A10-7870K "last review of AMD until Zen" 4.74 GHz stable OC

[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 After 3 years are these CPUs still rock solid, but outdated also.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 overlcocking
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

 

[hardrock]

high-perfomace

good c/p

thank you

 

[akitetsu]

The overclocked score of 3Dmark 11 P mode just near to HD6850 on defualt.

We usaully say AMD bulldozer is high frequency but low performance... 7870K too...

Thanks for your testing/unboxing,

let's wait for ZEN in 2016 wwww

 

[FlanK3r]

Unfortunatelly, L3 cache could be help + 2-10% in performance for Kaveri. But still, this is the quickest Bulldozer per 1 core :)

 

[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