AMD Elite A-Series A10-6800K APU (Socket FM2)

[suraswami]

I plan to replace my Family PC to a SFF with one of these APUs. How would this compare?

Phenom II X3 720BE @ 2.8 stock + 4GB ram+ ATI 4670 to APU 6800K + iTX + 8 GB ram.

Need it to play Age of Empires III or II and occassionally some COD games

 

[Fourstaff]

I plan to replace my Family PC to a SFF with one of these APUs. How would this compare?

Phenom II X3 720BE @ 2.8 stock + 4GB ram+ ATI 4670 to APU 6800K + iTX + 8 GB ram.

Need it to play Age of Empires III or II and occassionally some COD games

You are better off dropping in a new graphics card and more ram, get a cooler and overclock the 720BE (if your motherboard allows).

 

[TheoneandonlyMrK]

I plan to replace my Family PC to a SFF with one of these APUs. How would this compare?

Phenom II X3 720BE @ 2.8 stock + 4GB ram+ ATI 4670 to APU 6800K + iTX + 8 GB ram.

Need it to play Age of Empires III or II and occassionally some COD games

Very well in reality from your perspective, yeah you could have way way more performance with an fx or intel but ive used a lano 3870k and a 5870k in person and they roock for the money.

 

[Ronnyv1]

Isn't that subjective? Besides, if Win7 (im not terribly familiar with 8) is not snappy, as i use the term, on a cpu from 2007 and forward something's wrong. Not counting Atoms and suchlike.

Think of it more along the lines of something like a VIA C7 1.8 ghz single core on the low end and an i3-2120/3225 for a more typical setup most oems do, @2gb memory each the difference is staggering.. Our administrator is considering buying apus for the next batch of office systems.

 

[suraswami]

You are better off dropping in a new graphics card and more ram, get a cooler and overclock the 720BE (if your motherboard allows).

The machine is in Ultra Aluminus tower taking up lot of space, need to shrink and thats the reason I need a small form factor capable machine.

Yeah, I have a spare 5870 that I can throw it in if I really want to make it a decent gaming machine.

I was hoping the 6800K APU will be much better than the ATI 4670 in graphics power?

 

[TheoneandonlyMrK]

The machine is in Ultra Aluminus tower taking up lot of space, need to shrink and thats the reason I need a small form factor capable machine.

Yeah, I have a spare 5870 that I can throw it in if I really want to make it a decent gaming machine.

I was hoping the 6800K APU will be much better than the ATI 4670 in graphics power?

It is and the cpu bit is pretty much an fx43## that may do 5ghZ

 

[NC37]

You are better off dropping in a new graphics card and more ram, get a cooler and overclock the 720BE (if your motherboard allows).

With Piledriver it is safe for old Phenom II owners to finally upgrade. But I wouldn't go anything less than the 6 core models on FX line. Piledriver just seems really crappy in quads and under, same as Bulldozer. There was an article somewhere which shows why this is. Think part of the reason APUs have rather sucked since going to Bulldozer based designs. That and their lack of caches compared to their FX counterparts.

Think what I'd like to see in APU tech is AMD implementing some eSRAM into the designs. Like what they use in console designs. Help get rid of that big DDR3 bottleneck. But I doubt AMD will as long as they got the IGP lead. We'll probably see Intel do something like that eventually.

 

[drdeathx]

With Piledriver it is safe for old Phenom II owners to finally upgrade. But I wouldn't go anything less than the 6 core models on FX line. Piledriver just seems really crappy in quads and under, same as Bulldozer. There was an article somewhere which shows why this is. Think part of the reason APUs have rather sucked since going to Bulldozer based designs. That and their lack of caches compared to their FX counterparts.

Think what I'd like to see in APU tech is AMD implementing some eSRAM into the designs. Like what they use in console designs. Help get rid of that big DDR3 bottleneck. But I doubt AMD will as long as they got the IGP lead. We'll probably see Intel do something like that eventually.

The New APU's perform about the same as Phenom II's CPU wise. FX quad core processors perform fine, not much difference than 3570K and in some instances, the instruction set performs better. I am still trying to see your DDR3 bottleneck, DDR3 and Piledriver has plenty of bandwith

 

[TheoneandonlyMrK]

The New APU's perform about the same as Phenom II's CPU wise. FX quad core processors perform fine, not much difference than 3570K and in some instances, the instruction set performs better. I am still trying to see your DDR3 bottleneck, DDR3 and Piledriver has plenty of bandwith

That bottleneck will be more apparent when they Do have a lvl4 ram cache and I don't think it's far off

 

[Nihilus]

nothing to see here

With only a 5-10% improvement over the 5800 k, this chip is a huge disappointment. An i-3 with a cheap gpu is still a better future-proof solution for slightly more money. I would like to see a review on the 6400k, as it would make for a mighty itx combo.

 

[Naito]

Performance ain't great... but it is hard to argue value for money

 

[drdeathx]

With only a 5-10% improvement over the 5800 k, this chip is a huge disappointment. An i-3 with a cheap gpu is still a better future-proof solution for slightly more money. I would like to see a review on the 6400k, as it would make for a mighty itx combo.

It is not a dissapointment......It is he same architecture in Piledriver. The chip is an evolution not new architecture. Upgrade in GPU and IMC at a higher core speed. There is no such thing as "Futureproof". AMD's APU's compete well against i3's and actually beat them even with a dedicated GPU. Overclocked, they stomp i3's. Heck, Haswell is only a 5% increase over Ivy. To me, that's failure...

 

[xorbe]

I was hoping to get an idea of real world snappiness of a typical system using win7/8 mostly for family members but no where seems to offer that kind of perspective.

Win7 general usage will be plenty snappy. This is not an Atom / E-series / netbook cpu. If you like snappy, don't forget the SSD (and matched dual channel memory).

 

[Jacez]

in encoding like Handbrake, that uses OpenCL acceleration, AMD Elite A-Series APUs perform pretty well.

A10-6800K encodes my custom rip of the movie "It Might Get Loud" at 386.7 FPS

i7 4770K encodes my custom rip of the movie "It Might Get Loud" at 595.7 FPS

Well, how about Cinebench 11.5?

i7-2600k @ 5.0Ghz scores 10 pts.

A10-6800k @ 5.0Ghz scores 4 pts.

Since Haswell is more powerful, it's around 1/3, not 2/3.

Don't get me wrong.. I'm always rooting for AMD, but I consider Cinebench a much more reliable way of deriving performance differences.


EDIT: Guru3D did a Handbrake test with both 4770k and 6800k and they agree with me.

http://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/amd_a10_6800k_review_apu,14.html

4770k - 27 fps
6800k - 13 fps

That's 50%.

But, if you take into account that the 6800k is clocked 33% higher, it comes down to almost exactly 33% as fast at the same clock speed.

 

[cadaveca]

Well, how about Cinebench 11.5?

i7-2600k @ 5.0Ghz scores 10 pts.

A10-6800k @ 5.0Ghz scores 4 pts.

Since Haswell is more powerful, it's around 1/3, not 2/3.

Don't get me wrong.. I'm always rooting for AMD, but I consider Cinebench a much more reliable way of deriving performance differences.

Sure. in performance in that aspect, that is true. It depends on what your needs are, whether these APUs have any relevance. They aren't for my uses either, but they work fine for my kids.

 

[suraswami]

Well, how about Cinebench 11.5?

i7-2600k @ 5.0Ghz scores 10 pts.

A10-6800k @ 5.0Ghz scores 4 pts.

Since Haswell is more powerful, it's around 1/3, not 2/3.

Don't get me wrong.. I'm always rooting for AMD, but I consider Cinebench a much more reliable way of deriving performance differences.


EDIT: Guru3D did a Handbrake test with both 4770k and 6800k and they agree with me.

http://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/amd_a10_6800k_review_apu,14.html

4770k - 27 fps
6800k - 13 fps

That's 50%.

But, if you take into account that the 6800k is clocked 33% higher, it comes down to almost exactly 33% as fast at the same clock speed.

Why are we comparing a budget processor ($140) with mid high end processor ($280)?

 

[Jacez]

Sure. in performance in that aspect, that is true. It depends on what your needs are, whether these APUs have any relevance. They aren't for my uses either, but they work fine for my kids.

I'm sorry. I must have posted this after you

Guru3D did a Handbrake test with both 4770k and 6800k and they agree with me.

http://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/amd_a10_6800k_review_apu,14.html

4770k - 27 fps
6800k - 13 fps

That's 50%.

But, if you take into account that the 6800k is clocked 33% higher, it comes down to almost exactly 33% as fast at the same clock speed.

 

[Jacez]

Why are we comparing a budget processor ($140) with mid high end processor ($280)?

Well, the 2500k has around the same performance and you can find one for around 150$ now.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Intel-Core-...nly-/200930522524?pt=CPUs&hash=item2ec864759c

But no, I was talking about performance as a whole, not bang for the buck.

 

[suraswami]

Well, the 2500k has around the same performance and you can find one for around 150$ now.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Intel-Core-...nly-/200930522524?pt=CPUs&hash=item2ec864759c

But no, I was talking about performance as a whole, not bang for the buck.

2500K is history

 

[cadaveca]

I'm sorry. I must have posted this after you

Funny, they get two-digit FPS numbers, while I get numbers in the hundreds. They report in seconds, I report the actual work done. It's funny, because Handbrake not only reports FPS when it's done. It DOES report time. My test runs for 6 minutes with the APU, and around 4 minutes with the 4770K.

But no, I was talking about performance as a whole, not bang for the buck.

Nobody cares, really, about performance, without the cost involved. what if the slower chip cost MORE? Cost is very important.

 

[drdeathx]

Well, the 2500k has around the same performance and you can find one for around 150$ now.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Intel-Core-...nly-/200930522524?pt=CPUs&hash=item2ec864759c

But no, I was talking about performance as a whole, not bang for the buck.

It is called cost/performance. The 2500K will be not available and the comparable cost Intel product ATM is the 13 3220 and the A10-6800K stomps it. Haswell will have the comparable i3 4220... Also consider Intel motherboards for the platform are more expensive than a A85 AMD board.Your not comparing apples to apples with the 2500K. the comparable AMD chip is a FX processor

 

[Jacez]

The 2500K will be not available and the comparable cost Intel product ATM is the 13 3220 and the A10-6800K stomps it.

No, it doesn't.

The 6800k is slightly faster (10-15%), and costs about equally more.

Well, all I know is that if I were building a system, it would have a 2500k, not a 6800k.. unless I needed something really small that could only house an APU.

 

[Fourstaff]

It is called cost/performance. The 2500K will be not available and the comparable cost Intel product ATM is the 13 3220 and the A10-6800K stomps it. Haswell will have the comparable i3 4220... Also consider Intel motherboards for the platform are more expensive than a A85 AMD board.Your not comparing apples to apples with the 2500K. the comparable AMD chip is a FX processor

Its just the market segment. Anything below 3570/4670 Intel is pretty uncompetitive when it comes to multithreaded, and that is where AMD's offering shines. Things even up again when considering singlethreaded stuff, especially games like Skyrim. The power saved can usually account for the price difference in motherboard (itself not so great if you start considering H77 and B75 boards). Given my workload patterns (large amounts of idling/low load time with occasional Dota 2 and low load games like that) I would pick 3220+discrete over 6800K+discrete. People who spend more time on other things might pick 6800K instead (I think the majority will benefit more from the 6800K)

 

[TheoneandonlyMrK]

No, it doesn't.

The 6800k is slightly faster (10-15%), and costs about equally more.

Well, all I know is that if I were building a system, it would have a 2500k, not a 6800k.. unless I needed something really small that could only house an APU.

You haven't used One, with an ssd and decent ram you would be hard pressed to pick a difference in everday use v an i7 benches and games aside you wouldn't know. Whixh was which.

 

[HTC]

Thank you for this review.

Too bad you didn't include Llano in the review. Personally, i would like to see how the APUs have matured since their inception.