A10-6800K dual graphics and bottlenecking questions.

[NickMotionless]

Hey guy, used Tom's hardware a hundred times to figure out questions relating to most problems but I've never officially made an account or asked a question myself. First time for everything I guess.

My question, (because I can't find a straight answer anywhere), is - does the A10-6800K support dual graphics with 7000 series cards? If so, does it support it with a 7790?

The second part to my question is, would the 7790 be bottlenecked by the A10-6800K?

 

[8350rocks]

1.) Yes, with (up to) HD 7750 if you use catalyst v 13.4

2.) No

3.) No

 

[NickMotionless]

1.) Yes, with (up to) HD 7750 if you use catalyst v 13.4

2.) No

3.) No

Thanks. Love your name by the way. lol. What about a 7870? Would it be bottlenecked by A10-6800K? If so, could overclocking do away with it?

 

[8350rocks]

Unless you go to something in the 7900 series, you should be fine, and if you OC your APU, that should alleviate any additional issues you might have even then.

Good luck!

 

[kubunteando]

Are you totally sure about 7750 Hybrid Crossfire with the A10-6800K?

I have an HD 7750 and I am considering getting a Richland APU but so far I only found:
- user reported success with Trinity A10-5800k crossfire with HD 7750 and Catalyst 13.4
- Richland APU support is reported to have just started in Catalyst 13.6 beta
- some sites are selling A10-6800k and A10-6700 announcing it crossfires with 7750 and 6670
- in Tomshardware A10-6800k reviews they could not test the dual graphics performane, more details in the review (there is a full section about it). They tried Catalyst 13.6 beta
- I have not found any crossfire independant performance results for Richland APUs. In Tomshardware review there is a slide with AMD numbers
- AMD officially announces only A10-6800k A10-6700 Crossfire with HD 6670, same as for the A10-5800K and A10-5700. Users have had success crossfiring A10-5800k and HD 7750.
- APU Hybrid Crossfire only works if the game uses DirectX 10 or 11. No help for Direct X games. Performance gains vary per game.

If you find any new info or test results please post

 

[NickMotionless]

Are you totally sure about 7750 Hybrid Crossfire with the A10-6800K?

I've noticed in most places there is a large lack of decent benchmarks of Richland with dual graphics. I assume this is because it's so new. Thanks for the answer though. Very informative. I actually hadn't heard that APU dual graphics doesn't work with anything < Direct X 10. That's some new information. I actually am considering using a 7850 and doing away with the dual graphics idea. Seems like more of a hassle than it's worth. I'll be sticking with the APU though because the clock speed is decent and the architecture seems to perform good against single-threaded applications compared to current FX series processors and will be fine for a gaming rig.

 

[kubunteando]

I recommend to read this review to check game performance of Richland when compared to other CPUs:

http://uk.hardware.info/reviews/4461/33/amd-a10-6800k--a10-6700-cpu-review-richland-tested-benchmarks-hd-7970-hitman-absolution-1920x1080-medium

What you propose A10-6800K and HD 7850 sounds like a balanced system for todays games. But I would say it may not be so future proof...
If you plan to keep the system for at least 3 years and you are looking to game at 1080p at medium to high settings the A10-6800K may start to be the bottleneck. You can always overclock the A10-6800K, just make sure the motherboard is overclocking friendly, almost all nowadays have overclocking friendly BIOS, just check that motherboard VRMs (Voltage Regulators) are good and do not overheat much when you overclock. Also AMD GPUs can nowadays be easily overclocked within the drivers Catalyst Control Center. That may give you a bit of extra you may need in some games.

I think Dual Graphics can very interesting for the 720p gamers on a budget (although it seems there are not so much gains at 720p, only at 1080p).
But AMD has to make Dual Graphics work well on the drivers.
True, there are not enough Dual Graphics test, not even with Trinity which has been around for a while.