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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silverblue - Thursday, May 14, 2015 - link
I've often wondered if the G3258 is really the better choice in this price range. Sure, there are titles it cannot play, but workarounds exist in one or two titles to allow it to work. Newer titles may indeed render it obselete, but there's always the argument about buying a better CPU for the platform later on. Additionally, it overclocks like buggery if you feel that way inclined; how long has it been since we had a CPU that could be overclocked by 50% without costing the earth in power?The concern I have with upgrading just the CPU is that Intel doesn't stick with its sockets for a long time, and if you're buying a CPU that will eventually become as useful as a chocolate fireguard when playing modern titles, it'd make more sense to buy its i3 cousins in the first place. AMD is banking on you considering its quad core APUs for this, however they have their flaws too - FM2+ has a year left (Carrizo is destined for FM3 along with Zen), they don't overclock as well, power usage is higher even during idle, and the GPU-less derivatives don't appear to be any faster. H81 boards aren't expensive, either, for overclocking that Pentium. Still, you really do need a discrete card with the G3258/Athlons, whereas the APUs and i3 have enough iGPU grunt to go into an HTPC if you're not gaming heavily.
Decisions, decisions... and right now, I'm wondering how I could even consider AMD. Has anybody made systems for both Pentium and Athlon/APU systems and can share their thoughts?
Tunnah - Tuesday, May 12, 2015 - link
Nice review, covers pretty much everything, and says what I guess everyone was expecting.One thing I wondered though, why choose the 770 for mid-range when the 960 is a much more logical choice ? Price wise it's £140 here in UK so I guess about $200 over the pond, and is a much more competent card than the 770
Ian Cutress - Wednesday, May 13, 2015 - link
Because I've had 770s in as part of my test bed for 18 months. The rest of the cards (290X, 980, 285) I've sourced for my 2015 testing, and it's really hard to source GPUs for testing these days - I had to personally purchase the 285 for example, because I felt it was extremely relevant. Unfortunately we don't all work in a big office to pass around hardware!meacupla - Wednesday, May 13, 2015 - link
If you do ever get a GTX 960 or 750Ti, it would be nice to see some total system power consumption numbers between overclocked A8-7650K+R7 240 vs. i3-4xxx+750Ti vs. overclocked G3258+750TiDrazick - Wednesday, May 13, 2015 - link
Hello,Could you please add MATLAB to your performance benchmark?
Or at least Python / Julia.
We need data about scientific computation.
Thank You.
UtilityMax - Wednesday, May 13, 2015 - link
"Scientific computation" is a somewhat amorphous term. Moreover, I don't know if there exists a benchmark suite for either Matlab or Python. In any case, Matlab and Python or both used in numerics as fast prototyping tools or for computations where the compute time is inconsequential. If you're running in speed issues with Matlab it's time to start coding in something else, although in from my observations, most people who run into performance issues with Matlab don't know how to optimize Matlab code for speed. Most don't know how to code at all.freekier93 - Wednesday, May 13, 2015 - link
Your really don't know what you're talking about... Matlab is SO much more than fast prototyping software. I have quite a few programs what would be good speed tests, one of which being a full non-linear aircraft dynamics Simulink simulation. A 5 minute simulation could easily take 2 minutes of compute time. Anything that starts getting into serious differential equations takes compute time.Ian Cutress - Wednesday, May 13, 2015 - link
3DPM is a Brownian Motion based benchmark, and Photoscan does interesting 2D to 3D correlation projections. The Linux benchmarks also include NAMD/NPB, both of which are hardcore scientific calculations.Smile286 - Wednesday, May 13, 2015 - link
Author, do you know about existence of 'Haswell Refresh' CPU models? It's basically the same 'Haswell' with +100/+200/+300 MHz to their x86-core's speed. Why not use them in tests? It's not like it's 2013 right now, when i3-4330 was released. FYI, i3-4370 have the same $138 MSRP (tray) as i3-4330, but it +300 MHz faster.Same story about i3-4130 and i3-4170: +300 MHz for i3-4170 basically for free.
You should put them in test rather an old 'Haswell' core i3 models. Thanks.
zodiacfml - Wednesday, May 13, 2015 - link
How could a next generation API improve AMD's APU performance if it already has decent if not very good performance in integrated 3D graphics (beating the lowest end discrete)?AMD still needs better CPU performance as it shows poorer value compared to an Intel of near or similar price (without considering the GPU).
The occasional gaming niche is pretty nil too as that kind can be accomplished in a notebook, tablet, or smartphone.
This remains valuable for people with regular gaming in mind but with absolutely limited budget. I see myself getting this for getting back into Diablo 3 after a day from work but saving a bit more, I might as well get a decent laptop.