Today AMD announced the availability of a new APU, codenamed Godavari: the A10-7870K. There’s also an A8-7670K coming soon, though it wasn’t part of today’s announcement. Despite the new codename, these APUs are effectively extensions of the existing Kaveri APU lineup, and they should be drop-in replacements on any socket FM2+ motherboard. Other than clock speeds, there aren’t any major changes. Here’s the quick overview of AMD’s current generation A10 APUs:
| AMD A10 APU Specifications | |||||||
| APU | GPU | Compute Cores | CPU Base/ Turbo |
GPU Clock | TDP | L2 | DDR3 Speed |
| A10-7870K | R7 | 12 (4CPU + 8GPU) | 3.9GHz/ 4.1GHz |
866MHz | 95W | 4MB | 2133 |
| A10-7850K | R7 | 12 (4CPU + 8GPU) | 3.7GHz/ 4.0GHz |
720MHz | 95W | 4MB | 2133 |
| A10-7800 | R7 | 12 (4CPU + 8GPU) | 3.5GHz/ 3.9GHz |
720MHz | 65W/ 45W |
4MB | 2133 |
| A10-7700K | R7 | 10 (4CPU + 6GPU) | 3.4GHz/ 3.8GHz |
720MHz | 95W | 4MB | 2133 |
The new Godavari A10-7870K doesn’t radically alter the CPU part of the APU, with a moderate 200MHz (5 percent) increase to the base clock and an even smaller 100MHz (2.5 percent) increase to the maximum Turbo Core clock. The GPU, on the other hand, sees a far more substantial 146MHz (20 percent) increase in clock speed. In layman speak, that means the new Godavari APU will be better suited for gaming, as the GPU is still the limiting factor for systems running without a discrete GPU.
From a pure performance perspective, AMD’s APUs still place a distant second to Intel CPUs with discrete GPUs, but as a value proposition there’s a lot to be said. The most expensive AMD APU, the new A10-7870K, checks in at a modest $150 online (though the MSRP is actually lower, at $137), which means the Intel competition currently consists of Core i3 processors like the i3-4170 and i3-4370. If you’re intent on running without a discrete GPU, AMD holds a rather commanding lead over Intel’s similarly priced CPUs when it comes to gaming, and competitive performance in most other tasks.
Even with the addition of an inexpensive GPU like the GeForce GT 740, AMD claims to deliver a superior gaming experience in popular eSports titles (AMD tested CounterStrike: GO, League of Legends, and StarCraft II). AMD also makes note of their superior DX12 performance, where the A10-7870K performed roughly three times as many draw calls compared to an Intel i5-4570R with Iris Pro Graphics 5200. Even though AMD’s testing is limited to just a few titles, there’s no doubt that for processor graphics they’re beating Intel. They may not be able to compete as well with higher performance Intel Core i5 and i7 parts, but that’s not the goal.
Factoring in the cost of a complete system, including motherboard, RAM, storage, case, power supply, and OS, an AMD A10-7870K build will cost approximately $500. You can build a similar Intel setup for roughly the same price, but to equal AMD on graphics performance you’ll need to add at least a $75 GPU. If you want better gaming performance than the 7870K offers, we’d suggest looking toward $150 GPUs. Either way, for budget gaming, AMD picks up an easy recommendation. Just keep your expectations in check, as the A10-7870K isn’t going to run 1080p with maximum quality in most recent releases.
From maximumpc
from http://bit.ly/1d2CJId
