FRONTPAGE AMD A10-7850K Kaveri APU Review

[Overclockers.com]

AMD APUs continue to evolve with better graphics and compute performance with each new release. The Kaveri APUs are no different in this regard and attempt to redefine the landscape for what can be done on a single chip solution. Several new technologies have been introduced since the release of Trinity and Richland APUs, which we'll explore today. AMD sent along the A10-7850K APU for us to have a look at, which is the flagship model for the Kaveri line. So, let's dive into this latest APU offering from AMD and see what they have in store for us.

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[Tyerker]

Any word on Hybrid Crossfire for these APUs? I assume they link wit hthe R7 chips, but does that mean you can Hybrid CF with the 260X? If so, that could be an awesome mid-range solution.

 

[Robert17]

Thanks Dino. Nice review and follow up to the previous APUs. I particularly enjoyed your including the discrete graphic card's comparison. These APUs look like some very nice HTPC parts.

 

[ATMINSIDE]

Huge improvement over previous generations. Great review Dino!

 

[EarthDog]

They really are. We had a chance to meet with AMD at CES and they were pretty excited about these parts, and rightfully so. If I had to redo my HTPC again, one of these would def. be going in to it.

I also imagine, but am not sure, that they will still be doing the hybrid CFx with the iGPU on the APU... but again, not sure.

 

[Lvcoyote]

Hi Guys,
Thanks for the kind words and I'm glad you enjoyed reading the review. These APUs are certainly progressing nicely with each release, that's for sure!

As far as Hybrid Crossfire goes, I never heard anything to the effect of that function being dropped, so I'm pretty sure it's still a usable feature. I just finished scouring the media guides I was given by AMD, and strangely enough they do not mention exactly what cards are supported for Hybrid Crossfire. I'm sure R7's of some kind obviously.

I'll see if I can get a definitive answer from them.

 

[Dolk]

Dino can you do something really awesome for me?

OC the CPU and run Wprime or any other heavy parallel process (preferably something to deal with FP and INT cores). Than OC the iGPU and run Wprime. After those two, OC CPU and iGPU together and see what you get.

 

[Lvcoyote]

Sorry Dolk, the system is broke down already. Overclocked cpu results for wPrime and SuperPi are in the review though.

 

[Dolk]

Damn. I wanted to see what the iGPU's impact had as a whole to the system. Old software may not be able to take advantage of the mantle process just yet. I was hoping to see if the architecture could identify specific processes without the aid of drivers.

 

[Lvcoyote]

Mantle is an API for game developers, are you referring to HSA?

 

[BigHeadClan]

I'm really hoping to see AMD APU's get a foothold on the business side of things, Intel just seems to have a strangle-hold that can't be broken.


Nice review, graphic improvement was a nice surprise

 

[Culbrelai]

It’s no secret that a discrete video card will perform better on a 4770K Haswell based system than on an AMD A88X based system, that much we know

Why, though? Does a discrete card CPU bottleneck on an APU?

 

[Tyerker]

No, the Haswell CPU is just significantly more powerful, so the general performance with the same video card will be better.

 

[Mandrake4565]

Interesting how much better the Super Pi and WPrime times were, Lvcoyote, did you use the Bulldozer conditioner software, when running those? I'm not even sure if it will work on these Apu's but I'm curious.

 

[Dolk]

@Lycoyote

Yes that is what I meant. I'm not familiar with the new terms. I may have to pickup one of these APUs. I'm very interested in some aspects.

 

[Lvcoyote]

@Mandrake
No conditioner software used.

 

[Mandrake4565]

@Mandrake
No conditioner software used.

Wowzers, that's a pretty impressive improvement, fingers crossed they decide to put out Steamroller Cpu's.

 

[tungureanu]

rumor!

 

[Dolk]

rumor!

Which rumor are you referring to?

 

[EarthDog]

Which rumor are you referring to?

good question...several articles on that link, a couple on kaveri.