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GAME STREAMING TEST
We tested streaming using OBS (Open Broadcaster Software) with the recommended settings for Twitch streaming, 1080p (downscaled to 720p) 30FPS. Our in-game settings remained the same at Medium at 1080P
Our APUs blew through the test beating the i5 and Pentium handily, the dropped frames in OBS as well as the amount of stutter on the Pentium made it entirely unplayable. The numbers speak for themselves, for someone looking to build a cheap system to play CS:GO and get into streaming look no further.
FRAME TIME VARIANCE
We’ll be measuring both the average frame time and the 99th percentile as well as the 99.9th percentile as well, which is essentially the worst results you can expect 99% of the time
INTEGRATED GRAPHICS TESTS
For our Integrated tests we choose to use very popular titles such as CS:GO, DOTA 2, Starcraft 2, Heroes Of The Storm as well as GTA V, which we added just to see how well it can handle a demanding game.
We also wanted to test League of Legends, but there being no built in recording system like DOTA or the other games in our suite, we had to pass. We will say it performs very similarly to DOTA 2, except at medium settings is about 20% less intensive, we would strongly recommend the APU there as well!
COUNTER STRIKE: GLOBAL OFFENSIVE
As we can see here this is where AMD’s APUs really shine. The Pentium and i5 had tons of stutter and input delay, while our AMD alternative stayed at 50-60FPS most of the time. As someone who plays CS:GO casually (Gold Nova 3) we can say this is very playable and we actually played a few comp matches with the AMD system and didn’t feel like something was missing.
DOTA 2
Using a pro replay of EG VS Vici Gaming we benchmark between 11:25 and 11:50 with a large hectic battle to showcase the game when it’s at its most demanding.
Looking at all offerings here, most of them fall short of expectations, unfortunately DOTA 2 is rather demanding at high settings, although it does seem much more playable at lower settings, in the future we may test at low or medium.
We do see our APU taking a huge lead over the i5 and Pentium in average FPS, but they all seem to hit about the same bottleneck once all of the spells get casted.
We see more of the same, our APU kicks butt if graded on a curve, but we would recommend playing on medium to low on any of these configurations.
HEROES OF THE STORM
As we see again our APU reigns supreme. At lower settings we can see it staying at or above 60FPS most of the time, we also picked a relatively straining point in the game for this test.
STARCRAFT 2: HEART OF THE SWARM
While Blizzard’s iconic RTS title may be getting a bit long in the tooth, it is still one of the most popular RTS’s out today.
As we see here our APU System absolutely kicks the Intel competitors out the door. The lowest 1% sits at around 30FPS on our APU builds, which the i5 and Pentium’s average FPS isn’t even close to! This is a landslide in the A8s favor. Also by nature of SC2 being CPU dependent and only really using 2 CPU threads the Pentium does better than the locked i5.
We’d imagine that Streaming on the A8 wouldn’t be an issue because of the game only being dual threaded anyways!
GRAND THEFT AUTO V
One of the most highly-anticipated releases for PC, GTA V is the latest installment of Rockstar’s long-running genre-defining open-world shooter, and it is their most graphically demanding title yet! with massive city that’s brought to life with immense detail.
For this test, we use the lowest settings in DX11 available for as close to playable performance as possible.
We can see our AMD A8 7650K really pushes the Pentium G3258 and i5 4430 around, with either game being way below playable frame rates, the APU performs 4 times better in minimum frames as well as almost 3 times faster then the i5. If you plan on playing this game without a dedicated card the answer is clear.
The 720P tests are more of the same, our Pentium falls behind the i5 and suffers from severe stuttering. Our APU is very playable at this setting, while not perfect it is something you can enjoy the game and play through it.
Review Overview
Performance
Overclocking
Price
Warranty
Very Strong Value CPU
When it is all said and done, the A8 7650K from AMD is a swiss army knife of a CPU at a great value! It seriously surprised us and was well deserving of our Top Value Award!
I have been using the A6 4400 for two years and have been able to play everything from crisis 2 to dayz to battlefield 3 at normal settings and never had an issue till it started overheating recently. I am planning to replace the thermal paste and have been debating an upgrade to an A8 or an A10. These processors are amazing.
I remember the old trinity’s were great in laptops back a few years ago.
I was really happy with the performance on this processor. If you plan on buying a Processor from amazon be sure to use our link to support us!
if it overheats on you, how is that amazing? once thermal paste is applied you should never have to reapply. it should be a permanent install..
Factory thermal paste has a lifespan of 2 years. I am adding mx4 which has a lifespan of 6 years. It’s in an HP laptop which is famous for running hot. Currently to prevent overheating I dialed down the CPU.
Thermal paste dries out. If you’ve ever owned a laptop you would notice after about 2 years they tend to get much hotter. That is one of the main contributing factors.
If AMD wishes to have any chance to capture market share, they better start looking outside the US in terms of what importers and distributers are doing to their prices. When I have to pay an equivalent of around 200USD for the A10-7850K, then there are more sensible Intel buys. But AMD doesn’t seem to care that their distribution channels are killing their sales in non US markets.
Sorry to hear that, it is rather unfortunate that pricing is so high in your country.
I’ll bring this up next time I speak to someone at AMD. I am very sorry to hear that 🙁
a little late to the party but its the same in my country. they even jacked up the prices a month ago when the aots benchmark came out and then they made promos on intel / NVidia. amd also rarely gets promo. there are bundled offers but it sucks like an a10-7850k with an apotop 2gb 1333 ram. bunch of idiots go buy it without researching the importance of ram to the apu then they flood the forum saying it sucked and that they would never buy amd again.
well written! would have been nice to see 4 more compute cores in action. could use another 1080p budget gamer. it would be more compelling to buy fm2+ if there was a road map or to know there was at least 1 more upgrade coming that will be more competitive in aaa games. i could realistically see a road map for a small form factor with hbm for the apu and maybe integrated on the board. they could make ones the size of game systems and release a few new chips every year or the top end one anyway. i mean why not if memory wont hold you back.
As far as we can tell the next CPUs will be on the upcoming Zen stuff on a different platform.
It is still a solid deal.
yeah actually seen a road map in a article not long after i wrote that.
im curious to know what temps did you guys run into while testing this chip? on mine, im using a zalman 9700 and its running temps around 60c. i had to clock it down and also run it in 65w mode to get it to cool down. however it locks up when the temp peaks over the 65 w mode. i do want to use a hyper 212 evo to see if the temps drop.
I’d check out some of the other coolers we’ve reviewed here. I used the hyper 212 evo simply because it was there and very popular. The temps I ran into were about 30/40C below the throttle point so about 50C.
If you dont mind the extra $20 a Phanteks cooler we reviewed here https://www.technologyx.com/featured/phanteks-ph-tc14s-cpu-cooler-review/
Beat the snot out of a hyper 212.
Thanks very much for the feedback!