The AMD A8-7650K APU Review, Also New Testing Methodology
by Ian Cutress on May 12, 2015 10:00 AM ESTProfessional Performance: Linux
Built around several freely available benchmarks for Linux, Linux-Bench is a project spearheaded by Patrick at ServeTheHome to streamline about a dozen of these tests in a single neat package run via a set of three commands using an Ubuntu 11.04 LiveCD. These tests include fluid dynamics used by NASA, ray-tracing, OpenSSL, molecular modeling, and a scalable data structure server for web deployments. We run Linux-Bench and have chosen to report a select few of the tests that rely on CPU and DRAM speed.
C-Ray: link
C-Ray is a simple ray-tracing program that focuses almost exclusively on processor performance rather than DRAM access. The test in Linux-Bench renders a heavy complex scene offering a large scalable scenario.
Being a scaling benchmark, C-Ray prefers threads and seems more designed for Intel.
NAMD, Scalable Molecular Dynamics: link
Developed by the Theoretical and Computational Biophysics Group at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, NAMD is a set of parallel molecular dynamics codes for extreme parallelization up to and beyond 200,000 cores. The reference paper detailing NAMD has over 4000 citations, and our testing runs a small simulation where the calculation steps per unit time is the output vector.
NAMD is similar to our office benchmarks, puttin the bulk of the APUs between the i3-4130T and the i3-4330.
NPB, Fluid Dynamics: link
Aside from LINPACK, there are many other ways to benchmark supercomputers in terms of how effective they are for various types of mathematical processes. The NAS Parallel Benchmarks (NPB) are a set of small programs originally designed for NASA to test their supercomputers in terms of fluid dynamics simulations, useful for airflow reactions and design.
Despite the rated memory on the APUs being faster, NPB seems to require more IPC than DRAM speed.
Redis: link
Many of the online applications rely on key-value caches and data structure servers to operate. Redis is an open-source, scalable web technology with a b developer base, but also relies heavily on memory bandwidth as well as CPU performance.
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testbug00 - Tuesday, May 12, 2015 - link
Well, Broadwell is supposed to be out in 2013 according to Tick Tock. So, Intel's at least 1.5 years to their party. However, doing smaller nodes is REALLY hard. So, hard to blame them.azazel1024 - Tuesday, May 12, 2015 - link
Err, no. Haswell was 2013 and Ivy was 2012. Broadwell would have been summer of 2014. It ended up being a mostly paper launch in late fall 2014, with parts meaningfully showing up winter of 2015 and Intel mentioned up front that Broadwell would be a mostly mobile release.So they are perhaps 6 months late on Broadwell, but unless something different happens, Intel is still claiming summer/fall for Skylake, which puts them right back on the original schedule (and probably also why Broadwell is limited, Intel has known about their 14nm node issues for awhile, so they limited it to get the node out there and more experience on it and then jumping in to Skylake with both feet).
Ian Cutress - Tuesday, May 12, 2015 - link
I have the i5-5200U here in a BRIX that I can test, though it's worth noting that the 5200U list price is $281, more than any APU.takeship - Tuesday, May 12, 2015 - link
I was just thinking it wouldn't be too far off as a total cost comparison - a tall body i5 nuc + win 8 license + ram and scrounged up HDD/ssd is just about $600, which isn't too far above what a simple box with this would run. And my suspicion is that you don't give up too much gfx perf going down to the i3 and saving a hundred. Bandwidth being the bottleneck that it is.Refuge - Tuesday, May 12, 2015 - link
This SKU is new, but the chip is just a re-badge.extide - Tuesday, May 12, 2015 - link
A rebadge from what, exactly? No... It's not a rebadge, its just a lower model sku in a lineup that we have already seen. That is not what a rebadge is. We have not seen this core in this (or a similar) config released with a different sku before.Edens_Remorse - Wednesday, May 27, 2015 - link
Quit confusing the ignorants(shut up spell check, it's a word).duploxxx - Tuesday, May 12, 2015 - link
untill by the end of the year you start to see DX12 benchmarking :) and this more power silicon gets a free bump.25W is btw the difference in just a light bulb near your desktop or the minimal powerconsumption you have of dedicated gpu for the lack of onboard Intel GPU power :)
Michael Bay - Tuesday, May 12, 2015 - link
Yes, while all the action is in mobile segment. Where, you guessed it, AMD has no foothold.Not even mentioning DX12 being largely irrelevant this AND next year outside of useless synthetics.
duploxxx - Wednesday, May 13, 2015 - link
Carrizo is all about Mobile :)useless synthetics and benchmarking is all where Intel shines, the result bares show only better result, reall life daily use you don't even notice.