AMD A10-7890K APU Review

Results: Office And CAD

Office Application Benchmarks

AMD markets the A10-7890K as a light gaming processor, and recommends the less expensive A10-7860K for office applications. However, we’d still like to know if the new APU’s higher IPC and combination of better CPU/GPU performance is sufficient for more productivity-oriented workloads.

Pitching AMD’s latest against Intel’s Core i7-6700K really isn't fair, and the results prove as much. However, the A10-7890K actually provides decent performance. The overclocked GPU doesn’t provide any benefit since it’s not really used, but the CPU’s high clock rate doesn't leave much to be desired.

The two Intel CPUs benefit from their higher IPC throughput in Excel. This is a good example of an application that still doesn’t take full advantage of threading, even though Microsoft could certainly get some benefit from it.

Applications like AutoCAD 2D are especially effective at exposing CPU bottlenecks.

Shifting focus to a 3D-accelerated workload sees the APUs fall behind even further, since they throttle back CPU clock rate when the on-die graphics engine kicks in.

This PDF creation workload utilizes multiple cores/threads. And because there is no graphics task to detract from the A10's host processing performance, Intel's Core i3-4160 is beaten by AMD’s APU (if only by one second).

AMD’s A10-7890K’s a good choice for everyday office applications and tasks, even though it takes a significant hit to host processing performance as soon as the GPU is used.

  • megamanxtreme
    As an AMD fanboy, this just came out as a disappointment. I hope Excavator does well. I might just wait for a Zen APU in 2017.
    Reply
  • SteelCity1981
    i see no point in this when you can get a 7860k godrvari apu, at a lower watt rating, thats cheaper and overclock it.
    Reply
  • kunstderfugue
    i see no point in this when you can get a 7860k godrvari apu, at a lower watt rating, thats cheaper and overclock it.

    The one value proposition of the 7890k that I see is the bundled Wraith Cooler. I wish toms had a performance benchmark on it because if it's good enough to cool your overclocked 125W APU (and even the 7860k should be rated at 125W TDP) then you won't have to spend the money on aftermarket cooling like I used to recommend. But considering you can get capable aftermarket cooling for as little as 15-20$, the 7860-7890 price difference is going to have to be quite small.
    Reply
  • Onus
    If you used a R7 250 with the Intel CPUs, what happens? My guess is the APU is, sadly, left in the dust. It's a little more money, but the performance gain should be worthwhile.
    Reply
  • Memnarchon
    $180 for 7890K?
    This is too much. AMD needs to drop prices a bit cause APUs have potential in the market but with these prices, it will target only people that don't have enough space...
    You can buy an FX6300 with R7 360 2GB that they will blow 7890K out of the water for the same money.
    PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant
    CPU: AMD FX-6300 3.5GHz 6-Core OEM/Tray Processor ($88.99 @ SuperBiiz)
    Video Card: XFX Radeon R7 360 2GB Core Edition Video Card ($100.99 @ SuperBiiz)
    Total: $189.98
    Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when availableGenerated by PCPartPicker 2016-03-22 08:50 EDT-0400
    Reply
  • logainofhades
    This thing is useless at $180. You can get an 860k, and a 750ti for less.

    PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant
    CPU: AMD Athlon X4 860K 3.7GHz Quad-Core Processor ($69.99 @ Newegg)
    Video Card: Zotac GeForce GTX 750 Ti 2GB Video Card ($103.99 @ SuperBiiz)
    Total: $173.98
    Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when availableGenerated by PCPartPicker 2016-03-21 23:39 EDT-0400
    Reply
  • 1cichfishy
    What's wrong with AMD when it comes to itx builds. I'd love something besides APU boards.
    Reply
  • logainofhades
    FX's high power requirements is the problem. Really hope Zen improves this problem.
    Reply
  • dstarr3
    What a glorious day it will be when AMD finally manages to be competitive again.
    Reply
  • LordStreetguru
    I have no clue why no one has made a 1080p 60HZ IPS free-sync display, there are TN ones for around $150, but who the hell wants a non 144hz TN display in this current year?
    Reply