AMD Kaveri Review: A8-7600 and A10-7850K Tested
by Ian Cutress & Rahul Garg on January 14, 2014 8:00 AM ESTCPU Performance
I often make a big song and dance about real world benchmarks being the main focus of a reviewer. Synthetics often stress parts of the CPU and distort advantages that a CPU might have and thus not affect you or me in the same manner when using the machine normally. For 2014 I have updated my usual benchmarking set, to include more video encoding and an image converter that takes 2D images and performs algorithms to convert the data into a 3D model. Some 2013 benchmarks are still here, showing what can be done, and to bring parity to previous CPU reviews, some synthetics are also included.
Agisoft Photoscan v1.0 - link
Our new main benchmark to AnandTech is provided by Agisoft. Their Photoscan software 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.
AMD suffers in overall time due to the lack of full-blooded cores and the reliance on single threaded performance in certain parts of the algorithm.
The second stage of the benchmark can be accelerated by the IGP of an APU, and as a result we can see the power of the high end APUs for this work can outshine any CPU we tested today. This is really the promise of HSA, it's just going to take a while to get there for most apps.
3D Particle Movement - link
3DPM is a self-penned benchmark, taking basic 3D movement algorithms used in Brownian Motion simulations and testing them for speed. High floating point performance, MHz and IPC wins in the single thread version, whereas the multithread version has to handle the threads and loves more cores.
AMD is still suffering a lack of FP performance in our 3DPM benchmark.
WinRAR 5.01 - link
Our WinRAR test from 2013 is updated to the latest version of WinRAR at the start of 2014. We compress a set of 2867 files across 320 folders totaling 1.52 GB in size – 95% of these files are small typical website files, and the rest (90% of the size) are small 30 second 720p videos.
WinRAR loves IPC from the high end Intel chips, but even against the older i5-2500K there is still a deficit. The 45W Kaveri APU however is within fighting distance of its main rival.
FastStone Image Viewer 4.9 - link
Similarly to WinRAR, the FastStone test us updated for 2014 to the latest version. FastStone is the program I use to perform quick or bulk actions on images, such as resizing, adjusting for color and cropping. In our test we take a series of 170 images in various sizes and formats and convert them all into 640x480 .gif files, maintaining the aspect ratio. FastStone does not use multithreading for this test, and thus single threaded performance is often the winner.
FastStone wants single threaded performance, so Intel wins here again.
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Calinou__ - Saturday, January 25, 2014 - link
The consoles use lower level APIs, way more optimized.dsmogor - Friday, January 24, 2014 - link
From a distance the Amd architecture actually looks a lot like PS3 Cell SOC: number of CPU cores + VLIV modules that access the same bus and memory. If the GPU cores have some sort of manageable local memory (dunno) I clearly see why Sony have choosen that for their next gen.Houdhaifa - Saturday, January 25, 2014 - link
nice performanceTheyear - Sunday, January 26, 2014 - link
hixtremesv - Tuesday, January 28, 2014 - link
I'd rather give your grandpa a FX-4300 + GT640 GDDR5 roughly for the same price as A10-7850K and even better, for $20 more you ditch the FX-4300 for a FX-8120.thomascheng - Tuesday, January 28, 2014 - link
You can get the 7850K from Microcenter for 129.00 right now, its only for a limited time. I think I'll bite at the price point.neal.a.nelson - Tuesday, January 28, 2014 - link
No, that's the 6800K. The 7850K isn't even on the main AMD page.The AMD A10-7700K Unlocked Black Edition
10 Computer Cores (4 CPU + 6 GPU)
Features AMD Radeon™ R7 Graphics
AMD TrueAudio Technology for immersive audio 9
AMD A10-7700K
$159.99
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AMD A10-6800K
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rrgg - Sunday, February 2, 2014 - link
Is there a stated release date for the A8-7600 (Kaveri)? I know it was pushed out but to when? Thanks.Novaguy - Wednesday, February 12, 2014 - link
Hmmm, any news about the a8-7600 availability? Or mobile parts?What I am really curious about is the performance of a kaveri a8 + r9-290m (aka 7970m/8970m rebadge) in a laptop (such as the msi model that was reviewed on anandtech). Will that get of the frame throttling that was going on in that msi laptop?
DoctorBurp - Thursday, February 20, 2014 - link
It is interesting to see how computers involved into having two “brains”: The CPU which works sequentially and is generally better with small amount of data, and the GPU which works parallel and is generally better with large amount of data.Us humans also tend to have two ways of thinking, and to demonstrate it let us talk about decisions making. When dealing with small amount of information we tend to take the sequential route: We investigate, write notes , explorer in depth and operate in a step by step manner it order to make the right choice. However when dealing with large amount of information it is impossible to remember each and every detail and investigating turns to be a tedious work. This is when we turn to our gut feeling, our intuition, and at the end make a decision because it “feels right”. This feeling is a result of a processing which took place backstage in areas like our sub subconscious, which as far as we know it works in a parallel way.
Since computers have been invented by humans, and for the most part reflect the way WE think, it is not surprising to find these similarities. I for instance find it fascinating and funny at the same time :) Maybe by trying to imitate the way we think we will end up understanding our self better…
Just thought of sharing it with you all.