gamerk316 :
Again though, look at what HSA allows AMD to do: They can offer a CPU+APU combo (HSA) and do something that looks like:
CPU for generic tasks
APU for OpenCL/CUDA/HSA
Discrete GPU for rendering
This would allow, for instance, fully hardware accelerated effects without a hit to FPS, as neither the CPU or GPU would have to do any additional processing. That's the big advantage HSA allows to happen. Using this schema, you wouldn't need a powerful CPU for gaming, as you could potentially offload a LOT more processing without a noticeable performance hit, making FX a dead-end arch. Coincidentally, this is the way I think things are going to head for the desktop going forward
The possibility AMD could release APUs as base gaming systems that can be upgraded with a dGPU, in whose case, the iGPU could work exclusively for compute was already considered and discussed before in this thread.
In fact, I will add more data supporting this speculation. We
know that AMD is moving all the heavy compute tasks from the CPU to the GPU. E.g. the PS4 will use the GPU for complex processes which are traditionally handled by the CPU such as physics simulation, collision detection, raycasting for audio, decompression...
Therefore, we have for kaveri:
i) The CPU alone has about the same performance of an i5/FX-6
ii) Heavy computations are moved to the iGPU, which implies that the CPU will perform better for the remaining tasks.
iii) The iGPU has more performance than a hypothetical dual socket FX-9590s OC at 6GHz.
iv) FX-series R.I.P.