is Google Octane, now in version 2.0. To quote: 'The updated Octane 2.0 benchmark includes four new tests to measure new aspects of JavaScript performance, including garbage collection / compiler latency and asm.js-style JavaScript performance.' We run the test six times and take an average of the scores.
Octane splits hairs between the Kaveri and A10-8700P, but the Toshiba has the higher skin temperature and can turbo for longer than the Elitebook G3.
Mozilla Kraken 1.1
Kraken is a similar tool to Google, focusing on web tools and processing power. Kraken's tools include searching algorithms, audio processing, image filtering, flexible database parsing, and cryptographic routines.
Kraken mirrors Octane, except this time the A10-8700P gets a jump on the Kaveri.
WebXPRT 2013/2015
WebXPRT aims to be a souped up version of Octane and Kraken, using these tools in real time to display data in photograph enhancement, sorting, stock options, local storage manipulation, graphical enterfaces and even filtering algorithms on scientific datasets. We run the 2013 and 2015 versions of the benchmark.
In both versions of the benchmark, the Kaveri system beats all the 15W Carrizo platforms. It was inevitable that at some point during the benchmarking that those extra four watts of thermal headroom in the chip might allow the CPU to turbo for longer – as WebXPRT is by nature a bursty workload, if it can use this to its advantage then we’ll surely see a regression.
I want to pull out some power numbers a little early here to show what I mean. Here are the two Elitebooks in WebXPRT 2013, whose scores differ by 6%:
These power numbers were taken under the ‘all else equal rule’, so each screen was at the same brightness and almost zero applications requesting run time in the background. Here we see that the Carrizo system is drawing less power on average in idle and load (a common theme), but suffers from higher peak power draw and a much larger average-to-idle change in power (which can be overshadowed by onboard components coming out of sleep). It means we get the very uneasy metric of 1208.7 J of energy consumed for the Kaveri over idle and 1932.8 J of energy consumed for Carrizo, though it does depend on how much idle is truly idle across the whole SoC and platform.
This might be where the performance deficit lies though – in a Carrizo system that boasts lower power at idle and lower power draw on average, in a bursty workload environment it is actually wasting time and power to switch things on and off constantly.
Cinebench 15/11.5
Cinebench is a widely known benchmarking tool for measuring performance relative to MAXON's animation software Cinema 4D. Cinebench has been optimized over a decade and focuses on purely CPU horsepower, meaning if there is a discrepancy in pure throughput characteristics, Cinebench is likely to show that discrepancy. Arguably other software doesn't make use of all the tools available, so the real world relevance might purely be academic, but given our large database of data for Cinebench it seems difficult to ignore a small five minute test. We run the modern version 15 in this test, as well as the older 11.5 due to our back data.
Cinebench shows the spread of performance relating to the microarchitecture advantages of Carrizo compared to Kaveri, as well as the benefits that a 35W part can give over a 15W part. That being said, this spread of results, while perhaps an academic answer to ‘which is the fastest’ is not often seen in the real world.
x264 HD 3.0
The x264 HD 3.0 package we use here is also kept for historic regressional data. The latest version is 5.0.1, and encodes a 1080p video clip into a high quality x264 file. Version 3.0 only performs the same test on a 720p file, and in most circumstances hits its limit on high end processors, but still works well for mainstream and low-end. Also, this version only takes a few minutes, whereas the latest can take over 90 minutes to run.
As with Cinebench, we get an ideal academic spread of data.
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basicmath - Tuesday, February 9, 2016 - link
No it's really not, this laptop came from the factory with dual channel capability but that capability was not utilised because that would have shown the platform in a much better light, he even states that he checked the chips in the G2 to confirm that it was single channel. Upgrading the RAM on a laptop is a simple process that any end user can perform. The only discernible difference between the APU in the G2 & G3 is the number of GPU cores so why did he even bother testing the G3 without using dual channel configuration?Intel999 - Sunday, February 7, 2016 - link
@IanI look forward to that R-series test as it will provide a sneak peek at how much DDR4 relieves the bottleneck on integrated graphics when Bristol Ridge comes out.
That $70 Athlon X4 845 is intriguing as well.
AS118 - Saturday, February 6, 2016 - link
Good article (although to be fair, I mostly skimmed it), and I agree with the conclusions. AMD should try harder to make sure their high-end products are paired with good components. Single-channel ram, bad screens, and slow hard drives with an A10 or mobile FX defeats the purpose of having those higher end APU's.Plus, people will get a bad impression of AMD if a lot of them have poor trackpads, etc. I wish they'd make their own "signature" brand of laptops, and find someone to help make them a thing.
TheinsanegamerN - Thursday, February 11, 2016 - link
Both clevo and MSI have treated AMD well before, Im sure either would love to have exclusive rights to the high end AMD notebook.That being said, I doubt AMD has the intelligence to pull it off. They seem to be run by monkeys 90% of the time.
Cryio - Saturday, February 6, 2016 - link
I'm really sorry for AMD. Kaveri and Carizzo on mobile, when configured to the proper ram, cooling and when using the highest performing part ... would've provided awesome performance, compared to Haswell and Broadwell. But no one bothered.Bristol Ridge will basically be Carizzo with DDR4 support and since it will be even better binned 28 nm CPUs, maybe we'll get even higher frequency out of Excavator. As for GCN 2.0 GPUs ... it will be interesting to see.
I love my Surface Pro 4, even given the disaster that is Skylake drivers and Windows 10 horrible efficiency compared to W8.1. But MAN. I would've loved a proper Carrizo based Surface Pro/Book.
Gadgety - Saturday, February 6, 2016 - link
A confirmation, with in depth detail. Nice write up.Khenglish - Sunday, February 7, 2016 - link
I would have really liked to see some dual channel results, or at least pulling a memory stick from the Kaveri and Intel systems to get a fair comparison. AMD says Zen brings a 40% IPC improvement. It'd be great to have a baseline to see if that 40% improvement is enough. In the dual channel intel to single channel AMD comparisons it does not appear to be enough, but we don't know how big of a factor memory was.Jon Irenicus - Sunday, February 7, 2016 - link
I want to buy an amd part for my next notebook but as was mentioned in the article, oems only choose bargain basement platforms to put the amd inside. The elitebook is the one exception, along with the lenovo if you don't mind the bulk.But the elitebooks are super overpriced for what you get. They need to release an hp spectre version of a notebook with a zen apu, a dell xps notebook variant with an apu. Ideally, the models that include a discreet gpu should allow the apu to work in tandem.
In 2017 dx12 will be in full effect with games, and having two gpus working together by default could give a lot of amd equipped systems a larger edge, especially if the oversized ipc deficits between excavator and intel parts is minimized with zen.
The future really does rest on Zen, amd needs to laser focus on performance per watt and ipc, and equip the 2017 apus with polaris gpu parts or vega or whatever the first iterations will be called. That has to be the minimum. Put those in nice chassis with solid battery life and that is all they need.
Intel999 - Sunday, February 7, 2016 - link
In DX12 dual graphics will be automatic. Even an Intel Igpu combined with a discrete Nvidia or AMD GPU will "merge" the graphic capabilities in the laptop.Theoretically, an AMD APU combined with an AMD GPU might have an advantage as all graphics would be from the same underlying graphic architecture. Time will tell if this bares out.
Ryan Smith - Monday, February 8, 2016 - link
Note that it's only going to be as automatic as the game developer makes it, as devs will be responsible for implementing it. For the moment game devs are going to be the wildcard.