Opinions: Will DX12 increase the popularity of APUs?

TheDarkOne198

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I have a thought that APU's may suddenly find themselves becoming a lot more popular with the advent of DX12 and games that use it. I know that is still a ways off,we probably wont be seeing DX12 games (aside from MMO's) until like 2017. Still,given the built in GPU of an APU and DX12's supposed ability to use all GPU's in a system,wouldn't the R7 GPU of an A10 APU be able to add something like an extra 15-20 FPS in a given game,maybe? I know DX12 uses some of the same methods as Mantle did,to take overhead off of the CPU,so there should not be an issue with "bottlenecking" (good grief,I hate that term). I would think that the additional R7 GPU would be more preferable to gamers than a strictly faster CPU,as we all know games need more GPU horsepower for FPS than CPU,in general,MMO's not withstanding. Take my system for example,my R9 285 would potentially be rendering with my A10 7850's R7 GPU. I would think that combo,in general,would provide superior FPS in a DX12 game than the same config with the CPU swapped with with something like a 4690K,even if the Intel chip also has a GPU,though no where near as good as the R7. I feel the R7 would add a lot more performance to the mix than the faster CPU would. The i5 CPU may add 10 more FPS with its HD 4600 GPU,but the R7 could maybe add 15-20,don't you think? Could it actually work out this way?
 

TheDarkOne198

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So the benefit will come from work spread more evenly across more cores,then? Well,thanks for the input :)
In the end,we wont know until everything is out and using DX12 and that will be a while and by then,Zen will be out and hopefully make current gen APU and CPU's from AMD irrelevant.
 

Quixit

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Not unless someone actually goes all-out and builds a performance-competitive APU. AMD has already proven that APUs that have at least mid-range GPU performance are possible. There is really no reason they couldn't bring out an APU that had 4 CPU cores and the equivalent to a Radeon 370 on it. I guess they just think it wouldn't sell enough to be worth developing. They could also leverage HBM to build a socketed GPU that would plug into the motheboard next to the CPU. They were at one point planning that (as part of project fusion) but I'm not sure they are anymore.
 

TheDarkOne198

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that's interesting,Quixit. For all we know,a Zen based APU may just be that way,there are rumors that Zen APU's will have HBM somehow onboard them and the only other thing I can think that it could be used for is some how in place of L1/L2 cache. An idea that just occurred to me is building a CPU that somehow has a socket on top of it,where you can "plug" that socketed GPU you mentioned directly on the CPU chip,turning it into an APU,effectively. You would have to remove the stock cooler,assuming you are still using it,clean things off and put it or a better one that came with the GPU chip,due to the increased heat it would produce. Of course,if you are using aftermarket cooling,odds are you already have something better anyway and would just need to clean and reapply TIM. In any case,I am willing to bet Zen based APUs will be pretty decent,as from what I can tell,the main problems with current APUs are their single core performance,a leftover fault of Bulldozer design. Zen is supposed to remedy that and I hope it really does. Good single core performance and,as you said,around 370 performance,would be a pretty attractive mainstream product,IMO and its possible that at 14nm,they could fit more than 4 CPU cores. It could have maybe 6,perhaps. At least,it could have 4 good cores and maybe a lower dual core with their own blend of HT,priced same as an i3 but with much better GPU than the Intel CPU and make a non HT design that is priced between the Pentium and the i3,undercutting the i3 for budget builds entirely since people may want that GPU for some somewhat decent gaming.
 

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