AMD's Kaveri APU announced with Steamroller

[barnsley]

AMD released some information at CES regarding their Kaveri APU.

First big overview :

The first thing that struck me is that it appears Steamroller has a future, and that future is in the new APUs. The second thing is up to 'twelve compute cores' (I vote to change the M in AMD to 'Moar cores'). In terms of actual CPU cores, amd have toned things down a bit it seems, as so far the APUs have "up to four steamroller cores".Its also nice to see the true audio and mantle support for the graphics side of the APUs themselves. I personally rather like my Athlon x4, which I found out yesterday actually has better single core performance than some of the current FX series. While this doesn't necessarily mean that its on par with intel in that area, it could mean that AMD have started to make stronger single cores.

Second image:

The above image include some nice features that AM3+ doesn't currently have, such as PCIe 3. The increase in GPU performance is also very impressive, however it does make me wonder about heat. The decrease in TDP is also a nice sight to see.


HSA:

Note at time of writing no program reportedly supports HSA as of yet.


What do you lot think? Are APUs the next step forward and AMD has struck gold or is this just a fad that'll die out and be replaced by even less powerful cpus in clusters?

Personally I really want to see the APUs without the gpus, as they currently are quite neat little CPUs on their own, I've been impressed with the x4 750k I have in my LAN project thus far..

 

[Jaytec359]

AMD's SteamRoller cores should be interesting, I wonder what made them think of that name, might even be able to 'Steamroll' Intel *chuckle*.

I'm exited for APU's in the business workplace, especially for multimedia Desktops and Workstations, then again it depends on the pricing (as it always does for businesses).

Mantle support? For an APU I would love to see performance results, especially in laptops when playing Mantle Supported games such as BattleField 4.
As for the TPD change, It seems almost like PowerTune for APU's, the balancing seesaw of TPD, power consumption and performance.

 

[cooperman]

Well it says upto 12 'compute' core's but it is allso counting the gpu's core's (4 cpu core's and upto 8 gpu core's)
I realy whanted to see a 8 core APU like the lol 'next gen' boxes with power low consumption maybe amd has that planed for the future who knows.

 

[barnsley]

Well it says upto 12 'compute' core's but it is allso counting the gpu's core's (4 cpu core's and upto 8 gpu core's)
I realy whanted to see a 8 core APU like the lol 'next gen' boxes with power consumption maybe amd has that planed for the future who knows.

I got excited when I saw 12 cores too. Not that anything could use them . They'll make a steamroller CPU on the APU socket I reckon.

 

[cooperman]

I got excited when I saw 12 cores too. Not that anything could use them . They'll make a steamroller CPU on the APU socket I reckon.

Yer maybe thay will call it a amd phenom iii x4 :lol: no idea why thay called the last FM2 chips amd athlon's.

Seriously though if AMD whanted to make a K10 8 core (with real core's the threads) phenom iii i'd snap one of those up ^_^

 

[barnsley]

Yer maybe thay will call it a amd phenom iii x4 :lol: no idea why thay called the last FM2 chips amd athlon's.

Seriously though if AMD whanted to make a K10 8 core (with real core's the threads) phenom iii i'd snap one of those up ^_^

I would only really for a laugh (10 core Matx ftw) as nothing really uses all those cores bar server stuff/rendering.

 

[Wraith]

Excellent and informative Barnsley. I also noticed that my Athlon 7750BE has better single core performance than my FX-4100, I've been wondering whether or not anyone else had had the same findings.

Although I'm still not sold on the idea of APUs taking the top spot over dedicated CPUs, not altogether keen on buying a APU as the integrated GPU would be wasted as I personally will always go dedicated for graphics. If and when AMD decide to do a FM2 CPU I'll consider the switch, for now I'll stick to my age old AM3+.

 

[barnsley]

Excellent and informative Barnsley. I also noticed that my Athlon 7750BE has better single core performance than my FX-4100, I've been wondering whether or not anyone else had had the same findings.

Although I'm still not sold on the idea of APUs taking the top spot over dedicated CPUs, not altogether keen on buying a APU as the integrated GPU would be wasted as I personally will always go dedicated for graphics. If and when AMD decide to do a FM2 CPU I'll consider the switch, for now I'll stick to my age old AM3+.

Hate to sound rude but the fx 4100 was a bit of an unlucky combo, mainly due to Bulldozers incredibly poor cores and total number of cores. Its not suprising that the Athlon does better with single threads :l. I believe my x4 750 has got a bit more single core grunt than a 6200 (based on comparisons with a friends 6200 and my 640 on Arma 2). You should get a 6300 as that should work with your mobo and they're good value .

Also thanks .

 

[Ghosthud1]

To me it seems like amd is placing all there cards on future tech, at launch i have a strong feeling most people will be unimpressed by the initial performance. Hopefully AMD will sponsor software to get HSA everywhere.

But for budget gamers, cheaper steamboxes and media PC's AMD will basically control these areas which at the moment is a very strong area.

Intel will still be considered top dog for the coming years, but AMD will be offering some interesting alternatives.

 

[WYP]

Excellent and informative Barnsley. I also noticed that my Athlon 7750BE has better single core performance than my FX-4100, I've been wondering whether or not anyone else had had the same findings.

Although I'm still not sold on the idea of APUs taking the top spot over dedicated CPUs, not altogether keen on buying a APU as the integrated GPU would be wasted as I personally will always go dedicated for graphics. If and when AMD decide to do a FM2 CPU I'll consider the switch, for now I'll stick to my age old AM3+.

there are a lot of rumors recently that the when AMD move to 20nm for their excavator based APUs they will move to a 6 core for the high end. Looking forward to that if that happens, provided of-course it is better value than intel's offerings.

There is also word that AMD mantle can allow the use of gpus asymmetrically, which would allow an APUs gpu to support your main gpu or use two different GCN cards in one rig. This is just a rumor though, and it would require a lot of work from a developer.

 

[barnsley]

To me it seems like amd is placing all there cards on future tech, at launch i have a strong feeling most people will be unimpressed by the initial performance. Hopefully AMD will sponsor software to get HSA everywhere.

But for budget gamers, cheaper steamboxes and media PC's AMD will basically control these areas which at the moment is a very strong area.

Intel will still be considered top dog for the coming years, but AMD will be offering some interesting alternatives.

I very much doubt there will any sort of hype over these chips as I imagine people are still recovering from the bulldozer days.

As whatsyer mentioned, it'd be great if they bring out a 6 core apu (without the gpu obviously, dat heat). If AMD can nail the price/performance they'll do well. I don't want to see a repeat of the 9590/9370 pricings.

 

[cooperman]

I dont know thay where bosting about a 30% ipc performance boost over there older counterparts if thay can push out a extra 30% thats impresive but you know it just may all be hype.

 

[Wraith]

Hate to sound rude but the fx 4100 was a bit of an unlucky combo, mainly due to Bulldozers incredibly poor cores and total number of cores. Its not suprising that the Athlon does better with single threads :l. I believe my x4 750 has got a bit more single core grunt than a 6200 (based on comparisons with a friends 6200 and my 640 on Arma 2). You should get a 6300 as that should work with your mobo and they're good value .

Also thanks .

I have looked into the 6200 but had my eye on the 8350 since August, although I think I'll wait a while longer to see what 2014 brings.. always seems to be wait wait wait with AMD then Boom something awesome.

 

[barnsley]

I have looked into the 6200 but had my eye on the 8350 since August, although I think I'll wait a while longer to see what 2014 brings.. always seems to be wait wait wait with AMD then Boom something awesome.

The 8350 will be their most powerful chip (thats worth buying, I don't count the 9590/9370) for some time. Your statement is true about their gpus. Cpus on the other hand...
Anyway, as long as that cpu isn't limiting you then go for that .

 

[Zoot]

Some thoughts/ramblings:

There's a Cinebench score for Kaveri floating around suggesting the new A10-7850k is about on par with the top end Richland A10-6800k when it comes to CPU performance.

There's also a slide that came from the leaked presentation [LINK] saying that because they're on a new process, they couldn't get the clocks as high as they'd like. This means that the lower clocks (3.7GHz/4.0GHz vs 4.1GHz/4.4GHz) is enough to offset the IPC gains of Steamroller. (The linked slide actually says this)

Or in other words, the only advantage on the CPU side will be from a power perspective, with lower clocks, and a new process. Bad news for us enthusiasts but good news for mobile, which is where the volume is. Although no one ever expected this to be a miracle Intel killer.

This kind of makes sense when we see we've no FX CPUs from AMD this year. At best we would have gotten an FX-8550 with Steamroller cores at 3.7GHz and 4.0GHz turbo which would be probably be on par with the FX-8350. I kind of see this as good news, as now we know it made no sense for AMD to release a Steamroller FX on AM3+.

On the other hand, the GPU performance is where it's at. The benchmarks floating around have it competing with Intel's Iris Pro at a fraction of the price. Although the Iris Pro was always kind of irrelevant given its eye-watering price.

I've a mini-ITX FM2+ board on its way to me, hopefully it'll be here by the weekend. It'll be housing a Richland A6-6400K, but I might pick up an A10-7850k later in the year and turn it into a Steambox.

 

[barnsley]

Performance comparison:

 

[WYP]

I'm very interested in seeing how this performs, especially when overclocked!

There is word that AMD had to run the APUs at lower clocks than they wanted on order to meet power requirements, especially on the GPU side. Lets hope this can translate into great overclocking performance.

I really look forward to seeing reviews on this is the coming weeks.

 

[barnsley]

I'm very interested in seeing how this performs, especially when overclocked!

There is word that AMD had to run the APUs at lower clocks than they wanted on order to meet power requirements, especially on the GPU side. Lets hope this can translate into great overclocking performance.

I really look forward to seeing reviews on this is the coming weeks.

It could be that they overclock well or they have very bad heat issues :l. It doesn't bother me as much as the non gpu versions OC much better and are quite a bit cheaper. They're the ones to look forward to .