Overall and Final Verdict
So unlike the last few Intel reviews that I have published the A10-7870 isn’t a completely new architecture. In fact it is just a clock speed increase on the dated Kaveri architecture. When comparing the A10-7870K to the i7-6700K or the i7-5775C AMD’s fastest APU still struggles to hold its own. So if you look at the numbers compared to all of the i7’s that I have tested in the past it is a little hard to really understand where the 7870K comes in. You see with its MSRP being $137 those same Intel CPUs aren’t its competition at all. It’s direct competition is the i3-4330. Like I mentioned earlier, sadly I don’t have one to test, but I was able to test against other CPUs with the same HD4600 onboard GPU. Against those the 7870K performed extremely well. Its CPU performance leaves me wanting but for onboard performance I don’t think you can find a better value. Add to that the cool temperatures and you have a great CPU for an HTPC build. The weaker CPU performance results have me questioning if this is the best choice for a standard PC build though, especially if you are planning on adding a dedicated GPU. Intel’s mid ranged CPU (i5-2500K) from early 2011 is still out performing it in most benchmarks.
Live Pricing: HERE
