System Specifications and CPU Performance
The systems allowed by AMD to be benchmarked by the press were ODM built – nothing branded or ready to sell quite yet. Still, the hardware itself seemed very competent and robust. Long the Achilles heel of AMD mobile processors, getting a high quality solution from a respected OEM is going to be a big deal for them.
Using one of the AMD FX-7600P APUs, our systems were top of the line when it comes to Kaveri mobility APUs. The APU has a top clock speed of 3.6 GHz and 35 watt TDP, putting it out of range of most of the Intel notebooks and Ultrabooks we had in our office, but we made due. The R7 graphics solution runs at a maximum clock speed of 686 MHz.
8GB of Crucial DDR3-1866 memory was running in a dual channel configuration and a Samsung 256GB SSD kept everything running snappy. Important when you are doing reference system testing.
The AMD Catalyst 14.3 drivers were loaded on a copy of Windows 8.1 and we were off to testing!
As I noted above, I did not have the best possible comparison notebook for the FX-7600P, which would likely be the Core i7-4702MQ, a Haswell CPU with a 37 watt TDP. Instead, we'll be looking at the Kaveri APU in a more general performance sense – how does it compare to processors that we know and understand today? You'll see numbers from some desktop system recently tested when looking at the 45 watt Kaveri A8-7600 as well as desktop options as high as the A10-6700T, a 45 watt part.
Let's dive in.
CPU Performance
Starting things out is the traditional SiSoft Sandra testing that focuses on the x86 portion of the processor. Though it cannot beat the Core i3-4330 Haswell part, it gets DAMN CLOSE considering the 54 watt TDP of the Intel option! Multimedia results are much less impressive than the CPU arithmetic scores, but with a deficit of more than 2x on the memory bandwidth provided some other options tested, that makes sense.
CineBench 11 is a great test to judge the performance of the processor cores and the AMD FX-7600P does great here as well showing single threaded performance nearly as good as the A8-7600 desktop part and beating several previous generation parts. The Haswell processor still dominates though with a lead of 78% in single threaded performance. Multi-threaded results are better for AMD where that Intel lead shrinks to 45% or so and we see a more than 3x scaling rate from the FX-7600P single threaded score.
Though we only had time to get 2-thread and 4-thread results on the 7zip benchmark with the Kaveri reference system, again I came away impressed with the status of the mobile Kaveri solution.
Kaveri shows well in the x264 benchmark reaching within 19% of the Intel Core i3-4330 with a much lower TDP limit.
now why is there no desktop
now why is there no desktop part for this.
There is. The A10-7850K is a
There is. The A10-7850K is a desktop part
I guess the question was more
I guess the question was more like “why can’t I (or won’t be able to even in the future) buy a small form factor barebone with this awesome chip?” 😉
That’s an A series though,
That’s an A series though, not an FX APU.
AMD should consider breaking
AMD should consider breaking the 4 core Mobile/laptop barrier with a 6 CPU core mobile part, and maybe some competition for the i5. AMD needs an enthusiast part for people who could care less about ultrabook/MacBook form factors, and need all the performance they can get in a Laptop SKU. nothing short of the complete x86 microarchitecture redesign that AMD has announced coming to completion in the next few years, is going to compete with Intel’s single threaded/bandwidth/other x86 CPU core performance, that is if AMD can get some full fat x86 cores with SMP and no bandwidth bottlenecks. AMD could in the short term have made a laptop part with 6 CPU cores, and some power gating of these cores to give a 6 core laptop part with more flexibility in workloads, and better graphics by default.
I am waiting to see how these parts will perform with a Discrete AMD Mobile GPU, when these APUs get some design wins to sample.
I think that AMD is on the
I think that AMD is on the right track. The APU is the future of computing. I think that when more software comes about that can utilize both GPU and CPU tech they will be way ahead of the curve. With GPUs being used in cars and a multitude of other items in the internet of things, AMD will leave Intel in their dust.
Now I will say that in todays world Intel is the Best money can buy and in the computer build I am working on I am going to be using an I5, But I am watching the software markets and waiting for the day that the para-dime shifts.
I do a lot of rendering, so
I do a lot of rendering, so the more cores/threads the better, if they can get ray tracing done through OpenCL on the GPU, then having as many CPU cores is not so important! Hopefully Nvidia and AMD can get some hardware Ray tracing like the PowerVR wizard has, and then I will not need a quad core i7 laptop part. I see that AMD already has some design wins with HP for the ultra low watt parts, but at that price I can get last years Intel(Haswell) core i7 laptop part on sale in an HP probook with an AMD discrete GPU! The only point that may score a Sale with me for the Kaveri APU, is if it can be paired for dual graphics, or OpenCL on the integrated GPU, and graphics and GPGPU on the discrete AMD GPU. If the makers of 3d graphics software can get ray tracing working better through openCL, then the CPU becomes a non issue, and I hope that hardware ray tracing can come to the discrete GPU market, like it has with the mobile PowerVR wizard.
isn’t that the ray tracing
isn’t that the ray tracing stuff in Power VR need dedicated hardware or some sort? like tessellation needing the specfic hardware on current gpu instead of relying on GPGPU.
http://techreport.com/news/26178/powervr-wizard-brings-ray-tracing-to-real-time-graphics
That would be the hardware
That would be the hardware ray tracing, mentioned twice in the post you replied to. Yes I would love My discrete laptop GPU, or desktop(if I owed one) GPU to have Hardware ray tracing, or any SOC/APU to have Hardware ray tracing! The reason I have to rely on overpriced Intel CPUs, is the lack of OpenCL ray tracing support in the graphics software that I use. Hardware ray tracing would be the best, as then it would be built into the GPU hardware, and faster than OpenCL accelerated ray tracing, or CPU ray tracing. If AMD can get HSAIL adopted and abstract this need for the ability to run GPGPU ray tracing in software across any CPU/GPU device, then fine, but that is just not going to happen anytime soon, so maybe someone can Fund Imagination Technologies production of a discrete GPU version of the PowerVR wizard for pro graphics workloads on Laptops. The makers of Open Source and proprietary graphics software are starting to utilize OpenCL more, but the process of adoption takes time.
Having hardware Ray Tracing on a discrete GPU, or Mobile/Laptop SOC would remove most of the software difficulty surrounding Ray Tracing, and remove any advantage the CPU has over the GPU for Ray Tracing workloads, my primary reason for using the core i7 SKUs in my laptops.
AMD needs to show any advantage the Kaveri SOCs may have in the ray tracing area, over Intel’s core i7 parts. I know that Ray Tracing presents a special problem for Gaming, with the need for frames per second over other considerations, but some of my single Image graphics workloads can take 4 hours or more to render if I have all the high AA, AO, ray interactions, and other settings turned up to high, so the ability to do the Ray interactions on a GPU, with multipliable ray tracing execution units in hardware would speed the process up by many factors over a few CPU cores/processor threads. Hell, I am hoping for discrete GPUs to get their own Integrated CPUs, to go along with dedicated Ray Tracing hardware.
so maybe you can hope the
so maybe you can hope the dedicated ray trace hardware to be one of the unannounced feature of DX12.
What does a Graphics
What does a Graphics API(software), have to do with magically adding dedicated ray tracing hardware that has to be built into a GPU, if the feature is not baked into the physical hardware how can DX12 support it as an unannounced feature! M$ does not manufacture GPUs, so it has no control over any hardware in the GPU, other than what the GPU maker physically creates in the GPUs Microarchitecture.
DX whatever, is only software, and any ray tracing currently implemented on PC/Laptops has to be done in software and run on the CPU, and maybe if the gaming engine, other has some support that utilizes OpenCL to run some ray tracing via OpenCL calls that can be run on the GPU, so DX12 could maybe run some very limited ray tracing on the GPU, but DX whatever is mostly for gaming and fast rendering, and using an already busy GPU with no dedicated ray tracing hardware, is not going to produce enough ray interactions to be noticeable at 10 FPS, let alone 30 FPS and above. Currently AFIK, the only support for Hardware Ray Tracing built into any GPU is on a Mobile SOC based GPU the PowerVR wizard, and DX 12 is mostly a Desktop/Laptop gaming graphics API, and the GPU maker will be the one to write the drivers, that whatever Graphics API/s used will have to call to get to any GPU features.
Most graphics software does not use DX* for non gaming graphics workloads, but uses OpenGL, other, and OpenCL for running the ray tracing algorithms on a GPU, along with the standard CPU based ray tracing algorithms, but even with this is still going to take minutes per frame(animation), if there is to be any benefits, and many single frame Ad graphics with all the fancy reflections takes hours on high end workstations with multipliable professional GPUs and server CPUs working in tandem.
Gaming use alone in not going to sell enough APUs for AMD to make any money, AMD needs to make sure that these systems can outperform Intel’s CPU for Ray Tracing non gaming workloads, if they want to get enough sales to turn a profit. AMD needs to make sure that the Open Source Graphics community is provided with the Tools and support to get their software running on and benefiting from AMD version of HSA, by making sure the OpenCL, and OpenGL support is there to leverage the APUs to Outperform Intel’s core i7 CPUs/GPUs in the ray tracing Benchmarks.
If AMD’s APUs can Not beat last years core i7 in ray tracing, then buying last years core i7 based laptop with AMDs or Nvidia’s discrete mobile GPUs will be the more affordable solution for rendering. I can always get a last years’ core i7 based new HP on sale at a big box electronic(Not best Buy) store, for the price of any new model APU AMD based, or Intel based, HP/other laptop of comparable performance and price, not that AMD can yet compete with Intel’s x86 CPU performance. If AMD or Nvidia can get ray tracing hardware built into their Discrete GPUs, then for rendering(Ray tracing) the CPU would become a non issue for graphics rendering.
“Gaming use alone in not
“Gaming use alone in not going to sell enough APUs for AMD to make any money, AMD needs to make sure that these systems can outperform Intel’s CPU for Ray Tracing non gaming workloads, if they want to get enough sales to turn a profit.AMD needs to make sure that the Open Source Graphics community is provided with the Tools and support to get their software running on and benefiting from AMD version of HSA, by making sure the OpenCL, and OpenGL support is there to leverage the APUs to Outperform Intel’s core i7 CPUs/GPUs in the ray tracing Benchmarks.”
What kind of market size, value wise, would the Open Source Graphics community represent?
> I think that AMD is on the
> I think that AMD is on the right track.
Yes, but they drive like my Grandmother.
> The APU is the future of computing.
Part of, the beginning of, the Future.
It will be great for Tablets, which are popular for people who click more than they type since one Chip provides much of what is needed.
For people who actually do type then a Tablet is (obviously) not great, and a Laptop is an insult to the Finger. A real Keyboard is needed for typing, just as a “real” Computer is needed for Computing.
An APU is not the “real” Computer to which I refer.
What will be the Future is an HSA CPU (not an APU) where you buy a CPU that will accept Graphics Cards of the User’s choosing to ‘build’ your own “APU”.
The HSA CPU will run the OS and do the old X86 CPU duties (unless the HSA CPU is ARM based) serving the ‘Compute Commands’ to the Graphic Cards.
> AMD will leave Intel in their dust.
Yes, once they get SeaMicro Fabric with ARM/X86 HSA CPUs on a Server Motherboard that can hold a half dozen of AMD’s powerful Graphic Cards — then AMD will have SuperComputeServers.
Not built for your average User (that is what Tablets, and Cell Phones) are for) but I want one !
In More detail, those
In More detail, those streaming capabilities are impressive, read and learn! Very thorough the Blighty way, they write the best computer books, hands down! Great review, and HSA explanation.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/06/04/amd_releases_new_kaveri_mobile_apus/
It’s only 2.7/3.6GHZ quad
It’s only 2.7/3.6GHZ quad core with less work done per clock cycle than Sandy Bridge+, and 35W TDP. AMD needs to grow a pair and release some 47W and 57W APUs like Intel has done so it can have more room for performance
This Link points back at this
This Link points back at this Page.
https://pcper.com/reviews/Processors/AMD-Kaveri-Mobile-Preview-AMD-FX-7600P-Performance
“… As it turns out…not so much.
(Link)_Continue reading our preview of the AMD FX-7600P Mobile Kaveri APU!!_
Instead, AMD is using the FX brand in a place you likely least expected it:…”
It seems to be the tail of the “Intro” which is erroneously included in the midst of the Article proper. Another way of explaining the prior sentence is go to the bottom of https://pcper.com/category/tags/fx-7600p and see the ‘Link Sentence’ in it’s correct location.
(PS: Feel free to delete this Comment after fixing).
Thanks.