AMD A10 7850K + Dual Graphics Review

👤by Tony Le Bourne Comments 📅31-05-14
Conclusion

In our testing it was clear to see that in the traditional sense, the CPU side of things does seem to struggle, coming with comparable performance out the box to predecessors, there isn't much to shout about. However, it is not that the CPU has not been improved, especially in consideration to the lower clock speed compared to Trinity and Richland offerings, it is that the areas it has been improving are outside the scope of traditional testing. A good way to highlight this would be that the A10 7850K came bottom in all the tests in AIDA64, yet come out on top of the APUs in all the x264 tests.



A culture shift will be required to view the current and coming generations off APUs, and this is part of the redefinition of what a processor is (and why AMD list it as having 12 compute cores). The APU does accelerate applications with the on board GPU and OpenCL to provide a better user experience, much of which may actually go unnoticed by the average user within their operating system environment. There is a trend to try and judge the APU as a 'gaming processor', a CPU with a kick ass entry gaming GPU attached, this trend may create disappointment. In testing, dual graphics worked fairly well and its worth remembering that there are other benefits from using dual graphics too, such as retaining the fairly important HSA features that makes the A10 7850K as great as it is, as well as using the ZeroCorePower mode (where supported) to help keep the power consumption down when not in 3D mode. From this knowledge, if you want a gaming system at a great price, the A10 7850K alone will definitely give you that, and though it could be argued that adding in a discrete graphics card may lower the price to performance ratio, it will represent a feasible upgrade for some. From a gaming perspective, if your sole aim is gaming and you want to upgrade to the best you can get, the APU and the FM2+ platform will become fairly limited, so if you want a high end gaming system be prepared to pay out and make a gaming system.

As for the APU platform, it should no longer be considered as a CPU with a GPU on board, but a single entity with various compute solutions available, providing a great performance modern PC that, through the use of OpenCL, can accelerate your favourite applications. Whether it is Adobe products to Sony Vegas, the number of applications adopting OpenCL are ever expanding, making the APU platform a goldmine for developers that are seeking a modern solution that can do it all. This is what allows the A10 7850K give a sharp, responsive user experience with the power to game reasonably well. What is needed to put the A10 7850K in perspective is, to realise that "35% of gamers on steam use graphics slower than the A10 7850K" (from Nov 2013), while those sporting high end systems or even previous flagship APUs may not see the need to jump on board with it just yet, the APU is certainly coming into its own and is well recommended for any system build where the expectation is not solely for high end gaming.

Pros.
+ Excellent developer potential
+ Radeon R7 Graphics based on GCN - The best integrated graphics available
+ Excellent all round user experience with OpenCL
+ Competent gaming out the box
+ Improved power efficiency
+ Integrated DSP (TrueAudio)
+ 28nm Fabrication, (Finally)

Mediocre
+- Price

Cons.
- Little CPU performance gain over previous generation APUs




Click here for an explanation of our awards at Vortez.net. Thanks to AMD for providing today’s review sample.


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