I swear I saw this article already a couple days ago. Here, not on another site. Did it get embargoed or something?
Anyhow, I'll go ahead and offer an Internet high-five to Ian for the burn on the A8-7600 being marked as "New" complete with quotes in the chart. I've been wanting to build a low-wattage APU setup for light gaming since the "launch" but AMD seems determined to refuse my money.
Why is there a 30 watt discrepancy at the top? It would show better to display the actual TDP... Or does 100 MHz really do all that to the heat dissipated?
The design's apparently hitting the clock speed wall and needs a lot more power to get marginally faster; however I suspect the higher TDP is probably driven by the 200mhz non-turbo bump and being able to stay at turbo for longer.
The higher TDP should allow both the CPU and GPU islands to run at max load without throttling. Sure, nominal clock speeds don't change much, but as in the mobile SoC space, a difference in TDP can lead to significant performance deltas under sustained load. This might be especially true in the OEM space where a system with an A8-7600 (@45W TDP) only has a cooler capable of dissipating ~45W of heat.
Also, I'm sure there's differences in CPU binning. To hit higher clocks they may be going with higher leakage parts. To hit lower TDPs they're probably picking lower leakage chips. That would also be a good explanation as to why the lower TDP parts have been delayed - binning.
While APUs seem great at first, they don't really make much sense, if you think about it. If you want to build a gaming rig on tight budget, then a cheap 250X and athlon x4 is a better fit, since its not that more expensive and performs much much better even compared to top end apu with 512SPs.
This would make sense, if it was priced lower or had better grapics. Although it makes ton of sense already for someone building a lowprofile mITX build, where dGPU wouldn't fit.
HSA is a feature that only applies to GPU+CPU combo's. it by no means, means faster than a separate CPU and GPU.
HSA = shared memory NO HSA = no shared memory
That's the ONLY difference.
APU's will always be limited by memory bandwidth. Your average 5 year old videocard has 150GB/s vram. System RAM (which is what APU's use) only goes about 10 to 20GB/s.
As for Mantle, that works regardless of CPU, so you can see mantle benefits even in Intel CPU's, or without any APU system.
DX12 will win out over Mantle. Mantle will end up just like PhsyX did....and Phsyx is basically dead and only relegated to menial physics calculations in some games, rather than worthwhile eyecandy. .
They're good for standard Best-Buy systems. No graphics card, restricted form factor, low price and little Jimmy can play games on it too. I actually recommend A-series processors for anyone I know who isn't really in to computers because the improved GPU performance is worth the reduced CPU performance in almost everything that most people use.
I wonder how someone who isn't really into computers would end up playing games that would benefit from the step up in performance you get by going from Intel HD graphics to Kaveri.
Frankly, single-threaded performance seems way more important to casual users, and Haswell Pentiums slap Kaveri silly in that regard. (and are quite frugal in terms of power consumption, too)
Like a few others that posted, I was hoping to build a low power system based around the A8-7600 (or A10-7800), but got tired of waiting. I ordered parts for an Intel system a few days ago, as even though AMD is making these new announcements (and one "new" one, I giggled a bit), "Exact release date and pricing has not yet been announced".
However, I wanted to mention that when I stopped by Micro Center to pick up a processor, I noticed that they had both of the AMD K processors at a significant discount - I want to say they were $120/$140. If there had been a 65W version available, I might have considered picking one up.
Alas, maybe next time. :(
AMD: Kaveri looks tasty, can't wait to see it out in the open!
It's been almost two months since this post now, and there's still no sign of these new CPUs anywhere. What's going on here? I would buy an A10-7800 (or an A8-7600) today if it was available. Please, AMD, take my money. That's all I'm asking.
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yannigr - Tuesday, June 10, 2014 - link
I have been waiting from the day of the first review the A8-7600. I abandoned that plan 15 days ago. Staying with my AM3.Question: A8-7600 is it going to have True Audio or is it removed like it was said for the A8 models?
Anonymous Blowhard - Tuesday, June 10, 2014 - link
I swear I saw this article already a couple days ago. Here, not on another site. Did it get embargoed or something?Anyhow, I'll go ahead and offer an Internet high-five to Ian for the burn on the A8-7600 being marked as "New" complete with quotes in the chart. I've been wanting to build a low-wattage APU setup for light gaming since the "launch" but AMD seems determined to refuse my money.
lmcd - Tuesday, June 10, 2014 - link
Why is there a 30 watt discrepancy at the top? It would show better to display the actual TDP... Or does 100 MHz really do all that to the heat dissipated?DanNeely - Tuesday, June 10, 2014 - link
The design's apparently hitting the clock speed wall and needs a lot more power to get marginally faster; however I suspect the higher TDP is probably driven by the 200mhz non-turbo bump and being able to stay at turbo for longer.MrCommunistGen - Tuesday, June 10, 2014 - link
The higher TDP should allow both the CPU and GPU islands to run at max load without throttling. Sure, nominal clock speeds don't change much, but as in the mobile SoC space, a difference in TDP can lead to significant performance deltas under sustained load. This might be especially true in the OEM space where a system with an A8-7600 (@45W TDP) only has a cooler capable of dissipating ~45W of heat.Also, I'm sure there's differences in CPU binning. To hit higher clocks they may be going with higher leakage parts. To hit lower TDPs they're probably picking lower leakage chips. That would also be a good explanation as to why the lower TDP parts have been delayed - binning.
MattVincent - Tuesday, June 10, 2014 - link
I was interested in the a8-7600 as well but AMD processors seem like vapor ware lately. Ended up going intelt.s. - Wednesday, June 11, 2014 - link
Yeah. And their price point too. Too expensive.tuxRoller - Tuesday, June 10, 2014 - link
Do any of these have an ecc aware memory controller?Flunk - Tuesday, June 10, 2014 - link
No, they're all consumer-level chips and they should be quite cheap. As far as I know the FM2+ socket doesn't not support ECC on any CPU parts.tuxRoller - Tuesday, June 10, 2014 - link
Are the opterons the only AMD chips that support ecc? Don't they have anything equivalent to Intel's Xeon e3?argosreality - Tuesday, June 10, 2014 - link
The AM3+ FX series all support ECC memorytuxRoller - Wednesday, June 11, 2014 - link
Thank you! It's been ridiculously hard to find this info.hojnikb - Tuesday, June 10, 2014 - link
While APUs seem great at first, they don't really make much sense, if you think about it. If you want to build a gaming rig on tight budget, then a cheap 250X and athlon x4 is a better fit, since its not that more expensive and performs much much better even compared to top end apu with 512SPs.This would make sense, if it was priced lower or had better grapics. Although it makes ton of sense already for someone building a lowprofile mITX build, where dGPU wouldn't fit.
hojnikb - Tuesday, June 10, 2014 - link
... or for someone, that has actual use for HSA.ecstubblebine - Tuesday, June 10, 2014 - link
Like every Mantle game and ALL console ports for the foreseeable future. I DEFINITELY have a use for HSAtechguyz - Monday, June 30, 2014 - link
HSA is a feature that only applies to GPU+CPU combo's. it by no means, means faster than a separate CPU and GPU.HSA = shared memory
NO HSA = no shared memory
That's the ONLY difference.
APU's will always be limited by memory bandwidth. Your average 5 year old videocard has 150GB/s vram. System RAM (which is what APU's use) only goes about 10 to 20GB/s.
As for Mantle, that works regardless of CPU, so you can see mantle benefits even in Intel CPU's, or without any APU system.
DX12 will win out over Mantle. Mantle will end up just like PhsyX did....and Phsyx is basically dead and only relegated to menial physics calculations in some games, rather than worthwhile eyecandy. .
Flunk - Tuesday, June 10, 2014 - link
They're good for standard Best-Buy systems. No graphics card, restricted form factor, low price and little Jimmy can play games on it too. I actually recommend A-series processors for anyone I know who isn't really in to computers because the improved GPU performance is worth the reduced CPU performance in almost everything that most people use.MartinT - Wednesday, June 11, 2014 - link
I wonder how someone who isn't really into computers would end up playing games that would benefit from the step up in performance you get by going from Intel HD graphics to Kaveri.Frankly, single-threaded performance seems way more important to casual users, and Haswell Pentiums slap Kaveri silly in that regard. (and are quite frugal in terms of power consumption, too)
Hubb1e - Wednesday, June 11, 2014 - link
Umm, every family with a boyizmanq - Tuesday, June 10, 2014 - link
it's not only cheaper, power consumption is lower with APU :)extremesheep49 - Tuesday, June 10, 2014 - link
Typo:A10-7700K should be 95W per the AMD site.
havefunbob - Tuesday, June 10, 2014 - link
Yes it ismoozoo - Tuesday, June 10, 2014 - link
What is the fp32:fp64 ratio on the A10 PRO-7850B?if its 1/2 then I'm interested :)
Gadgety - Wednesday, June 11, 2014 - link
Heeere's A8-7600. Maybe.deruberhanyok - Thursday, June 12, 2014 - link
Like a few others that posted, I was hoping to build a low power system based around the A8-7600 (or A10-7800), but got tired of waiting. I ordered parts for an Intel system a few days ago, as even though AMD is making these new announcements (and one "new" one, I giggled a bit), "Exact release date and pricing has not yet been announced".However, I wanted to mention that when I stopped by Micro Center to pick up a processor, I noticed that they had both of the AMD K processors at a significant discount - I want to say they were $120/$140. If there had been a 65W version available, I might have considered picking one up.
Alas, maybe next time. :(
AMD: Kaveri looks tasty, can't wait to see it out in the open!
Valantar - Sunday, July 27, 2014 - link
It's been almost two months since this post now, and there's still no sign of these new CPUs anywhere. What's going on here? I would buy an A10-7800 (or an A8-7600) today if it was available. Please, AMD, take my money. That's all I'm asking.