Test Setup

As we mentioned in our introduction, Intel's 9-series chipset were designed from the start to allow future compatibility with Broadwell. As a result with a BIOS update we're able to drop these processors into our existing MSI and ASUS Z97 boards, though not without some pre-release BIOS teething issues.

Test Setup
Processor Intel i7-5775C, 4C/8T
Intel i5-5675C, 4C/4T
Motherboard MSI Z97A Gaming 6
ASUS Z97 Pro
DRAM G.Skill RipjawsZ 4x4GB DDR3-1866 C9 at DDR3-1600
Low End GPU Integrated
ASUS R7 240 2GB DDR3
Dual Graphics with R7 240
Mid Range GPU MSI R9 285 Gaming 2GB
MSI GTX 770 Lightning 2GB
High End GPU MSI R9 290X Gaming LE 4GB
ASUS GTX 980 Strix 4GB
Power Supply OCZ 1250W Gold
Storage Drive Crucial MX200 1TB
Operating System Windows 7.1 64-bit, Build 7601
CPU Cooler Cooler Master Nepton 140XL CLC

Many thanks to...

We must thank the following companies for kindly providing hardware for our test bed:

Thank you to AMD for providing us with the R9 290X 4GB GPUs.
Thank you to ASUS for providing us with GTX 980 Strix GPUs and the R7 240 DDR3 GPU.
Thank you to ASRock and ASUS for providing us with some IO testing kit.
Thank you to Cooler Master for providing us with Nepton 140XL CLCs.
Thank you to Corsair for providing us with an AX1200i PSU.
Thank you to Crucial for providing us with MX200 SSDs.
Thank you to G.Skill and Corsair for providing us with memory.
Thank you to MSI for providing us with the GTX 770 Lightning GPUs.
Thank you to OCZ for providing us with PSUs.
Thank you to Rosewill for providing us with PSUs and RK-9100 keyboards.

Load Delta Power Consumption

We'll start things off with a look at power consumption. Power consumption was tested on the system while in a single NVIDIA GTX 770 configuration with a wall meter connected to the OCZ 1250W power supply. This power supply is Gold rated, and as I am in the UK on a 230-240 V supply, leads to ~75% efficiency > 50W, and 90%+ efficiency at 250W, suitable for both idle and multi-GPU loading. This method of power reading allows us to compare the power management of the UEFI and the board to supply components with power under load, and includes typical PSU losses due to efficiency.

We are reporting the power consumption difference when idle and during an initial OCCT load. This is slightly skewed by the adjustment up the efficiency chain of our power supply, showing lower power CPUs consuming a little more, but despite this the qualitative comparison is a still a good place to start.

Power Consumption Delta: Idle to AVX

Despite our test being almost qualitative, it is exciting to see that in our power consumption limit test both CPUs score around their TDP values.

SKUs, Chipsets, & More Office and Web Performance
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  • iTon - Saturday, June 6, 2015 - link

    i've think AMD products best when used Mantle API. it can boost up to 30% than DirectX API. Otherwise 10% parts of AMD APU had TrueAudio DSP Processor. so it is not 100% CPU and GPU
  • Oxford Guy - Saturday, June 6, 2015 - link

    Six APUs and not one FX chip in the charts.

    LAME
  • Oxford Guy - Saturday, June 6, 2015 - link

    Heaven forbid someone might see that you can get a better Cinebench multithread score from a $100 8320E than from a pricey Intel...
  • Oxford Guy - Saturday, June 6, 2015 - link

    8320E with 1600 8-8-8-24 RAM at 1585 due to FSB, Cinebench 15 multithread

    one core per module, 4.28 GHz, 399
    one core per module, 5.02 GHz, 467
    3.33 GHz, 540
    one module disabled, 5 GHz, 590
    3.8 GHz, 608
    Intel i7-3770, 3.4 GHz, 662
    4.17 GHz, 664
    4.2 GHz, 675
    4.28 GHz, 683
    4.41 GHz, 703
    4.56 GHz, 724
    4.68 GHz, 743
    4.78 GHz, 765
    Intel 4770K at 4.4 GHz, 822

    Clearly, an overclocked Intel will beat this chip in this test but if you have an Intel that can't be overclocked that may be a different story, depending on the stock clockspeed of the chip. Also, Cinebench is, as far as I know, a test that favors Intel since it relies heavily on FPU. None of the APUs are close to FX's performance so the lack of even one 8 thread FX in the charts is not good.

    The single thread performance of FX is particularly weak but it can be improved quite a bit by setting the chip to 1 core per module because high clocks can be achieved with much less heat than when the full 8 threads are enabled. The downside is that multithread performance suffers (in tests like Cinebench that can use all 8 threads... perhaps not so much in programs that max out around 4).

    single thread

    A10-7850K, 92
    4.2 GHz, 99
    A10-6800K, 100
    4.78 GHz, 111
    5 GHz, 118
    5.02 GHz, (one core per module), 120
    5.21 GHz (only one module enabled), 122
    5.17 GHz (one core per module), 122
    Intel i7 3770, 3.4 GHz, 138
    Intel i7 3930K, 3.3 GHz, 148
  • Oxford Guy - Saturday, June 6, 2015 - link

    highest scoring APU in the multithread test:

    A10-6800K, 325
  • sireangelus - Saturday, June 6, 2015 - link

    Anand, i'm going to heavly critizice your linux testing method.

    you go to great lengths to adjust and compensate for turbo modes, but on an ubuntu 11.04 it should completely ignore turbo modes since sandy bridge or does not even know what turbAdvances in the linux kernelo modes are, severely limiting both new intel and amd cpu. Also, the power profile is changed alongside the new intel pstate driver, that greatly improved performance under linux in respect to the past; also, new kernels are optimized for the eDram on the crystal well cpus. I suggest you start moving the whole testing platform to something more current or simply redo tests once a year with an updated kernel. You could use the phoromatic platform to automatize the procedure.
  • Ramon Zarat - Sunday, June 7, 2015 - link

    Please add clock for clock comparison with older Intel CPU! Back to at least Sandy Bridge or even further if possible.
  • ES_Revenge - Sunday, June 7, 2015 - link

    So clearly Intel has now topped AMD's one remaining trump card--integrated graphics performance. Of course you're paying over 2x the cost for the privilege. One might argue that you're still getting a much better CPU at the same time, which is true, but most people just look at the absolute cost and the fact that the A10 is not all that bad a CPU.

    I think this becomes *much* more interesting if/when Intel starts producing *i3* CPUs with Iris Pro. Then it's really game over for AMD, unless Zen is something spectacular to allow them to catch up (or even get close) in CPU performance. AMD could also easily up the SPs in their APUs to something like ~1024 which would give them R7 265/PS4/GTX 750 Ti -class performance. The only problem is AMD hits another hitch there as they don't have the thermal/power envelope to do so given A10s can already throttle the CPU side when the GPU is in heavy use, in order to stay within TDP limits. AMD's lack of power and thermal efficiency with their GPUs (as competent as they are otherwise) also poses a serious problem in putting the same tech on an APU die.

    Seems like AMD has to hit a homerun with both Zen for performance and their GPUs for efficiency in the coming year. However from everything we know about Fiji and the fact that the rest of the [GPU] lineup will be re-brands, it doesn't seem likely. Perhaps it's time to quit the CPU business, lol. Either that or release APUs with high-end graphics, boxed with CLC/AIO liquid coolers (or massive air coolers).
  • 0ldman79 - Sunday, June 7, 2015 - link

    I know it's a dead socket, but could we AM3+ users request a CPU be thrown in the mix?

    I keep reading, keep looking, the reviews look impressive, so I check the Anandtech Bench and my 6300 is still faster than the APU's.

    In all honesty, that has to hurt AMD. Those of us that went with the "big boy socket" are still faster overall even though the APU has made big leaps in IPC and clock speed.

    Fact is we're still out here and the only way to get faster across the board is to jump Intel.
  • ES_Revenge - Monday, June 8, 2015 - link

    Well keep in mind your FX 6300 has two more cores (or one more module) and it has 8MB L3 compared to no L3 at all on the APUs. If they made a "6 core" APU with L3 on Kaveri/Godavari it would be faster.. at least until it starts hitting the TDP limits, lol. This of course is probably why there are no 6 or 8 CPU-core APUs--because they're already having problems with keeping TDP within limits with a 512SP GPU and 4-core CPU.

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