Results: Synthetics
Sorted by 3DMark score, Intel’s Core i5-4670K takes first place. But it appears that’s only the result of a winning Physics sub-test result. Intel’s four physical cores outperforming AMD’s two Steamroller modules really should come as no surprise. More significant is the Graphics number, which puts four AMD APU configurations ahead of Intel's HD Graphics 4600 engine.
The latest version of PCMark is quite a bit different from previous Futuremark benchmarks. It’s broken down into three separate suites, including Home, Creative, and Work. Each has a collection of workloads (for example, the Home test emphasizes Web browsing, writing, casual gaming, photo editing, and video chatting). Moreover, the Home and Creative benchmarks can be run with or without OpenCL acceleration. Oddly, our A8-6500T couldn’t get through either without crashing, so its lower numbers had to be run using the Conventional setting.
Likely as a result of its strong graphics engine, the A10-7850K secures wins in the Home, Creative, and Work tests (though we wouldn’t expect a CPU-only Work run to favor AMD).
The A8-7600 in its 65 W configuration fares pretty well against AMD’s 100 W A10-6800K. Given a slightly lower price tag, that’d likely become an attractive option for comparable performance in a lower-power machine.
We’ll refrain from drawing sweeping conclusions about AMD’s showing against Intel in a synthetic benchmark. However, the Kaveri-based APUs easily slip past Intel’s $140 Core i3-4330. In most cases, they also do really well versus the pricier Core i5.
