AMD Kaveri APU gaming specs detailed

New details have leaked regarding AMD’s final specifications for their Kaveri APUs, including the second-fastest chip in the lineup, the A10-7700K.

The APUs are both based on AMD’s Steamroller CPU and Graphics Core Next (GCN) GPU architectures.

The leaks come courtesy of Prohardver, a Hungary-based hardware enthusiast site that managed to get some private time with engineering samples of the new processors.

Both the A10-7850K and the A10-7700K have AMD’s TrueAudio hardware built-in and both are fully HSA compatible.

These chips are designed by AMD to be ball-busters when it comes to GPGPU compute scenarios and using OpenCL to accelerate calculations on the GPU.

Specifications	AMD A10-7850K	AMD A10-6800K	AMD A10-7700K	AMD A10-6700
Cores	4	4	4	4
Threads	4	4	4	4
CPU Architecture	Steamroller	Piledriver	Steamroller	Piledriver
Clock speed	3.7GHz	4.1GHz	3.5GHz	3.7GHz
Boost speed	4.0GHz	4.4GHz	3.8GHz	4.3GHz
Multiplier unlocked	Yes	Yes	Yes	No
GPU cores	512	384	384	384
GPU clock speed	720MHz	844MHz	720MHz	844MHz
GPU Architecture	GCN	VLIW4	GCN	VLIW4
AMD TrueAudio support	Yes	No	Yes	No
Socket type	FM2/FM2+	FM2/FM2+	FM2/FM2+	FM2/FM2+
Production process	28nm	32nm	28nm	32nm
TDP	95W	100W	65W	65W
Launch date	14 Jan 2014	4 June 2013	14 Jan 2014	4 June 2013

For the first time an AMD APU dips under the 100W TDP that was previously limiting the A10-6800K and A10-5800K APUs. AMD’s previous APUs belonging to the Richland family implemented something called Resonant Clock Mesh (RCM), which allows the APU to power-gate components on the chip to save on heat and direct power where it’s needed.

The A10-7850K integrates 512 GCN cores into its die and this is similar to taking a full-sized Radeon HD7750 and squeezing it into the same silicon. However, the same problem remains that AMD’s APUs need to rely on system memory to act as VRAM. Unless AMD has some black magic tricks to help squeeze out more bandwidth, gamers are going to run into memory bottlenecks a lot sooner than planned.

In comparison to previous lineups there are bumps to both specifications and capability. The new Kaveri family comes with AMD TrueAudio support, so advanced sound effects will now be done on dedicated hardware rather than use up CPU resources. The A10-7700K replaces the A10-6700 and gives owners an unlocked multiplier, so you aren’t limited by the 65W TDP.

In addition, all Trinity, Richland and Kaveri processors will work in new motherboards with socket FM2+. However, Kaveri is not backwards-compatible with socket FM2 owing to a power circuit change and a few pin swaps.

In terms of performance the A10-7850K is expected to perform around the same level as an Intel Core i5 processor with a discrete Radeon HD7750 GPU, although the latter configuration would benefit from faster GDDR5 memory. The A10-7700K will perform at the same level as a Core i5 processor with a Radeon HD7730, which is almost exactly the same GPU that’s been shoved onto the APU’s die.

Both APUs should yield playable framerates for games over 30fps at native 1080p in modern games and both will be able to benefit from advances made in DirectX 11.2 and in AMD’s upcoming Mantle API.