
As we start testing the applications in Adobe’s Creative Cloud suite, a pattern emerges suggesting that two Hyper-Threaded Haswell cores can keep up with Kaveri’s Steamroller modules.
Our Premiere Pro workload encodes a project to .mp4, and doesn’t benefit from OpenCL acceleration. Therefore, we’re left to the mercy of Steamroller, which nudges A10-7850K in front of last generation’s -6800K. Core i3-4330 is just a few seconds faster than AMD’s new flagship though.

The After Effects rendering project we run is also CPU-limited, pegging each of our processors at 100% utilization. But AMD pulls out a win. It’s not clear how the A10-7850K manages to trump Intel’s Core i5-4670K, but it does, if only by one second. Really, only the dual-core Core i3 and 45 W A8-6500T suffer in this test.

You probably already know that we script two different Photoshop tests, each with its own set of filters. The CPU-oriented metric uses threaded routines to tax as many cores as we can expose, while the OpenCL-accelerated benchmark taps graphics resources to speed up an entirely separate workload.
Sorting according to the CPU results, we see AMD’s A10-7850K just ahead of the -6800K. Yes, Intel’s Core i5-4670K is quite a bit quicker, but you’ll pay an extra $70 or so for the privilege of owning it. A much closer contender is the $140 Core i3, which uses two Hyper-Threaded cores to pull within 12 seconds of AMD’s -7850K.
But the Intel chip does quite a bit better in our OpenCL-accelerated metric. In fact, we also see the Richland-based A10-6800K finish up ahead of any Kaveri-based APU.
- Steamroller, GCN, HSA, 28 nm: Oh My!
- Meet The Compute Core
- A More Capable GPU: GCN Surfaces In Kaveri
- Enabling HSA On The Kaveri APU
- Test Hardware And Software
- Gaming: BioShock Infinite And Grid 2
- Gaming: The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim And World Of Warcraft
- Dual Graphics: Does Kaveri Fix CrossFire's Problems?
- Results: Synthetics
- Results: Content Creation
- Results: Adobe CC
- Results: Productivity
- Results: Compression Apps
- Results: Media Encoding
- Results: Power Consumption And Efficiency
- Hoping The Best Is Yet To Come
Of course, the other part of this story will be the adoption of HSA and Mantle. In this regard, I think AMD is playing its cards right. If you want to provide incentive for game developers to invest in developing for Mantle, that economic incentive is not going to come from providing a high-end part that tries to compete with high-end discrete GPUs. That economic incentive, and I believe it's huge, is in lowering the cost of entry to play your game.
With the A8-7600, I believe AMD is providing a tremendous market opportunity and incentive if, with the combination of Kaveri plus embedded technologies (Mantle & True Audio), you can provide a playable gaming environment for the mass market. Admittedly, it may not be a "playable gaming environment" from an enthusiast standpoint, but as an entry point, it is quite good enough. It will be important for AMD to show that the release of Mantle for BF4 impacts performance for the Kaveri APUs in particular. More specifically, they will need to show that Mantle makes BF4 playable on a 7600. If they are successful in that regard, then I think they may really have something exciting here.
I'm hoping AMD is successful in this, because it's obvious that the desktop CPU performance race has reached a point of diminishing returns. Kudus for AMD for potentially changing the game in the industry.
All that said, they screwed up the pricing for the high-end. It needs to be $30 cheaper, and what is even the point of the 7700K? The 7850K at ~$145 and the 7600 where it is would have made much more sense if they want to incent adoption of this technology. The other point is they need to get motherboard manufacturers on-board with bringing more ITX FM2+ motherboards to market at different price points.
I got the opposite impression. Which graph are you looking at?
Given that AM3+ looks like it's done, it would have been nice to see a 6-core chip. Still, one of these may end up in my next laptop.
I got the opposite impression. Which graph are you looking at?
I really like where AMD is going (HSA, GCN and TrueAudio).Too bad the manufacturing process of GlobalFoundries just can't match Intel's.
Also, it would be interesting to see the new Bay Trail Pentium or Celeron CPUs (whichever is closer in performance) in the Efficiency graphs.
28nm SHP from GlobalFoundries. AMD bought over $1 billion worth of wafers from them in december...
I guess you have been reading the articles from a year ago about AMD still using TSMC despite promises of GlobalFoundries' new 28nm SHP process.
Of course, the other part of this story will be the adoption of HSA and Mantle. In this regard, I think AMD is playing its cards right. If you want to provide incentive for game developers to invest in developing for Mantle, that economic incentive is not going to come from providing a high-end part that tries to compete with high-end discrete GPUs. That economic incentive, and I believe it's huge, is in lowering the cost of entry to play your game.
With the A8-7600, I believe AMD is providing a tremendous market opportunity and incentive if, with the combination of Kaveri plus embedded technologies (Mantle & True Audio), you can provide a playable gaming environment for the mass market. Admittedly, it may not be a "playable gaming environment" from an enthusiast standpoint, but as an entry point, it is quite good enough. It will be important for AMD to show that the release of Mantle for BF4 impacts performance for the Kaveri APUs in particular. More specifically, they will need to show that Mantle makes BF4 playable on a 7600. If they are successful in that regard, then I think they may really have something exciting here.
I'm hoping AMD is successful in this, because it's obvious that the desktop CPU performance race has reached a point of diminishing returns. Kudus for AMD for potentially changing the game in the industry.
All that said, they screwed up the pricing for the high-end. It needs to be $30 cheaper, and what is even the point of the 7700K? The 7850K at ~$145 and the 7600 where it is would have made much more sense if they want to incent adoption of this technology. The other point is they need to get motherboard manufacturers on-board with bringing more ITX FM2+ motherboards to market at different price points.
Yesterday there was an HD7770 so low that you could get that and an FX 6300 for like $5 more than what newegg is asking for the 7850k. You can get an HD 7750 in that general price range with an FX 6300 now. In desktop, APU's still hold no appeal to me at all. Mobile, they have promise for sure.