Testing Out The Configurable TDP On AMD's Kaveri

[zanny]

Yeah, I think that is fps / watt. Though it shouldn't really be that surprising that doubling tdp doesn't double performance - we have known for years we have been descending this sliding scale of performance gains by just overvolting the same silicon. That is why the original p4 failed at 200w, Nehalem capped at 150w, and Ivy Bridge could barely push 120w without hitting huge volt limitations / diminishing returns.

Better silicon means more efficient processes, but that means you hit the roofs of performance at lower wattages.

Good to know Kaveri is rocking it at low tdp finally - the 28nm node seems to be doing good things for AMD. Intel might finally feel a sting in their sub-50w parts.

[GreatEmerald]

It's also interesting to see the Watt per FPS performance (results rounded, I've assumed that auto is 95W):
Xonotic
45W - 2.95 W/fps
50W - 2.8 W/fps
55W - 2.63 W/fps
60W - 2.43 W/fps
65W - 2.3 W/fps
95W - 1.71 W/fps

x264
45W - 1.53 W/fps
50W - 1.48 W/fps
55W - 1.4 W/fps
60W - 1.31 W/fps
65W - 1.26 W/fps
95W - 0.97 W/fps

Eh? How are you getting these numbers? Also, what is "W/fps" ? wouldn't efficiency be calculated in FPS/W (as in how many FPS you get per 1 watt → higher is better)?

[devius]

It's also interesting to see the Watt per FPS performance (results rounded, I've assumed that auto is 95W)

Very nice! So it seems that the further you drop the TDP the more efficient it becomes. That will surely bring some very interesting laptop CPUs.

[Spittie]

[...]

Damn, fps/W, not W/fps.

[Spittie]

Interesting results, Kaveri really does good when paired with a low TDP.
It's also showed by the A8-7600, which in most benchmarks is always just 10/15% slower than the A10-7850K, while having a lower TDP and a lower clock. (Too bad that AMD didn't send you one of those too, Tje A8 should be ~$70 cheaper than the A10 when it hit the market, so a comparision under Linux would have been interesting).

It really shows that Kaveri was optimized to work with low TDP. Or maybe it's just because it's using 28nm SHP, who knows.


It's also interesting to see the Watt per FPS performance (results rounded, I've assumed that auto is 95W):
Xonotic
45W - 2.95 W/fps
50W - 2.8 W/fps
55W - 2.63 W/fps
60W - 2.43 W/fps
65W - 2.3 W/fps
95W - 1.71 W/fps

x264
45W - 1.53 W/fps
50W - 1.48 W/fps
55W - 1.4 W/fps
60W - 1.31 W/fps
65W - 1.26 W/fps
95W - 0.97 W/fps

[damvcoool]

missing Power Consumption

I agreee with GreatEmerald, the article does seem to be missing Power Consumption...maybe an update to the article later on?

[GreatEmerald]

And what about heat and power consumption? That's kind of the point of TDP...

[Figueiredo]

From the benchmarks, CPU performance seems to be much more constrained by the TDP than GPU. So either the GPU is extremelly efficient or it is bottlenecked by something else, which may very well be the CPU itself. Maybe overclocking the CPU will render further FPS gains in graphics benchmarks.

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Testing Out The Configurable TDP On AMD's Kaveri

AMD Kaveri APUs offer a configurable TDP to target running the APU at lower power rating and this feature can be configured on supported motherboards. While the configurable TDP is targeted for the lower-end Kaveri APUs, I ran some tests from the A10-7850K when bumping its TDP from 95 Watts to 45 to 65 Watts to see how the performance is impacted.

http://www.phoronix.com/vr.php?view=19714