AMD’s Dual Graphics technology, once referred to as Hybrid CrossFire, allows the APU to work cooperatively with a discrete graphics card to deliver higher game frame rates than either component flying solo. At first glance, this seems like a great way to extract value, offering an upgrade path not available on any competing platform.

Unfortunately, there are limitations. First, this is a software-based capability that only works with DirectX 10 and 11 game engines. Second, the APU is quickly outclassed by most discrete cards. So it really only works with Radeon HD 6450, 6570, and 6670 boards, maintaining balance between the two parts.
We've long since wanted to dig deeper into Dual Graphics; after all, as you can see in the screen capture above, AMD claims it serves up a serious performance increase. But in our subjective experience, this feature does not necessarily appear to yield smoother game play. For the company's Richland introduction, we were excited to finally test Dual Graphics using our FCAT tools, capturing the raw display output and analyzing the stream to determine if frames were being dropped entirely or rendered in a series of full and tiny (runt) frames.

Unfortunately, our video-based analysis turned up an unexpected issue that prevents us from reporting the performance of Dual Graphics. Intermittently, we'd see a frame rendered, followed by a piece of the following frame, a piece of the original frame, and the rest of the following frame. This artifact is accompanied by a tear across the screen as Dual Graphics puts the two frames together.
It's consequently impossible to run our FCAT analysis on the output, since the frame sequence can't be measured. Fraps-based testing in this case would clearly be inaccurate. So, it's better to hold off on trying to quantify the performance of Dual Graphics until AMD can provide a solution that composites the frames free from artifacts or tears. The company is aware of our findings and is working to address them. As of yet, though, we don't have an explanation of why this is happening.
- Richland APUs Make Their Way To The Desktop
- AMD Dual Graphics: Not Ready For Benchmark Results
- Test Setup And Benchmarks
- Results: Synthetic Benchmarks
- Results: F1 2012 And The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
- Results: Tomb Raider And Metro: Last Light
- Results: Media Encoding
- Results: Adobe CS6
- Results: Productivity
- Results: Compression
- Results: Power Consumption
- As Expected, Richland Is A Little Better; Not Massively So
I guess Richland is still very hot going by the power figures alone. Still, it's a good step up (and stop gap) for AMD.
Nice review still. Are you guys planning on a follow up for Dual Graphics? 8)
Cheers!
No, since driver 13.1 even the 5800k was able to run dual graphics with a HD 7750. I am typing on a system with that exact setup right now. I am not sure if the 6800k will allow anything above the 7750 though. When I tried a 7770 with the 5800k I wasn't given the option to enable dual graphics.
Richland does appear to be just a refinement of Trinity. This review does explain why Kaveri desktop APUs are due to release at the end of the year.
I don't see why this argument is even made since both the 6700 and 6800K have the same MSRP considering that the only real difference in power consumption observed between the two chips was in gaming...
Your final graph suggests that the overall performance of the i3 is within margin of error of the A8-6800K(for which you didn't even bother to provide overclock benchmarks)
Lastly, can you confirm the MSRP? Your values seem to differ, other sources suggest $142 instead of your stated $149 (in fact, the pricing on all of the models seems to be off)
Isn't this a tech enthusiast site? The few reviews I've seen out there claim Richland overclocks better, cooler and higher then Trinity. Furthermore, they claim the overclocked igpu performs at the level of a 6670... which is a huge jump in performance... as the 5800k, even overclocked and with fast ram, was only about 70% a HD 6670.
where is the beef? Seriously i expected more from this site.
Secondly, the comment that Kaveri will require a new socket is largely unknown at this point - all that's been revealed is that it uses an "FM2+" socket - who knows what that'll mean in terms of mobo socket compatibility.
No, since driver 13.1 even the 5800k was able to run dual graphics with a HD 7750. I am typing on a system with that exact setup right now. I am not sure if the 6800k will allow anything above the 7750 though. When I tried a 7770 with the 5800k I wasn't given the option to enable dual graphics.
Hurry call amd tech support and tell them you have managed to accomplished what there high paid engineers have been unable to do.
I have no doubt that ccc is saying dual graphics option enabled but when you run benchmarks with it enable and disabled they are the same.
@Don, I have 3 queries for you.
Does Richland crossfire with 7750 (officially or unofficially)? If it does, that is sure an interesting thing to explore.
Also Don, yes even I've seen the figure of $142 floating around in other tech sites. Why do you quote it otherwise?
Lastly, you 'could' have added the Core i3 with Radeon 6670 in the power consumption charts just to show the increased performance in games and other applications comes with the added power consumption of the 6670 if it is present.