AMD FX-7600P Kaveri Review: FX Rides Again...In A Mobile APU?

[cleeve]

We had a chance to play with AMD's new mobile flavor of the Kaveri APU. While it sheds some of its desktop-related limitations, will it be able to take the fight to Intel's stronghold, the Notebook space?

AMD FX-7600P Kaveri Review: FX Rides Again...In A Mobile APU? : Read more

 

[damric]

Awesome. If it was 5 years ago I would want a laptop and I would want this APU in it.

 

[Ad Hoc]

Are we ever going to get some new CPUs for the AM3+ socket?

 

[damric]

Are we ever going to get some new CPUs for the AM3+ socket?

I sure hope not. North Bridges and HT Link are so 5 years ago.

 

[Lord_Kitty]

20% IPC boost with Steamroller? (First page, second picture)

That's enough for their 8-core chips to catch up or surpass current i5s, right?

 

[roymustang]

Rather than posting what we already know will be crappy framerates of recent games I wish that when outlets reviewed iGPUs they used some old games to see how those would run. Nobody buys a mobile APU expecting to use it for Battlefield 4. But people do like running older games on their APUs because those will most likely run decently. It would be nice to see how something like Final Fantasy XI or Knights of the Old Republic would run on this. Final Fantasy XI even has a benchmarking tool called Vana'diel Bench 3.

 

[Amdlova]

45w tdp on notebook. i think will we see some 17" + notebooks. don't put on your legs or you fry it!

 

[Sakkura]

Rather than posting what we already know will be crappy framerates of recent games I wish that when outlets reviewed iGPUs they used some old games to see how those would run. Nobody buys a mobile APU expecting to use it for Battlefield 4. But people do like running older games on their APUs because those will most likely run decently. It would be nice to see how something like Final Fantasy XI or Knights of the Old Republic would run on this. Final Fantasy XI even has a benchmarking tool called Vana'diel Bench 3.

I agree, though it still makes sense to keep one demanding game in the test suite to give perspective on where this hardware stands compared to dedicated graphics cards and high-end CPUs.

 

[Saiki4116]

Thanks for including Dota2 Benchmarks. I had experienced FPS drop on my current Laptop(almost dead with i5-450M and HD5470, 1366*768, 4GB RAM) due to overheating, I tried to reduce resolution and tried many configs, but the problem was there.I have let Raptor(AMD 's app) to adjust the profile for Dota2, after that I didn't face the problem.

 

[Saiki4116]

So the performance can be equal to i5 M processor.

 

[mitcoes16]

I miss 720p testings that is the resolution a clever player would use with this GPUs
1080p and demanding games are not good benchmarks for this GPUs you must use less demanding games or test lower resolutions It is not the same benchmarking F1s than Nascars or electric cars

 

[SteelCity1981]

if you are looking for a budget gaming laptop no doubt the 7600p is a good choice all the way around.

 

[cleeve]

Rather than posting what we already know will be crappy framerates of recent games I wish that when outlets reviewed iGPUs they used some old games to see how those would run.

That's why we used Dota2, Grid2, and WoW... they have low system requirements, and ran fine. 😉

 

[Lessthannil]

So... how about that desktop A8-7600...

 

[jamez45]

Over at Anand they said the GPU drivers were slightly older, Mantle isn't enabled properly in them. Could be why the numbers between DirectX and Mantle are pretty much the same

 

[cleeve]

Over at Anand they said the GPU drivers were slightly older, Mantle isn't enabled properly in them. Could be why the numbers between DirectX and Mantle are pretty much the same

Mantle only shows an advantage in Battlefield 4 in rare cases, regardless of the driver. The game also requires a ton of VRAM for Mantle to show a gain instead of a loss. I have an in-depth analysis coming soon.

Having said that, Thief shows impressive gains across the board in Mantle.

 

[cleeve]

I miss 720p testings that is the resolution a clever player would use with this GPUs
1080p and demanding games are not good benchmarks for this GPUs you must use less demanding games or test lower resolutions It is not the same benchmarking F1s than Nascars or electric cars

We *did* use 720p where the graphics processor couldn't handle it... in Battlefield 4

The FX-7600P worked fine at 1080p with Dota2, Grid2, and WoW, so why would we lower the resolution?

I take great pride in testing at real-world settings, and I often lower to 720p when 1080p is too demanding.

 

[xenol]

The only thing missing from this that I would find is the real deal breaker: what is the power consumption?

 

[h2323]

“AMD is trying to give the impression of fast, responsive performance, and our sample does seem to achieve that.”

“That top-of-the-line FX-7600P is a completely functional Kaveri APU, with both of its Steamroller modules (four integer cores) and all 512 of its shaders enabled.”

“While AMD appears confident in the ULV Kaveri's ability to compete against Core i7-4500U, the higher TDP meant we needed to find an Intel-based platform with a comparable thermal ceiling. I tapped the 37 W Core i7-4702MQ within Acer's Aspire V3.”

37 W Core i7-4702MQ this a 380$ dollar part……….. way more than Kaveri

No Firestrike score.

I would prefer different benchmarks.

 

[cleeve]

“AMD is trying to give the impression of fast, responsive performance, and our sample does seem to achieve that.”

“That top-of-the-line FX-7600P is a completely functional Kaveri APU, with both of its Steamroller modules (four integer cores) and all 512 of its shaders enabled.”

“While AMD appears confident in the ULV Kaveri's ability to compete against Core i7-4500U, the higher TDP meant we needed to find an Intel-based platform with a comparable thermal ceiling. I tapped the 37 W Core i7-4702MQ within Acer's Aspire V3.”

37 W Core i7-4702MQ this a 380$ dollar part……….. way more than Kaveri

No Firestrike score.

I would prefer different benchmarks

Hi h2323, great to see you again. I took the liberty of erasing your unproductive rhetoric to address your actual concerns:

1. You've listed the top three quotes with no comments beside them. Not sure what kind of point you're trying to make, there. Does that mean you like them?

2. AMD didn't provide pricing, so we compared a mobile Core i7 part with similar wattage AS PER AMD's DIRECTION. If you disagree with their decision, I encourage you to contact their PR team.

3. I can only assume you have no idea what Firestrike is for. As per Futuremark:

"Fire Strike is a showcase DirectX 11 benchmark designed for today's high-performance gaming PCs. It is our most ambitious and technical benchmark ever, featuring real-time graphics rendered with detail and complexity far beyond what is found in other benchmarks and games today."

Mobile integrated GPUs are not "high performance gaming PCs". Would you find it valuable to see benchmark results of a slideshow? We wouldn't.

4. You indicated that you would prefer different benchmarks, but didn't mention which ones, or why?

Have a great day!

 

[h2323]

Disregard for AMD strengths and Firestrike was not included because the Intel chip was likely unable to run it.

Granted most of the tests in that review focus on gaming but AMD's not half bad in everyday tasks. Considering the price of i7-4702MQ, I feel its too expensive to be compared.

 

[damric]

Firestike would be useless bench for integrated or mobile graphics. That is the purpose of Cloud Gate, Ice storm, and Sky Diver.

 

[h2323]

"While AMD appears confident in the ULV Kaveri's ability to compete against Core i7-4500U, the higher TDP meant we needed to find an Intel-based platform with a comparable thermal ceiling. I tapped the 37 W Core i7-4702MQ"

Article reads like the 4702 was hand picked

 

[cleeve]

Considering the price of i7-4702MQ, I feel its too expensive to be compared.

Price is difficult to discuss when AMD has no laptops on the market yet.

However, as I stated, AMD specifically told us that Kaveri mobile would compete against Core i7 Haswell parts of similar wattage. We went through a great deal of trouble to accomodate their direction, because it would have been much easier to source a 19W Core i7 part.

Having said that, we agree that AMD will probably end up cheaper. As per our conclusion:

"The final piece of the puzzle is price. We won't know the specifics until AMD gets some mobile Kaveri design wins on the shelves. At a similar cost, you'd choose a Core i7-4702MQ or FX-7600P based on your preference for intense computing tasks or graphics ability, respectively. But I'd be a little surprised if those two chips ended up in similarly-priced laptops. If you could save a significant amount of money by choosing the AMD option, the value proposition could be compelling. As always, we'll have to wait until we have commercially available laptops to test in order to do a real value analysis. But no matter how you slice it, the mobile version of Kaveri is a stronger opponent than its predecessor."

 

[cleeve]

"While AMD appears confident in the ULV Kaveri's ability to compete against Core i7-4500U, the higher TDP meant we needed to find an Intel-based platform with a comparable thermal ceiling. I tapped the 37 W Core i7-4702MQ"

Article reads like the 4702 was hand picked

It was!

read carefully: "While AMD appears confident in the ULV Kaveri's ability to compete against Core i7-4500U"

ULV Kaveri is 19 Watts!

However, they provided a 35 Watt Kaveri chip for benchmarking, indicating that the i7-4500U was not a target for comparison per AMD's guidelines.

AMD asked for an i7 comparison with similar wattage, so we hand picked the Core i7-4702 accordingly.