AMD Kaveri official reviews

[FlanK3r]

APU AMD Kaveri "Steamroller B":

http://pctuning.tyden.cz/hardware/pr...apu-amd-kaveri
http://extrahardware.cnews.cz/clanky...gcn-hsa-zaloze
-only theory
http://www.anandtech.com/show/7677/a...7600-a10-7850k
http://hexus.net/tech/previews/cpu/6...-apu-examined/
http://techreport.com/review/25908/a...essor-reviewed
http://www.pcper.com/reviews/Process...ew-HSA-Arrives
http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/forum...00-review.html
-tests open CL
http://www.anandtech.com/show/7677/a...7600-a10-7850k
-great theory, but practice nothing special, no HSA/CL tests
http://hexus.net/tech/previews/cpu/6...-apu-examined/
-theory only
http://diit.cz/clanek/amd-kaveri-specifikace
-theory
http://techreport.com/review/25908/a...essor-reviewed
-good tests
http://www.pcper.com/reviews/Process...ew-HSA-Arrives
-A8-7600, Win8, gold award
http://www.extremetech.com/computing...rogeneous-chip
-HSA tests! OC 4.2 GHz
http://semiaccurate.com/2014/01/14/h...-hits-desktop/
http://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages..._review,1.html
http://www.hardware.fr/articles/913-...700k-test.html
-srovn?n? Piledriver vs Steamroller clock to clock (+7.5% for SR), few CL tests, OC 4421 MHz 1.46V
http://www.computerbase.de/artikel/p...eri-im-test/7/
-GPU tests, CL test
http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/cpu...averi-review/1
-few CL , A8 award
http://www.hardwareheaven.com/review...rclocking.html
-OC 5 GHz?! Comparison with performance CPU Intel core i5-4670

[vario]

Did anyone do richland vs kaveri cpu tests with same settings (in ex. 4ghz vs 4ghz no turbo) ?

[Vassili]

The second review has some both at 3,7GHz:
http://extrahardware.cnews.cz/galeri..._kaveri_09.png

[FlanK3r]

there is clock to clock:

http://www.hardware.fr/articles/913-...ale-turbo.html

[vario]

~10% gain is pretty nice.They could cram even more cores using 28nm or just build FXes with higher margins.Idiotic AMD decision to let go mid end.

[dartaz]

After looking at anandtech review I can say that Kaveri is just another big joke like previous AMD processors. AMD slides always make things look several times better than real unbiased reviews.

iGPU improvement is very small compared to A10 6800K, and CPU improvement is also small at least at stock speeds

Small improvement is better than noting. However, there is noting revolutionary about Kaveri.

[Olivon]

Right, nothing impressive here

[Vassili]

Here is another good review, a lot of tests!

Review: http://us.hardware.info/reviews/5156...w-amds-new-apu
Clock for clock: http://us.hardware.info/reviews/5156...-vs-piledriver

Edit:
They aren't allowed to overclock or what? Where are those results?

[Dimitriman]

Kavery would shine a lot more if frequency was much higher and also the platform was newer and better, ie. more PCIe 3.0 lanes, USB 3.0 ports, quad channel RAM etc.. With this you are only getting a minor speed bump on the same platform, which makes upgrading difficult to justify.

[Tao~]

AMD is focusing on the same as everyone else at the moment - lower power. For 45W the results are good. 100W chips @ $150 is great for HTPC/Casual gaming but nothing revolutionary. Steamroller was made out to be bigger than it is. And Intel will be selling 14nm in a few months - compared to 28nm for AMD, seriously what better to expect ?

[Dimitriman]

AMD is focusing on the same as everyone else at the moment - lower power. For 45W the results are good. 100W chips @ $150 is great for HTPC/Casual gaming but nothing revolutionary. Steamroller was made out to be bigger than it is. And Intel will be selling 14nm in a few months - compared to 28nm for AMD, seriously what better to expect ?

I agree but there is also the fact that AMD has been most disappointing on the platform side of things. Where are the new chipsets with newest generation features that would make this platform much more attractive against Intel?

[Kai Robinson]

Wait up a sec...all the info up to this point has been that IPC is ~20% or so higher than Richland, we've known the clock frequencies are lower to fit into a lower TDP...and yet you're all still complaining because it's not comprehensively danced over the corpse of an i5?

Pick up an AMD APU + board vs an Intel CPU w/iGFX + board - AMD's solution is cheaper, and for 99% of real world usage, its more than fast enough AND it's actually capable of playing recent gaming titles - so i say again - why are you whining?

[Kai Robinson]

I agree but there is also the fact that AMD has been most disappointing on the platform side of things. Where are the new chipsets with newest generation features that would make this platform much more attractive against Intel?

*ahem* - A88X is the new chipset for FM2+

What exactly do you want from a chipset?

[PedantOne]

nothing interesting for absolute crazy price, another amd crap, nothing more

[crash5s]

nothing interesting for absolute crazy price, another amd crap, nothing more

I don't agree with that at all. Give me a gigabyte G1 killer, MSI gaming, or ASUS Rog board in ITX for this please. Nice small case as well. I'll take three for each TV then and replace my old HTPCs. The CPU is more than fast enough for what most consumers want, the IGP is really nice as well.

[tajoh111]

Wait up a sec...all the info up to this point has been that IPC is ~20% or so higher than Richland, we've known the clock frequencies are lower to fit into a lower TDP...and yet you're all still complaining because it's not comprehensively danced over the corpse of an i5?

Pick up an AMD APU + board vs an Intel CPU w/iGFX + board - AMD's solution is cheaper, and for 99% of real world usage, its more than fast enough AND it's actually capable of playing recent gaming titles - so i say again - why are you whining?

Because AMD needs to make money from its CPU division and lots of it, if it is going to catch up to Intel one day. It's good enough for 99% of people is an excuse for AMD not to focus on CPU, but really, we would be way more excited about this product if it matched Intel for IPC performance than seeing it beat Intel in integrated gaming. In addition, most people have newer than a core 2 processors if they have a desktop. These people are better off simply buying a discrete than buying a whole new platform in Kavari. It will match the CPU performance these new kavari processors provide(and likely beat it) and they get significantly more GPU power(for less cost). In addition AMD improving their GPU more and more is a double edged sword. More GPU performance from their integrated GPU line equals less reason to buy one of there discrete GPU's.

In addition, pure CPU performance is important to business users. Business users demand more performance from their CPU for productivity. People can justify paying significantly more money and they don't want gaming performance. Its going to be hard to sell to them this HSA thing.

One positive thing out of these reviews is AMD has managed to squeeze more performance from an IPC perspective than Intel. Intel for a new architecture altogether only delivered 5% more peformance clock for clock compared to ivy bridge. AMD has gotten another 10% and is simply refining bulldozer. However again we see Global Foundries falling AMD time and time again. If it wasn't for the need to decrease the clock to fit into the power budget AMD would have a significantly better chip. For all the money they are pouring in GF, I would expect them to start matching TSMC, but it clear that they are worse.

The price I think is a tad high for a AMD CPU in todays climate, at least the top end chip.

[FlanK3r]

Right, nothing impressive here

clock for clock its good, unfortunately, deficit of 400 MHz is not nothing . Im sure, we never seen impacts as 10 years ago, it is impossible. Real is around 5% impcat with similar clocks and with the same number of threads. Because the main problem is software optimalization. AVX, AVX2, FMA, XOP? Nice, but where is software? Few with AVX support and thats all...The same with older SSE4.

[Kai Robinson]

Because AMD needs to make money from its CPU division and lots of it, if it is going to catch up to Intel one day. It's good enough for 99% of people is an excuse for AMD not to focus on CPU, but really, we would be way more excited about this product if it matched Intel for IPC performance than seeing it beat Intel in integrated gaming. In addition, most people have newer than a core 2 processors if they have a desktop. These people are better off simply buying a discrete than buying a whole new platform in Kavari. It will match the CPU performance these new kavari processors provide(and likely beat it) and they get significantly more GPU power(for less cost). In addition AMD improving their GPU more and more is a double edged sword. More GPU performance from their integrated GPU line equals less reason to buy one of there discrete GPU's.

In addition, pure CPU performance is important to business users. Business users demand more performance from their CPU for productivity. People can justify paying significantly more money and they don't want gaming performance. Its going to be hard to sell to them this HSA thing.

One positive thing out of these reviews is AMD has managed to squeeze more performance from an IPC perspective than Intel. Intel for a new architecture altogether only delivered 5% more peformance clock for clock compared to ivy bridge. AMD has gotten another 10% and is simply refining bulldozer. However again we see Global Foundries falling AMD time and time again. If it wasn't for the need to decrease the clock to fit into the power budget AMD would have a significantly better chip. For all the money they are pouring in GF, I would expect them to start matching TSMC, but it clear that they are worse.

The price I think is a tad high for a AMD CPU in todays climate, at least the top end chip.

When you say business users - who exactly do you mean? I don't think somehow that cube farms and support staff everywhere are going to need more than even a basic dual core for typing reports or doing excel - this isn't the early 90's where spreadsheets take ages to render graphs & pie charts, y'know. If you're talking render/server farms - uhm....Opteron, anyone?

Workstations? Again, that's Xeon/Opteron territory - these CPU's are marketed as a mid-range, perfectly suitable CPU for the 99% of the population, business users include. No need for Integrated GFX? Get an Athlon X4 or FX4300, save a few quid.

Again - take an A10-7800K and a board, then take an Intel CPU for the same price and a board, and pit them against each other. What real-world usage is going to show a NOTICEABLE difference? Not office apps or general desktop usage - that hasn't been an issue for about a decade. The sort of tests they do with Photoshop in benchmarks are unrealistic real world usage, and the sort of people that want/need a machine that fast, for doing that kind of work, aren't looking at APU's.

The intel chip will be great for single threaded stuff, excel at multithreaded, but it'll suck, on integrated graphics. AMD will suffer on single threaded, excel at multithreaded and will win on integrated graphics. Swings and roundabouts.

I agree that under Hector Ruiz, poor decisions were made, such as resting on the Athlon64 laurels and selling off its fabs to Abu Dhabi, but without fabs, AMD is at the mercy of GF & TSMC. They've had to sell their own offices and lease them back, just for a cash injection. I think that they've managed a 20% IPC increase in the architecture, on what, in the industry, is a shoestring, with limited facilities at their disposal, is actually very impressive.

[Mats]

Pick up an AMD APU + board vs an Intel CPU w/iGFX + board - AMD's solution is cheaper, and for 99% of real world usage, its more than fast enough AND it's actually capable of playing recent gaming titles - so i say again - why are you whining?

What makes the AMD solution cheaper, more specifically? Can you give us an example?
LGA1150 and FM2+ boards starts at the same price point, and the A10-7850K (3.7 GHz) cost as much as the i5-4440 (3.1 GHz). In terms of CPU performance I don't think they're comparable though.

[Kai Robinson]

AMD Board: http://www.scan.co.uk/products/gigab...6%29-vga-dvi-d

Intel Board: http://www.scan.co.uk/products/msi-h...vi-d-hdmi-matx

Pretty clear price difference there.

[Mats]

Low end Intel boards still starts at a lower price point.
http://geizhals.de/?cat=mbfm2p
http://geizhals.de/?cat=mbp4_1150

Besides, the two CPU's I mentioned are not comparable in terms of CPU performance, you can easily pick a slower Intel CPU with a lower price.

[Yeroon]

Kavery would shine a lot more if frequency was much higher and also the platform was newer and better, ie. more PCIe 3.0 lanes, USB 3.0 ports, quad channel RAM etc.. With this you are only getting a minor speed bump on the same platform, which makes upgrading difficult to justify.

Just like to point out that with a88 chipset, you get 16 pcie 3.0 lanes (same as 1150/z87) USB3/2/1 in 4, 10, 2 amounts (same as intel's B/Q85, Q/H/Z87 gets 6/8/?) 8 x sata III ports (z87 gets 6), and virtual extensions are the same across the lineup (unlike intels K series). I don't think that not having quad channel mem is a justifiable offense, though it would be nice. Considering the price point, the APU's aren't really part of the upgrade every generation some enthusiasts hope for when chips come out.

I want to see more openCL compute tests. Even Cinebench GPU stuff was ignored, which baffles me. It looks like AMD got the mem controller closer to intel's in terms of bandwidth.

[Hornet331]

I am still surprised that the 7850 has such a hard time to outperform the i3 4340 in cpu related tasks, even in multi threading heavy scenarios. With amd tounting all the performance gains it whould have been a walk in the park, even with the slight decrease in clock speed.... but yeah AMDs powerpoint skills strike again.

[To(V)bo Co(V)bo]

*ahem* - A88X is the new chipset for FM2+

What exactly do you want from a chipset?

How about more native usb3 and much better sata 6gbs performance. The AHCI performance is very weak, not to mention RAID performance. AMD always has buggy chipsets.

Does AMD support RAID trim passthrough?

[Kai Robinson]

Ther other major difference that separates Intel from AMD right now, as far as APU's are concerned - no AMD APU has L3 cache. Which makes me want to see a Steamroller FX even more.