AMD Kaveri Review: A8-7600 and A10-7850K Tested
by Ian Cutress & Rahul Garg on January 14, 2014 8:00 AM ESTLlano, Trinity and Kaveri Die: Compared
AMD sent along a high res shot of Kaveri's die. Armed with the same from the previous two generations, we can get a decent idea of the progression of AMD's APUs:
Llano, K10 Quad Core
Trinity and Richland Die, with two Piledriver modules and processor graphics
Kaveri, two modules and processor graphics
Moving from Llano to Trinity, we have the reduction from a fully-fledged quad core system to the dual module layout AMD is keeping with its APU range. Moving from Richland to Kaveri is actually a bigger step than one might imagine:
| AMD APU Details | ||||
| Core Name | Llano | Trinity | Richland | Kaveri |
| Microarch | K10 | Piledriver | Piledriver | Steamroller |
| CPU Example | A8-3850 | A10-5800K | A10-6800K | A10-7850K |
| Threads | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 |
| Cores | 4 | 2 | 2 | 2 |
| GPU | HD 6550 | HD 7660D | HD 8670D | R7 |
| GPU Arch | VLIW5 | VLIW4 | VLIW4 | GCN 1.1 |
| GPU Cores | 400 | 384 | 384 | 512 |
| Die size / mm2 | 228 | 246 | 246 | 245 |
| Transistors | 1.178 B | 1.303 B | 1.303 B | 2.41 B |
| Power | 100W | 100W | 100W | 95W |
| CPU MHz | 2900 | 3800 | 4100 | 3700 |
| CPU Turbo | N/A | 4200 | 4400 | 4000 |
| L1 Cache |
256KB C$ 256KB D$ |
128KB C$ 64KB D$ |
128KB C$ 64KB D$ |
192KB C$ 64KB D$ |
| L2 Cache | 4 x 1MB | 2 x 2 MB | 2 x 2 MB | 2 x 2 MB |
| Node | 32nm SOI | 32nm SOI | 32nm SOI | 28nm SHP |
| Memory | DDR-1866 | DDR-1866 | DDR-2133 | DDR-2133 |
Looking back at Llano and Trinity/Richland, it's very clear that AMD's APUs on GF's 32nm SOI process had a real issue with transistor density. The table below attempts to put everything in perspective but keep in mind that, outside of Intel, no one does a good job of documenting how they are counting (estimating) transistors. My only hope is AMD's transistor counting methods are consistent across CPU and GPU, although that alone may be wishful thinking:
| Transistor Density Comparison | ||||||||
| Manufacturing Process | Transistor Count | Die Size | Transistors per mm2 | |||||
| AMD Kaveri | GF 28nm SHP | 2.41B | 245 mm2 | 9.837M | ||||
| AMD Richland | GF 32nm SOI | 1.30B | 246 mm2 | 5.285M | ||||
| AMD Llano | GF 32nm SOI | 1.178B | 228 mm2 | 5.166M | ||||
| AMD Bonaire (R7 260X) | TSMC 28nm | 2.08B | 160 mm2 | 13.000M | ||||
| AMD Pitcairn (R7 270/270X) | TSMC 28nm | 2.80B | 212 mm2 | 13.209M | ||||
| AMD Vishera (FX-8350) | GF 32nm SOI | 1.2B | 315 mm2 | 3.810M | ||||
| Intel Haswell 4C (GT2) | Intel 22nm | 1.40B | 177 mm2 | 7.910M | ||||
| NVIDIA GK106 (GTX 660) | TSMC 28nm | 2.54B | 214 mm2 | 11.869M | ||||
If AMD is indeed counting the same way across APUs/GPUs, the move to Kaveri doesn't look all that extreme but rather a good point in between previous APUs and other AMD GCN GPUs. Compared to standalone CPU architectures from AMD, it's clear that the APUs are far more dense thanks to big portions of their die being occupied by a GPU.
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fteoath64 - Sunday, January 19, 2014 - link
"Now we need a new one, a fully HSA compliant HyperTransport." Yes! The dedicated people working on new SuperComputers are doing exotic Interconnects close or exceeding 1TBytes/sec speeds but limited by distance naturally. I see that for HyperTransport 3.0 one can implement 10 channels for high aggregated bandwidth, but that will use more transistors. In a budget conscious die size, using eSRAM seems to be a good trick to boost the bandwidth without overt complexity or transistor budget. The downside is eSRAM suck constant power so it becomes a fixture in the TDP numbers. Iris PRO uses 128MB of eDRAM while Xbox One uses 32MB eSRAM. I think the least amount would be somewhere around 24MB for the x86 to be effective in getting effective RAM bandwidth high enough!.The cascading effect if that the memory controller becomes complex and eats into the transistor budget considerably. Seems like a series of moving compromises to get the required performance numbers vs power budget for TDP.
I am actually very excited to see an Arm chip implementing HSA!!.
Samus - Wednesday, January 15, 2014 - link
I don't get why AMD can't compete with Intel's compute performance like they were absolutely able to do a decade ago. Have they lost all their engineering talent? This isn't just a matter of the Intel manufacturing/fab advantage.zodiacfml - Wednesday, January 15, 2014 - link
oh no, after all that, I just came impressed with the Iris Pro. I believe memory bandwidth is needed for Kaveri to stretch its legs.duploxxx - Wednesday, January 15, 2014 - link
impressed with iris pro? for that price difference i would buy a mediocore CPU and dedicated GPU and run circles around it with any game....oaf_king - Wednesday, January 15, 2014 - link
I can point out some carpola here: "I am not sure if this is an effect of the platform or the motherboard, but it will be something to inspect in our motherboard reviews going forward." This sure discounts the major performance benefits you can achieve without faulty hardware. Search the real benchmarks on WCCF tech for A-10 7850 and be amazed. I can STRONGLY DOUBT the CPU has any issue running at 4ghz on a stock cooler/900mhz GPU. Yes the GPU overclock seems skipped over in this Anand review also, but should really pull it into the "useful" category for gaming!oaf_king - Wednesday, January 15, 2014 - link
recall AMD had some leaks suggesting 4ghz CPU / 900Mhz GPU. Is that possible after all? Apparently not all motherboards are faulty. If the TDP tops out at 148 at 4ghz, given the conservative power envelopes already placed on the chip, I'm sure it gets very good performance for between zero and ten extra dollars, and a couple seconds in the BIOS.Fox McCloud - Wednesday, January 15, 2014 - link
Maybe I was skim reading and missed it, but what are the idle power consumption figures for the A8-7600? I need a new home server and I have a iTX system, and mother boards with 6x SATA are slim. It seems the manufacturers only put them on AMD ITX boards, as Intel seem to max out at like 4. I wonder what power figures would be like if under clocked also. I might re-read the review!Excellent review as always guys. So in-depth, informative, technical and unbiased. This is why I love this site and trust your expert opinion :)
Zingam - Wednesday, January 15, 2014 - link
AMDs PR: "The processor that your grandparents dream of!" FYEAHA!keveazy - Wednesday, January 15, 2014 - link
My i5 4440 costs the same as the a10-7850k. I don't think amd will ever compete. By the time they release something that would declare a significant jump, Intel would already have something new to destroy it by then.duploxxx - Wednesday, January 15, 2014 - link
compete to do what? general tasks in a day, just buy an SSD... cost? did check your motherboard price? GPU, did you check the 4600 performance vs a10? it runs circles around it unless you want to be stuck on low resolution with your gorgeous fast cpu.you see customers fool themselve not knowing what to buy for what. hey i have the best benchmarking cpu, but on daily tasks i can't even count the microseconds difference.