AMD Kaveri Review: A8-7600 and A10-7850K Tested
by Ian Cutress & Rahul Garg on January 14, 2014 8:00 AM ESTLlano, Trinity and Kaveri Die: Compared
AMD sent along a high res shot of Kaveri's die. Armed with the same from the previous two generations, we can get a decent idea of the progression of AMD's APUs:
Llano, K10 Quad Core
Trinity and Richland Die, with two Piledriver modules and processor graphics
Kaveri, two modules and processor graphics
Moving from Llano to Trinity, we have the reduction from a fully-fledged quad core system to the dual module layout AMD is keeping with its APU range. Moving from Richland to Kaveri is actually a bigger step than one might imagine:
| AMD APU Details | ||||
| Core Name | Llano | Trinity | Richland | Kaveri |
| Microarch | K10 | Piledriver | Piledriver | Steamroller |
| CPU Example | A8-3850 | A10-5800K | A10-6800K | A10-7850K |
| Threads | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 |
| Cores | 4 | 2 | 2 | 2 |
| GPU | HD 6550 | HD 7660D | HD 8670D | R7 |
| GPU Arch | VLIW5 | VLIW4 | VLIW4 | GCN 1.1 |
| GPU Cores | 400 | 384 | 384 | 512 |
| Die size / mm2 | 228 | 246 | 246 | 245 |
| Transistors | 1.178 B | 1.303 B | 1.303 B | 2.41 B |
| Power | 100W | 100W | 100W | 95W |
| CPU MHz | 2900 | 3800 | 4100 | 3700 |
| CPU Turbo | N/A | 4200 | 4400 | 4000 |
| L1 Cache |
256KB C$ 256KB D$ |
128KB C$ 64KB D$ |
128KB C$ 64KB D$ |
192KB C$ 64KB D$ |
| L2 Cache | 4 x 1MB | 2 x 2 MB | 2 x 2 MB | 2 x 2 MB |
| Node | 32nm SOI | 32nm SOI | 32nm SOI | 28nm SHP |
| Memory | DDR-1866 | DDR-1866 | DDR-2133 | DDR-2133 |
Looking back at Llano and Trinity/Richland, it's very clear that AMD's APUs on GF's 32nm SOI process had a real issue with transistor density. The table below attempts to put everything in perspective but keep in mind that, outside of Intel, no one does a good job of documenting how they are counting (estimating) transistors. My only hope is AMD's transistor counting methods are consistent across CPU and GPU, although that alone may be wishful thinking:
| Transistor Density Comparison | ||||||||
| Manufacturing Process | Transistor Count | Die Size | Transistors per mm2 | |||||
| AMD Kaveri | GF 28nm SHP | 2.41B | 245 mm2 | 9.837M | ||||
| AMD Richland | GF 32nm SOI | 1.30B | 246 mm2 | 5.285M | ||||
| AMD Llano | GF 32nm SOI | 1.178B | 228 mm2 | 5.166M | ||||
| AMD Bonaire (R7 260X) | TSMC 28nm | 2.08B | 160 mm2 | 13.000M | ||||
| AMD Pitcairn (R7 270/270X) | TSMC 28nm | 2.80B | 212 mm2 | 13.209M | ||||
| AMD Vishera (FX-8350) | GF 32nm SOI | 1.2B | 315 mm2 | 3.810M | ||||
| Intel Haswell 4C (GT2) | Intel 22nm | 1.40B | 177 mm2 | 7.910M | ||||
| NVIDIA GK106 (GTX 660) | TSMC 28nm | 2.54B | 214 mm2 | 11.869M | ||||
If AMD is indeed counting the same way across APUs/GPUs, the move to Kaveri doesn't look all that extreme but rather a good point in between previous APUs and other AMD GCN GPUs. Compared to standalone CPU architectures from AMD, it's clear that the APUs are far more dense thanks to big portions of their die being occupied by a GPU.
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HanzNFranzen - Saturday, January 18, 2014 - link
Yea, 90% of people use Battlefield 4 90% of their time on the PC... You missed the question.keveazy - Saturday, January 18, 2014 - link
Doesn't matter.If you buy a PC, it's better to make sure it's solid and ready to handle applications that require strong physical cpu performance unless your still living the 90s dude.
My point is, AMD's highest end kaveri 7850k chip today is priced at the same range as Intel's low end i5 cpus. From here, you take your pic. If you wanna have a system that has worse graphics than ps4, go AMD.
kmi187 - Sunday, January 19, 2014 - link
If you've actually lived in the 90's you would know that cpu power was a lot more important back then than it is now. You didn't have hardware (gpu) acceleration for video and all that jazz to put less stress on the cpu.Also you do realize the PS4 runs on AMD hardware right?
medi02 - Tuesday, January 28, 2014 - link
What on earth are you talking about? What is a "solid PC"? One that fails at games?cryptik - Monday, March 30, 2015 - link
Today (30 Mar 2015) the AMD A8-7600 is the same price ($99) as the Intel Pentium G3460. The "lowest end" i5 CPU is $189. You're simply a liar who has no idea what he's talking about.vAngz - Sunday, January 26, 2014 - link
I believe you and others are missing the point. Can you play Battlefield 4 on medium settings @ 1080p using only the i5 4430, without using a discrete graphics card, and it still be playable above 30fps?Even though the chips are the same price (at most places), you can actually play BF4 using only the A10 7850K, which is not possible with the i5 4430. I bring this up mainly because you brought up BF4. When, rather if, Mantle is ever activated on BF4, things will change and we will see even better performance on the A10-7850K and later gen AMD APUs.
So, yes, you can get better performance out of the i5 4430, but you will need to spend more money on a discrete graphics card to use it for gaming, such as for BF4. I believe this what sets the AMD APUs apart from Intel offerings at the moment. We need to compare apples to apples.
I could be wrong, but I haven't seen anywhere in my research where anyone is getting that kind of performance out of i5 4430 without a discrete graphics card added into the mix. If you have a link on such info please share it with us. Thanks.
keveazy - Friday, February 7, 2014 - link
Your not getting it either. My mistake in my previous post is I didn't mention Battlefield 4 Multiplayer.That's where the APU will fail. It will fail in both the Cpu performance and Gpu performance. The APU is still the better choice at light gaming.
theduckofdeath - Wednesday, January 15, 2014 - link
I think he's referencing that processor simply because it's a pretty powerful, fairly low-priced processor for all of those who can live without all of those over-clocker tweaks...just4U - Tuesday, January 14, 2014 - link
You talk about 2500K performance and yet the majority of people I come across are not even working with that. The vast majority are still in the C2D/8800 like performance arena. What would be nice to see from some of these review sites in their performance analysis is if stuff like this makes sense to finally bite the bullet and get rid of the old dog..just4U - Tuesday, January 14, 2014 - link
Ian .. that's something I think you should look at btw.. we do get a fair number of lurkers /w some posting up questions like that about how it compares to the old warhorses their on. Hell even for those of us with old parts kicking around it's something to consider. Do we scrounge up some cheap ddr2 psu.. hand me down hard drives and pair it up for that box in front of the television or do we say no.. this makes far more sense and it's new.