The Kaveri Refresh 'Godavari' Review: Testing AMD's A10-7870K
by Ian Cutress on June 1, 2015 11:59 AM ESTOffice Performance
The dynamics of CPU Turbo modes, both Intel and AMD, can cause concern during environments with a variable threaded workload. There is also an added issue of the motherboard remaining consistent, depending on how the motherboard manufacturer wants to add in their own boosting technologies over the ones that Intel would prefer they used. In order to remain consistent, we implement an OS-level unique high performance mode on all the CPUs we test which should override any motherboard manufacturer performance mode.
All of our benchmark results can also be found in our benchmark engine, Bench.
Dolphin Benchmark: link
Many emulators are often bound by single thread CPU performance, and general reports tended to suggest that Haswell provided a significant boost to emulator performance. This benchmark runs a Wii program that raytraces a complex 3D scene inside the Dolphin Wii emulator. Performance on this benchmark is a good proxy of the speed of Dolphin CPU emulation, which is an intensive single core task using most aspects of a CPU. Results are given in minutes, where the Wii itself scores 17.53 minutes.
WinRAR 5.0.1: link
Our WinRAR test from 2013 is updated to the latest version of WinRAR at the start of 2014. We compress a set of 2867 files across 320 folders totaling 1.52 GB in size – 95% of these files are small typical website files, and the rest (90% of the size) are small 30 second 720p videos.
3D Particle Movement
3DPM is a self-penned benchmark, taking basic 3D movement algorithms used in Brownian Motion simulations and testing them for speed. High floating point performance, MHz and IPC wins in the single thread version, whereas the multithread version has to handle the threads and loves more cores.
FastStone Image Viewer 4.9
FastStone is the program I use to perform quick or bulk actions on images, such as resizing, adjusting for color and cropping. In our test we take a series of 170 images in various sizes and formats and convert them all into 640x480 .gif files, maintaining the aspect ratio. FastStone does not use multithreading for this test, and results are given in seconds.
Web Benchmarks
On the lower end processors, general usability is a big factor of experience, especially as we move into the HTML5 era of web browsing. For our web benchmarks, we take four well known tests with Chrome 35 as a consistent browser.
Sunspider 1.0.2
Mozilla Kraken 1.1
WebXPRT
Google Octane v2
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nikaldro - Monday, June 1, 2015 - link
It's funny how most people don't know that they have 2000W washing machines, yet they whine about stuff like this.Oxford Guy - Monday, June 1, 2015 - link
Don't forget the vacuum cleaner amp wars.RafaelHerschel - Tuesday, June 2, 2015 - link
I don't have a washing machine in my livingroom or office and I don't use my washing machine as often as my PC's.Less power means less heat and less noise. It also means better performance in a (very) small case. It also means a more modest PSU.
A fast i3 coupled with a GTX 960 in a Mini ITX case makes for small, potentially quiet system.
Oxford Guy - Monday, June 1, 2015 - link
CPUs and GPUs should have three ratings:1) Standby
2) Average (when in use) (with an industry-wide set of benchmarks)
3) Maximum (also industry-wide benchmarks)
barleyguy - Tuesday, June 2, 2015 - link
My biggest energy usage is definitely climate control. I've switched to LED lightbulbs, and in my kitchen which was a flourescent grid, I'm using an LED rope light. But I have an 80,000 BTU natural gas heater, and 2000 watts worth of air conditioning. Those aren't on constantly since they use a thermostat, but the bulk of my utility bill is definitely represented there. My PVR computer is on 24 hours a day, but probably only represents a couple of dollars of energy usage.Oxford Guy - Monday, June 1, 2015 - link
AMD FX 8320E, Gigabyte UD3P motherboard with 8 phase power and VRM sinks = 161.98 tax incl.Intel i5 4690, MSI Z97 PC Mate (cheap 3 phase + doubler) = $280.78 tax incl.
difference = $118.8
You can use that money to get a refurb EVGA 750 Ti 2 GB from Newegg and have three dollars and 80 cents left over to get an extra 120mm fan for your EVO cooler (which you would get with either processor... no one should use a stock cooler).
Since that AMD processor and motherboard easily overclock to around 4.2 GHz on low voltage (1.27 - 1.3) with a moderate-quality cooler it would be very interesting to see the results in this article coupled with that "free" 750 Ti. Also, one can set the chip to "one core per module" in the BIOS of that motherboard in order to get much higher overclocks (higher voltage but much less heat output) for poorly-threaded applications like most games, which helps a bit to let the chip hang in there with an Intel i5, although you'll likely be GPU bound with a 750 Ti anyway.
Even if you decide to use the stock cooler for the Intel you're still saving some money with the AMD combo -- unless you are going to pair your chip with an expensive GPU.
jann5s - Monday, June 1, 2015 - link
am i the only one amazed by how Otten the 7870 is beat by the 7850???jann5s - Monday, June 1, 2015 - link
Often*Gigaplex - Monday, June 1, 2015 - link
No, you're not the only one. And that's not the only AMD chip it loses to.Cryio - Monday, June 1, 2015 - link
Yep. The results are way off. Both in CPU and GPU.