Setup and CPU Test
Introduction
Today AMD releases a new slew of APU’s as well as new thermal solutions for their existing processors. Among these new releases is the A10 7860k which will most likely be the quietest launch of the bunch but, in my opinion, is the most important and impressive of the new lot. The A10 7860k doesn’t have impressive core clock or GPU clock rate increases like the A10 7890k and come with the new flashy Wraith cooler. It doesn’t even come with the new 125w near silent cooler that the A10 7870k is getting. Why then is this particular APU so impressive or important. Well, for starters it’s a full A10 meaning it contains the full 12 compute cores of the other A10 APU’s, a quad core cpu + 8 GCN cores with 512 stream processors. So the initial specs don’t mean a whole lot, and if you stop there of course you would be left underwhelmed and wonder why this justifies existence or attention, now let’s take a look at what makes this little APU so important in the lineup.
- Full A10 four steamroller cores clocked at 3.6ghz base with a 4ghz turbo
- 8 GCN Cores with 512 Stream Processors at 757mhz
- Comes with the new 95w Near Silent Thermal Solution
- Configurable 45-65w TDP
- MSRP of $117.99 USD
The last three key points are what sets this APU apart from the rest of the pack. The new near silent thermal solution features an aluminum base plate with two copper heat pipes going through a dense aluminum fin array with what is quite possibly the ugliest fan they could have put on it, beauty in the eye of the beholder I suppose. This particular cooler is important, not only because it’s new, but because the tdp was able to be reduced to 65w leaving a 30w tdp headroom allowing the fan to stay silent (which it does) or allow for some overclocking headroom without the need to run out and buy an aftermarket solution. Coming in at a price of $117.99USD it’s a compelling price at only $20 more than the new Athlon x4 880k and brings a good iGPU along for the ride.
But until this APU is put into practice those are all just specs. It’s time to put the A10 7860k through it’s paces. We’ll be comparing it against an Intel i3 4130 (haswell) on CPU comparisons, iGPU gaming, then finish with pairing both up with a dedicated XFX R9 380.
Setup and CPU Test
A10 7860k System
- A10 7860k
- 2x8gb G.Skill Trident X 2400mhz DDR3 2gb to iGPU
- Asus ROG Crossblade Ranger
- Bitfenix Fury 550g psu
- Visiontek 240gb SSD
I3 4130 System
- i3 4130
- 2x8gb G.Skill Trident X 2400mhz DDR3 2gb to iGPU
- Asus z87 Maximus Hero
- Bitfenix Fury 550g psu
- Visiontek 240gb SSD
CPU Performance
We just wanted to run some basic tests on the CPU portion of the A10 and see how it stacks up to the Intel Core i3 4130.
The first test we ran was Cinebench r15 to test Single Core and Multi core performance across both CPUs. It’s no surprise here that the core i3 would be the winner, but it wasn’t quite the margin I expected it to be, but still a good showing by the stronger cores on the Haswell CPU.
Taking a quick comparison utilizing the newer CPUZ benchmark we see both coming much closer together overall.
The last thing we looked at was rendering a video on Sony Vegas Pro 13. As start up youtubers and let’s plays continue to grow, people are asking more and more about rendering capabilities of these lower end solutions so we wanted to share that as well.
These results were along the lines of what we expected to see out of both processors, but let’s move on to comparing the gaming capabilities of the iGPU of these two chips.
iGPU Gaming
Counter Strike Global Offensive continues to grow in popularity and is one of the top games at LAN parties. For this reason it’s at the top of the testing chart for these tests. Run at both 720p and 1080p on low settings.
Rocket League is quite the phenomena in the online gaming arena taking the world by storm last summer and is a low cost crowd favorite. We tested this game at 720p and 1080p on Quality settings
Lego Batman 3 might seem like an odd choice of game to toss in this mix, but one would be hard pressed to find a local multiplayer game more fun than that of the Lego series. And with the idea that either of these chips could land itself under your TV in an HTPC testing it just felt right. We tested this game at 720p and 1080p with High textures.
Dirt Rally is the first of our AAA games tests that we put these chips through. Testing at 720p and 1080p with the Medium Preset selected.
Tomb Raider, because what gaming performance test would be complete without trying out Tomb Raider 2013. We tested this game at 720p and 1080p on the Normal Preset.
Star Wars Battlefront is the final game we tested in this lineup and feel it needs no introduction. We tested this game at 720p and 1080p on the Low Preset.
Dedicated GPU Gaming
Running on an integrated gpu may be fine for some, but most want to know what happens when you outgrow that and want to move up to a beefier dedicated gpu. For this we ran through many of the games again, but this time with a XFX R9 380.
Counter Strike Global Offensive gets the dedicated GPU treatment so you can crank the resolution and settings while still maintaining that high FPS. We Ran this game at 1080p on High Settings, no AA.
Rocket League at over 100fps is like a hot knife through butter. We ran this title at 1080p and High Quality.
Dirt Rally is a game that benefits from both higher settings and higher frame rates. We ran this at 1080p and Ultra Settings
Tomb Raider takes on a whole new look with TressFX. We ran this game at 1080p and Ultimate preset.
Star Wars Battlefront was run at 1080p and Ultra Preset.
Conclusion
Well, in the end it’s a bit of a mixed bag. The i3 is clearly the stronger CPU, the A10 takes the cake on iGPU gaming, but then the i3 takes it back again with the dedicated GPU category. Used for it's intention, as a small form factor gaming box or HTPC and the A10 7860k is undeniable. At $117.99 it’s a great value for what it offers, a capable CPU and a very useable graphics core all on one die. AMD did something impressive here by delivering A10 7850k level performance at much lower cost of entry than previous APU’s but also managed to drop the TDP significantly over their previous Kaveri/Godavari releases. No, it doesn’t power the R9 380 nearly as well as the i3 does and in all reality if you’re buying that class of GPU you really should be looking into a 69beefier CPU anyway. Put the A10 7860k in a small ITX form factor build, don’t worry about a dedicated graphics card, hook it up to your TV and enjoy a decent gaming and media consumption experience without worry of heat or noise.
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