Memory Scaling On The AMD Kaveri A10-7850K APU

Final Thoughts

The conclusions from the memory scaling tests are quite simple and obvious. Memory scaling makes a dramatic difference to Kaveri’s performance in GPU-intensive applications because it increases the GPU memory frequency and reduces the memory bottleneck. Irrespective of the GPU-intensive application (gaming, OpenCL acceleration, GPU compute) the memory scaling is solid . There is no question that if you’re building an A10-7850K or A10-7700K system that you should be looking to 2133 or 2400MHz memory in an ideal world because it makes a big difference. You’ll get the most performance out of your APU this way, especially if you intend to use it for gaming or GPU compute applications – I think most people will be wanting these APUs for gaming purposes.

You have to consider the price premium of 2400 or 2133MHz memory over the mainstream 1600MHz memory kits – particularly if you’re buying the budget conscious A8-7600 APU. However, as I mentioned at the beginning if you’re spending $172 on an A10-7850K what’s another $10 or $20 to go from 8GB of 1600/1866 to 8GB of 2133/2400MHz DDR3 memory and get an extra 10-15% performance as a result. On the other hand if you are spending $119 on an A8-7600 then $20 extra, “just on memory”, seems unreasonable, especially when considering an extra $20 gets you within biting distance of the price of the A10-7700K.

Which memory kit should you choose? We’ve established that your choice will vary depending on which APU you are interested in for both budgetary and performance reasons but it is clear from the results that there is a case of diminishing returns after 2133MHz, to 2400MHz and beyond, suggesting a sweet spot of 2133MHz. This works to the advantage of the consumer anyway given the increasingly competitive pricing of 2133MHz memory kits, even the 2400MHz kits these days are surprisingly affordable if you go for the more budget-friendly brands like G.Skill and Team Group. I personally wouldn’t recommend venturing much further than 2133/2400MHz purely on the basis that the gains you’ll see will not align with the extra you’re paying, you’d be better placed to just buy a discrete GPU in most cases than a 2666MHz memory kit for example.

The results of memory scaling and its overall potential on Kaveri is even exciting when you consider that we haven’t even delved into GPU, CPU and memory overclocking on these APUs yet. Stay tuned for this as we’ll have an overclocking featured with the A10-7850K coming  within a week or so to show what the interaction of overclocking, high frequency memory and hybrid crossfire (dual graphics) means for Kaveri’s performance.

Pros

•  Solid GPU compute and gaming scaling
• 2133MHz is a relatively affordable sweet spot

Cons

• Negligible impact on CPU performance
• Slightly raised performance

“AMD’s Kaveri APUs demonstrate significant GPU performance improvements from faster memory speeds. Anyone contemplating an A10 series AMD Kaveri APU should strongly consider 2133MHz memory or above, anyone looking to the A8 series APUs should start from 1866MHz. The main beneficiary of faster memory is gaming – so if you’re going to be gaming on a Kaveri APU fast memory is a must.”

Thank you to AMD for providing the review samples that made this article possible.