CPU Performance

To test the compute performance of all three processors I ran them all through our normal CPU benchmark suite. This covers a few CPU benchmarks, gaming, as well as a few overall benchmarks that help take into account memory throughput. My first benchmark was running all three through X264 HD Benchmark 4.0 to test out their encoding performance. The benchmark does this in both a long and short test and each is run four times and then averaged out for the score we have below. Here the 7890K and the 880K are both brushing right at the bottom edge of the AMD AM3+ entry level CPUs like the 8370e. There is still a distinct line between the FM2+ APUs to the AM3+ CPUs and then with the Intel CPUs above that. That said the 7890K does have a clear advantage over former top FM2+ APU the 7870K.

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Next is my favorite benchmark, Cinebench R15. I like this test because not only does it do a full CPU benchmark with all of the cores but it also runs a single core benchmark that helps give us a better idea of what to expect when getting into programs that don’t efficiently take advantage of multiple cores. Even with it now being 2016 there are still a LOT of programs that fall into that category. The A10-7890K tops the FM2+ charts here on the single CPU score but for some reason its multicore results seemed to be a little slower when compared to both the 7870K and 880K that it should have outperformed. The lower wattage A10-7860K wasn’t far behind any of them. That said the two Intel CPUs tested are still well above in both benchmarks with the newest (and considerably more expensive) 6700K being about twice as fast on the single CPU benchmarks.

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Next we have wPrime where we benchmark how quickly the CPU by calculating square roots with a recursive call of Newton's method for estimating functions. Here the higher the result means it took longer. Here we see the X4 880K falling on its face but the A10-7890K once again topping the FM2+ charts. This is significantly better than the old 2500K and much closer to the 2600K and other higher end Intel CPUs from the past few years. The 7860K didn’t do as well on the longer benchmark but its quicker benchmark has it not far off from the 7870K.

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For 3DMark I use the Fire Strike benchmark and I focus only on the physics results to keep the test focused on CPU performance, not the performance of the dedicated GPU used in our tests. Here there is a clear wall between the AM3+ CPUs and the FM2+ APUs with the 7890K being at the top of the FM2+’s as expected but still nearly 2k away from the next fastest CPU tested. Here the X4 880K performed at the bottom of the charts, even below the 7860K with its lower clock speed.

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I tested the CPU and APUs using the Passmark CPU benchmark, here we once again see the X4 880K down a near the bottom with the A10-7890K up at the top of all of the FM2+ APUs that are grouped up together.

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Here we use PCMark8 to get a better idea of overall PC performance because it tests using real world programs including your web browser. All three of the processors tested showed a large gap in performance between the OpenCL tests and the conventional test. This shows that you can expect much better performance when using these in any application that takes advantage of OpenCL. In the OpenCL benchmark all three are up close to the same performance that I have seen in the past with high clock speed 6 core CPUs but in the conventional benchmark all three are a world apart.

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The last bit of my CPU specific testing was testing to see how the two APUs and the one CPU performed in a few games. I used a GTX 780 as the dedicated GPU because I wasn’t looking to test the onboard GPU performance, just the CPU. Here the gap between the AM3+/Intel CPUs and the FM2+ CPUs was minimal. In fact, the 7890K and the 880K both falls in the middle of the pack in all three tests with the lower wattage 7860K falling a little farther behind. So we can see that even with the lower performance in a lot of the CPU specific benchmarks, a slower CPU makes less of a difference in the four games tested. I say less of a difference because they all perform well but the faster CPUs do still get you a noticeable FPS advantage it’s just a cheaper CPU isn’t going to make most games unplayable.

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garfi3ld replied the topic: #37884 13 Apr 2016 18:33
Today we focus on the budget end of things with a look at a few of the CPUs and APUs from AMDs FM2+ lineup!

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