AMD Carrizo Part 2: A Generational Deep Dive into the Athlon X4 845 at $70
by Ian Cutress on July 14, 2016 9:00 AM ESTGrand Theft Auto V
The highly anticipated iteration of the Grand Theft Auto franchise finally hit the shelves on April 14th 2015, with both AMD and NVIDIA in tow to help optimize the title. GTA doesn’t provide graphical presets, but opens up the options to users and extends the boundaries by pushing even the hardest systems to the limit using Rockstar’s Advanced Game Engine. Whether the user is flying high in the mountains with long draw distances or dealing with assorted trash in the city, when cranked up to maximum it creates stunning visuals but hard work for both the CPU and the GPU.
For our test we have scripted a version of the in-game benchmark, relying only on the final part which combines a flight scene along with an in-city drive-by followed by a tanker explosion. We record both the average frame rate and the percentage of frames under 60 FPS (16.6ms).
For this test we used the following settings with our graphics cards:
| Grand Theft Auto Settings | |||
| Resolution | Quality | ||
| Low GPU | Integrated Graphics | 1280x720 | Lowest |
| ASUS R7 240 1GB DDR3 | |||
| Medium GPU | MSI GTX 770 Lightning 2GB | 1920x1080 | Very High |
| MSI R9 285 Gaming 2G | |||
| High GPU | ASUS GTX 980 Strix 4GB | 1920x1080 | Very High |
| MSI R9 290X Gaming 4G | |||
We get a slightly different turn around with Grand Theft Auto: the game can use multiple cores in the Athlon X4 845 to get a better frame rate with the R9 285 and R9 290X. However with NVIDIA cards it seems that the cores matter less to the performance, and with these cards the Pentium gets the better frame rates.
![Grand Theft Auto V on ASUS R7 240 DDR3 2GB ($70) [Under 60 FPS]](https://images.anandtech.com/graphs/graph10436/82713.png)
![Grand Theft Auto V on MSI R9 285 Gaming 2GB ($240) [Under 60 FPS]](https://images.anandtech.com/graphs/graph10436/82721.png)
![Grand Theft Auto V on MSI GTX 770 Lightning 2GB ($245) [Under 60 FPS]](https://images.anandtech.com/graphs/graph10436/82731.png)
![Grand Theft Auto V on MSI R9 290X Gaming LE 4GB ($380) [Under 60 FPS]](https://images.anandtech.com/graphs/graph10436/82741.png)
![Grand Theft Auto V on ASUS GTX 980 Strix 4GB ($560) [Under 60 FPS]](https://images.anandtech.com/graphs/graph10436/82751.png)
When we look at the % of frames under 60 FPS, we see a similar story with the results that actually make a difference (R7 240, GTX 980).
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Meteor2 - Saturday, July 16, 2016 - link
Thanks. It's a little more complex than i3/5/7-nxxx, where n increments by one each generation...TheinsanegamerN - Monday, July 18, 2016 - link
cariizo cores use the excavator design. excavator is core design, carrizo is the product line.Mokona512 - Saturday, July 16, 2016 - link
Please do this test with the Phenom II series in order to understand the generational IPC changes, and also providing a better point of reference for the Zen CPUs. The Zen claims are based on IPC changes from a CPU series where there was a drop in IPC.Ian Cutress - Monday, July 18, 2016 - link
I recently redid a Phenom X6 in Bench, though that's absolute chip perf and not exactly what you're looking for, but it's there :)Elizabeth king - Sunday, July 17, 2016 - link
Love spell came out tremendously, I highly recommending robinson.buckler @ yahoo . com for whatever problems you are experiencing in your relationship. He is the real deal. his love spell is absolutely wonderful.lwatcdr - Sunday, July 17, 2016 - link
I find AMDs low cost offerings really interesting but this just doesn't work for me. The Carrizo on the desktop just seems too limiting. I wish that AMD would update the AM1 line. It is so inexpensive and can support a good number of PCIe lots. For things like a NAS, media pc, or even a Chrome box/low end pc they seem like a really good choice except that they have not been updated in years.silverblue - Monday, July 18, 2016 - link
Puma+ is kind of like what Atom did with their earlier Atoms, a more efficient version of Jaguar. I'm surprised that they didn't just lock the turbo and produce these in Jaguar's place, unless it's not cost-effective to do so.The cat cores are dead now, which is a shame as we never got to see how a dual channel memory interface would improve their performance.
Eris_Floralia - Monday, July 18, 2016 - link
Another great review. I've translated all articles about Bulldozer architecture into Chinese in order to let people know why it didn't success. I believe that an eight-core Steamroller or Excavator would be competitive, but that never comes out.TheinsanegamerN - Monday, July 18, 2016 - link
it wont be competitive, excavator is still far behind intel is performance and in TDP, and cant overclock at all. And it is still 28nm and cache limited.AMD really needs to kill the bulldozer line. It is AMD's netburst.
Eris_Floralia - Monday, July 18, 2016 - link
well, with some adjustments, steamroller can still reach high frequency. with additional L3 and larger L2, the problem with excavator may get solved. I mean that latest bulldozer architecture can do better than present piledriver, but the improvement obiviously doesnt worth a try.