If you're not already familiar with AMD's Dual Graphics technology, you can think of it as a form of CrossFire that pairs an APU and discrete GPU to extract additional performance. The company started touting Dual Graphics back in the Llano days, so we published an in-depth examination of its inner workings back in August of last year (AMD Dual Graphics Analysis: Better Benchmarks; Same Experience?).
Back then, we observed that Fraps suggested that the add-in GPU was adding a lot of extra speed. However, our video-based FCAT testing showed a lot of those new frames were getting dropped and chopped off, ultimately yielding an experience no better than integrated graphics operating on its own. To demonstrate this phenomenon to our readers, we captured lossless video from the graphics card and uploaded it to YouTube with instructions on how to watch at 60 Hz. If you want more information, and haven't already seen the story we wrote, you owe it to yourself to check it out.
It took a few months, but AMD says it addressed the problem in its beta Catalyst 13.35 driver. We didn't have much time to prepare for this piece, but we did manage to test with Tomb Raider, BioShock Infinite, and The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. Previously, all three games fared well in Fraps and fell on their faces during our FCAT analysis.


We begin with Tomb Raider. These results were recorded using FCAT, so dropped and runt frames are excluded; the results can be believed because we're pulling the output straight from the DVI port.
There's an almost-100% boost with Dual Graphics enabled. But before we get too excited, let's look at frame time variance:


Latencies appear low, and lower is better. But to make sure our quantitative data corresponds to what we see, let's revisit the video like we did in our previous Dual Graphics analysis.
Our video jives with the data we collected; Dual Graphics appears to work much better in Tomb Raider than it did on AMD's previous-gen platform.
Next up is BioShock Infinite, which has also been problematic in the past.



Frame rates clearly jump in BioShock thanks to Dual Graphics, though we do observe more of that nasty frame time variance.
The last title we had time for was The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim.




FCAT tells us that Skyrim's average frame rate is up with Dual Graphics enabled. However, the game's minimum performance level doesn't increase. A look at frame rate over time reveals a couple of valleys, one of which corresponds to a spike in the frame time variance chart. Worse, the Dual Graphics comparison video doesn't look any smoother than the A8-7600 or Radeon R7 240 on their own. If anything, it even looks choppier at times.
Skyrim is known for its frame time variance issues, and we've seen other dual-GPU configurations behave strangely in the game. Although we plan to write a more thorough follow-up to our first excursion with Dual Graphics, we're at least glad that frame pacing appears enabled in the company's driver. As for the value analysis, we have to save that for next time.
- 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.