AMD A10-7870K minireview - better Kaveri for enthusiast

[FlanK3r]

Hi guys. We had nice years of Phenoms II, after little disappointment from Bulldozer FX-8150/8120. These CPus were not so bad, but people waited more. Multithread was solid, single worse. But much bigger issue we thought this will be real 8 core and 8 core performance. After some time we understand this is against 4c/8t Intel CPUs...Vishera was nice improvement over first Bulldozer. Yeah, OC awesome, performance clock to clock much better, better in games also. It was 2012 year. After 3 years are these CPUs still rock solid, but outdated also. Some reborn or interesting for someone could be high clockend FX-9590/9370 and last one steppings with FX-8320E, 8370E, 8370. E version as 95W TDP CPUs. Nice. But now we are waiting for new Zen...

APU world is different story. All APUs from hardware point and performance view were good. Sometimes price cost was not ideal, but its not about it today...Year and half before we can seen Kaveri CPU in desktop. 3rd Bulldozer family with new socket FM2+. Now, in last month, coming light refresh Kaveri in A10-7870K. With some tets the higher IPC per core from Bulldozers and AMD CPUs ever.

 

 

 

CPU is new stepping of old one A1 revision in 7850K etc. Interesting is also, under the heatspreader is not calssic TIM, but this metal plate. 

 

The CPU-Z show some information about chip. The classic frequency is 3900 MHz, but maximal turbo is up to 4200 MHz for CPU cores. The iGPU running at quite high 866 MHz at default settings. Interesting  could be, the VID of CPU in load is high. ussually around 1.475-1.488V! iGPU around 1.22x V.

 

Temperatures in idle and in load (stress test AMD stability overdrive). The metal between CPU and IHS is very good for temps. CPU with much higher voltage than 7850K is luke warm.

 

 

CPU BOX is nice and  bigger than another APU CPUs.

 

New is also CPU cooler BOX. The similar is in the AMD FX! So copper heatpipes, and relatively quiet Cooler Master fan. 

 

 

Lets go for some benchamrks at stock:

 

Superpi 4M (there is older CPUZ before after I updated it)

 

 

GPUPI CPU100M nad GPU 1B

 

 

AIDA bandwith memory and cache (2133 AMP profile memory)

 

y-cruncher with AVX suppoer and some others instructions, results for 500M test

 

wprime

 

x264FHD

 

x265

 

Fritzchess

 

Cinebench R10 single thread, R11.5, R15

 

 

3D Marks and few  older Games (DX10+DX11 also)

 

 

UT3

 

Far Cry II

 

AVP

 

Sniper Elite 2

 

 

Undervolting and overl:banana::banana::banana::banana:ing

I think, the VID for CPU is very high, remmeber the 7850K had around 1.3V as VID, so why for next 100-200 MHz increase voltage so high? Interesting, the powerconsumption  with this high voltage is not much higher than 7850K, only around +10W. But I was  interesting for quick undervolting. Ater I saved around 25W of power consumption down...See results bellow.

 

 

And now overclocking. Also I was looking forward for overlcok the new chip. Ussually your Kaveri 7850K or 7700K will be able to get around 4400 MHz at CPU and around 950-1000 at iGPU in average. With solid aircooling of course. And what about new 7870K? Wow, it was fun! The chip is very good for OC. +300 MHz better!

 

With stock voltage I got 4600 MHz stable

 

With max voltage 1.53V I stabilized afterall CPU at excelent 4746 MHz!

 

Some test after OC= 4746 MHz CPU and 1050 MHz iGPU

 

 

 

 

 

 

The A10-7870K surprised me. I thought, this will be only new higher  clocked and "boring" Kaveri, but  the overclocking, undervolting and overall better voltage and temps behaviors are nice bonus for me. So if you are enthusiast of AMD and you are looking for FM2+ CPUs/APU I can recommend you this A10-7870K

[1Scotty1]

Dobrá recenze

[FlanK3r]

nice thx in Czech language 

[dragoon20005]

4.7GHz   with 1050MHz iGPU speed

 

way higher than the 860K clock speeds i seen so far

 

wonder if there will be a 870K refreshed 

 

noticed the extra notch on the corner of the die

[lani100]

Nice OC but I'm stil staying away from AMD cpu's

[dragoon20005]

Nice OC but I'm stil staying away from AMD cpu's

its good for a HTPC gaming if you ask me

 

I thinking of making a Race Driver Grid Autosport/ Project Cars rig in the living room

[FlanK3r]

yeah, for daily use it is really good CPU for everything. Of course, CPU performance is "half" of i7-4770K example . Its close to core i3 with better iGPU performance and with OC options.

 

 

OC is really better than most of older Kaveri chips. The Stilt got 4700 MHz air also, but he got better iGPU than me.

[lani100]

its good for a HTPC gaming if you ask me

 

I thinking of making a Race Driver Grid Autosport/ Project Cars rig in the living room

I'd still get a celeron and a cheap gpu.

[dragoon20005]

yeah, for daily use it is really good CPU for everything. Of course, CPU performance is "half" of i7-4770K example . Its close to core i3 with better iGPU performance and with OC options.

 

 

OC is really better than most of older Kaveri chips. The Stilt got 4700 MHz air also, but he got better iGPU than me.

btw just asking did it need a BIOS update to accept the refreshed APU?

[FlanK3r]

yes, you need update the BIOS, but with old BIOS you can put CPU inside and  booting to the system or going into BIOS without problems. Only P-states not working correctly (7870K CPU is working at lowest P-state only with older BIOSes)

[IateMApoo]

Appreciatte the effort, nice sexy AMD RAM btw.

[FlanK3r]

yeah, I have only these 2x 8GB modules as AMD RAM memory Hope enbxt year will continue with DDR4 also

[arnavvr]

4.7GHz   with 1050MHz iGPU speed

 

way higher than the 860K clock speeds i seen so far

 

wonder if there will be a 870K refreshed 

 

noticed the extra notch on the corner of the die

 

Different Architecture. 7870K is Godavari while 860K is Kaveri. 960K will be Godavari  

[Nena Trinity]

I wonder why it always is hard to find AMD boards with updated BIOS here.

Except for AM3+ that is LoL!

[Guest trucker2]

Great post and thanks for all the info. I have both the 7850k and the 7870k and they are great apu's

[FlanK3r]

Tomorow Il updated with new post here (APUNB scaling)

[Prysin]

Different Architecture. 7870K is Godavari while 860K is Kaveri. 960K will be Godavari  

Its steamroller. Godavari is just the "project name". 7870k is a better binned chip.

 

As for 7850k, you can easily turn it up to 4.3GHz core clock by just letting AMD Overdrive do its automatic CPU OC thingy.

As for iGPU, for both of the two 7850k setups ive made, both iGPUs could be set, and be rock solid, at 960MHz without manual voltage increases.....

[FlanK3r]

Ok, today update with APUNB scaling. Usually higher APUNB is better. The sweetpoints seems between 2000-2200 MHz. More is not possible to get without very high voltage at APUNB. I tested only Superpi 16M, Fritzchess test and 3DMark 11 (focused at overall score and physic score) In all results I set CPU to 4 GHz and memory at 2400 MHz XMP profile, iGPU 867 MHz core.

 

basic is APUNB 1800 MHz

 

 

OC 2100 MHz APUNB

 

 

OC 2000 MHz APUNB

 

 

OC 2200 MHZ APUNB

 

 

 

If someone want only the chart