The AMD A8-7650K APU Review, Also New Testing Methodology
by Ian Cutress on May 12, 2015 10:00 AM ESTAMD A8-7650K Conclusion
I've mentioned the story before, but last summer I built a system for my cousin-in-law out of spare parts. His old system, ancient and slow even by the standards when they were made, was still used for basic online browsing and school work. He had no budget, and I cobbled together an MSI motherboard, some DDR3, a mid-range Trinity APU (A8-5500), an AMD GPU and an SSD for him. Understandably he can now play CS:Go, DOTA2, Watch_Dogs and the like at semi reasonable settings in dual graphics mode, as well as watch videos without the processor grinding to a halt. He even plays GTA V at normal settings at his native resolution of 1440x900. The total system budget, if purchased new, would have been around the $300 mark, or console territory. We reused the case and power supply, and he bought a new storage drive, but for his use case it was a night and day change. Building the equivalent system on an Intel backbone would have been a stretch or it would have ended up substituting gaming performance (my cousin-in-law's priority) for other features he didn't care for.
AMD will advertise that they don't just cater to this line of updates, and that the APU line offers more than just an upgrade for entry level gamers. In the majority of our discrete gaming scenarios, this is also true. While the APUs aren't necessarily ahead in terms of absolute performance, and in some situations they are behind, but with the right combination of hardware the APU route can offer equivalent performance at a cheaper rate. This is ultimately why APUs were recommended in our two last big gaming CPU overviews for single GPU gaming, and for integrated gaming. In our new test, it was really interesting to see where the lines are drawn with different CPU and GPU combinations, both integrated and discrete from $70 to $560. One take home test result is our Grand Theft Auto benchmark nearing 60 FPS at 720p Low settings.
![Grand Theft Auto V on Integrated Graphics [Under 60 FPS]](https://images.anandtech.com/graphs/graph9217/74212.png)
I confess that I do not game as much as I used to. Before AnandTech I played a couple of games in clan tournaments, and through thick and thin I did well enough on public servers for Battlefield 2142 and BC2, but clan matches were almost always duds. However, with the right hardware or the right software, I get one AAA title a year and usually do the full single player with a bit of multiplayer. That game for 2015 is Grand Theft Auto V, which I was able to benchmark for this review. On its own, an APU can handle 720p at low settings with a reasonable frame rate, meaning that when the drivers are in place, An APU in dual graphics mode running at 60 FPS with decent quality shouldn't be too hard to achieve. For 2015 and 2016, that percentage of frames over 60 FPS metric for GTA should be a holy grail for integrated graphics.
We've actually got a couple more APUs in to test in the form of the A10-7700K and the A6-7400K, which are slightly older APUs but fill in the Kaveri data points we are missing. Stay tuned for that capsule review. Rumor also has it that there will be updates to the Kaveri line soon, although we haven’t had any official details as of yet.
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akamateau - Tuesday, May 12, 2015 - link
Your comments assume that ANAND provided benchmarks using DX12 and they did not. ALL of the GRAPHIC benchmarks were with either synthetic benchmarks or game benchmarks using DX11.DX11 cripples the performance of ALL APU's, IGP and dGPU. Draw calls ARE a measure of CPU-to-GPU "bottleneck" or elimination thereof. You can not render a polygon until you draw it.
DX12 enables CPU core scaling; basically increased draw calls are a function of the amount of multithreaded cpu cores. DX11 does not allow multithreeaded gaming.
DX11 may be current but why should I base hardware purchases from testing based on obsolete software AND benchmarks?
DX12 will be in widespread use by game developers by Christmas.
Anand has psent quite a bit of time and money testing hardware on obsolete benchmarks TO WHAT END?
Starswarm and 3dMArk API Overhead Test are available but ANAND ignore them.
Why?
AMD's APU was designed to FLY using Mantle and DX12. It is not AMD's fault that Intle IGP is so poorly designed. That is Intel's problem.
Test Intel IGP using the latest API and you will see. Comaparatively test AMD and Intel using obsolete benchmarks with DX11 and ANAND is lying to the consumer and can not be trusted.
AN unbiased and well balanced piece should use legacy benchmarks, they should also use the very latest available. ANAND di not do this.
rp1367 - Tuesday, May 12, 2015 - link
"Starswarm and 3dMArk API Overhead Test are available but ANAND ignore them.Why?"
Because they want to hide the truth. "It is hard for a person to wake if he is asleep because he pretends to be asleep but infact he is not. He just want to fool you because of his stupidity"
The refusal to support the upcoming DX12 give as hint that the review is biased and something fishy going at the backdoor. I am not an IT guy and new on this site but i could easily detect what is the difference between biased and unbiased review.
The reviewer and Anadtech guys for sure are all intellegent guys but they allowed themselves to be succumed by their own personal interest.
Gigaplex - Tuesday, May 12, 2015 - link
Or its just something as simple as DX12 not being released yet, the performance is likely to change, so is an invalid test for comparing hardware at this time. The benchmarks you refer to are only valid as a preview for potential gains.akamateau - Tuesday, May 12, 2015 - link
Windows 10 with DX12 will be released in less than 2 months. Mantle is final and DX12 is final. Anand has it but ignores it.By Christmas ALL new games released will be DX12.
Gigaplex - Tuesday, May 12, 2015 - link
DX12 may not be final. API probably is, runtime is likely close, drivers likely won't be.And you're delusional if you think all new games released at the end of this year will be DX12. It takes years to develop a AAA game, so they would need to have started before DX12 was available. The market for DX12 will be tiny by Christmas as DX12 will be Windows 10 only. Not everyone will be willing or able to upgrade the OS. Not all hardware even supports DX12. You're completely ignoring the history of previous DirectX roll outs.
akamateau - Tuesday, May 12, 2015 - link
Windows 10 with DX12 will be released in less than 2 months. Mantle is final and DX12 is final. Anand has it but ignores it.By Christmas ALL new games released will be DX12.
V900 - Tuesday, May 12, 2015 - link
Ah, so basically the choice is buy an AMD APU and get shoddy performance now, and great performance in a year, or buy an Intel/Intel-Nvidia solution and get great performance now and great performance in a year!So theres really no reason to get the AMD is what you're saying?
JumpingJack - Tuesday, May 12, 2015 - link
I will bet you what ever you make in a year that not all games released between DX12 release and christmas of this year will be DX12 native.akamateau - Tuesday, May 12, 2015 - link
@Ian Cutress"as well as having parallelizable code"
ARE YOU NUTS?
You really need to cut the crap.
Mutlthreaded gaming will come as a result of DX12 and Asynchronous Shader Pipelines and Asynchronous Compute Engines.
galta - Tuesday, May 12, 2015 - link
I don't think he is nuts, but you seem a bit angry.From a CPU perspective, multithreaded games need not wait for DX12. They could have been written before.
Anyway, we have a clear statement of you: DX12 will make AMD shine. We should talk again on Christmas.
Just keep in mind that the same was said when DX11 was about to be released, with known results...