Test and review: AMD Kaveri in Dual Graphics configuration. APU vs GPU: Comparative Review

21.05.2019 Windows 8

We haven't visited the budget GPU sector in a while. The attention of test labs is riveted on powerful high-performance GPUs, because it is in them that the movement of progress is most clearly manifested. Occasionally, a video card of a mid-price category comes into view, but everything below is just a mouse fiddling for enthusiasts. However, you need to descend from heaven to earth. Younger GPUs are sold in a way that the flagships never dreamed of, because not all gamers are eager to play with uncompromising graphics settings and are ready to spend rather large sums on the appropriate hardware. This is the first thing. Second, the public sector is now undergoing not so bright changes as at the very top, but in fact just as significant transformations.

A number of technologies that once debuted in high-end products have lasted long enough for both major GPU manufacturers to form model lines that are unified in function and differentiated only in performance. DirectX 11 is supported everywhere, with effects matching at least feature level 11_0, of which the most notable is hardware tessellation. There is hardware video decoding of the H.264 standard and - with rare exceptions - an HDMI 1.2a port, which provides compatibility with 4K displays and stereoscopic 3D.

The move by AMD and NVIDIA to the 28nm technology norm also allowed budget GPUs to take a big step forward in clock speeds and performance, while remaining within a modest power budget. The spread of GDDR5 memory had an equally important effect: GDDR3 remained a sign of frankly cheap video adapters. As a result, inexpensive GPUs demonstrate in benchmarks a level of performance that can hardly be expected from nondescript-looking video cards, often even without additional power supply. In a series of group tests that we periodically conduct in well-known games, budget GPUs repeatedly make their way into the diagrams along with larger chips, breaking the threshold of 30 FPS at a resolution of 1920x1080, albeit with minimal graphics settings.

Of course, there are also counter-efforts on the part of game producers. Even projects of the AAA class, which at maximum settings create significant difficulties for top GPUs (Crysis 3, Battlefield 4, Metro: Last Light, etc.), scale well in order to match the capabilities of budget hardware, while maintaining a large share of visual appeal. Another category of games is initially devoid of a heavy graphical shell, which does not prevent them from being wildly popular, inaccessible to hits of one season, which are usually used as GPU benchmarks. These are MMO games: classic RPGs led by the undying leader - World of Warcraft, as well as the popularly beloved "Tanks" and their followers. All these projects benefit little from the hardware of the average level of performance, and on conservative settings they work quite tolerably not only on budget, but on ultra-budget GPUs.

Finally, the most important trend that prompted us to turn to the topic of entry-level graphics is the rise of the APU (Accelerated Processing Unit) - processors with an integrated graphics core, in AMD terminology. Technically, any CPU with integrated graphics qualifies as an APU, and this is not a new phenomenon in and of itself. The current situation is interesting in that the integrated graphics processors in the APU in terms of computing power not only surpass the weakest of the discrete GPUs released today, but also fully fall under the definition of "game graphics".

Actually, only AMD chips among desktop processors are fully worthy of the term APU introduced by it, since the relatively powerful Iris Pro core with an external cache of the fourth level remains the prerogative of Intel laptop models, and desktop ones are content with a primitive version represented by Intel HD Graphics. In the latest iteration - the Kaveri core - the APUs have taken a major step forward by combining the updated x86 cores and GPUs on the GCN architecture. The result is a processor with an unprecedentedly large share of the graphics component - 47% of the die area. In the most complete configuration, the integrated Kaveri GPU outnumbers the not-cheapest models of AMD's discrete video adapters of the Radeon R7 250 level in terms of the number of compute units. And this is not the limit, because the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One consoles are supplied with APUs with even more powerful graphics.

All this prompts to look at the segment of budget graphics with an open mind and to determine the place of APU in this picture. Earlier we have already done a detailed review of the architecture and performance tests of two representatives of the Kaveri line: A10-7850K and A8-7600. The purpose of this review is to expand on the topic of gaming performance by comparing APUs with a set of competitors from the number of discrete video adapters.

⇡ Test participants

The following APUs and GPUs took part in performance testing:

AMD A10-7700K
AMD A10-7850K
AMD Radeon R5 230
AMD Radeon R7 240 (GDDR 5)
AMD Radeon R7 250 (GDDR 5)
Intel Core i5-4460 (HD Graphics 4600 GT2)
NVIDIA GeForce GT 630
NVIDIA GeForce GT 640 (GDDR 5).

The Kaveri lineup currently consists of nine APUs, divided into categories A6, A8 and A10 in ascending order of performance. Along with the different configurations of x86 cores, APUs also differ in the graphical part. Younger chips, A6, are equipped with GPU Radeon R5 with 256 computing ALUs (stream processors). The A8 has 384 ALUs and the A10 has 512. The only exception is the A10-7700K, which also includes 384 ALUs.

However, you will hardly be able to buy anything on sale now, except for the A10-7700K and A10-7850K, which are, respectively, the junior and senior models of the AMD A10 line. Prices on Newegg.com are $ 160 and $ 190, and in Moscow online stores only A10-7850K was found at a price of 6,000 rubles. This couple will participate in testing, which is quite convenient for our purposes: both chips include a 4-core CPU, but integrated graphics of different configurations.

For an APU, a critical parameter is the memory bandwidth. The A10 supports dual-channel DDR3 SDRAM up to 2133 MHz, with up to 2048 MB dedicated to the GPU. Thus, in terms of memory, APUs correspond to budget discrete video adapters with a 128-bit bus and GDDR3 chips, adjusted for the fact that the bandwidth has to be shared with x86 cores. Not quite officially, the A10 can work with DDR3-2400 modules, which AMD itself produces under the Radeon R9 Memory brand. It is with this memory that we will test the APU, although we will separately check whether the processor will lose a lot if we use the mainstream DDR3-1600.

For comparison with integrated graphics, we selected discrete video adapters in the price range under $ 90. The youngest retail models on AMD and NVIDIA GPUs participate, with the exception of the GeForce GT 610, which is simply too weak with its 48 CUDA cores. All cards are equipped with GDDR5 memory, with the exception of the Radeon R5 230 and GeForce GT 630, which use GDDR 3 (although the latter is available in the GDDR5 version).

	A10-7700K	A10-7850K	AMD Radeon R5 230	AMD Radeon R7 240	AMD Radeon R7 250	NVIDIA GeForce GT 630	NVIDIA GeForce GT 640
Main components
GPU	-	-	Caicos	Oland PRO	Oland XT	GK208	GK107
Number of transistors	-	-	0,37	1,04	1,04	1,3	1,3
Process technology, nm	28	28	40	28	28	28	28
GPU clock frequency, MHz: Base Clock / Boost Clock	720/-	720/-	625/-	730/780	1000/1050	875/-	950/-
Stream Processors / CUDA Cores	384	512	160	320	320	384	384
Texture blocks	24	32	8	20	20	16	32
ROPs	8	8	4	8	8	8	16
Video memory: type, size, MB	DDR3 SDRAM, up to 2048	DDR3 SDRAM, up to 2048	GDDR3 SDRAM, 1024	GDDR5 SDRAM, 1024	GDDR5 SDRAM, 1024	GDDR3 SDRAM, 2048	GDDR5 SDRAM, 1024
Memory clock frequency: real (effective), MHz	up to 1066 (2133)	up to 1066 (2133)	533 (1066)	1125 (4500)	1125 (4500)	900 (1800)	1250 (5000)
Memory bus width, bit	128	128	64	128	128	64	128
Interface	-	-	PCI-Express 2.0 x16	PCI-Express 3.0 x16	PCI-Express 3.0 x16	PCI-Express 2.0 x8	PCI-Express 3.0 x16
TDP, W	95	95	19	30	75	25	ND
Average retail price, rub.	There is no data	There is no data	There is no data	There is no data	There is no data	There is no data	There is no data

Discrete video adapters were tested on the Intel platform with a Core i5-4460 processor. The choice of this chip is not accidental, since at the recommended price of $ 182 it is the closest to the older Kaveri. The impact of the platform on performance is yet to be verified. The integrated GPU Core i5 also participates in the tests, although in comparison with the APU, it clearly does not shine.

Finally, AMD APUs have a curious option called Dual Graphics, which is a CrossFire option for connecting an integrated GPU with discrete graphics. However, only two models with GCN architecture are supported - Radeon R7 240 and R7 250, which are just comparable in configuration with the Kaveri A8-A10 graphics core. We will also be doing the Dual Graphics tests today.

⇡ Test stand, testing methodology

Testbed configuration
Cpu	Intel Intel Core i5-4460	AMD A10-7700K / AMD A10-7850K
Motherboard	ASUS Sabertooth Z97 Mark 1	ASRock FM2A88X Extreme6 +
RAM	DDR3 Kingston HyperX 4x2GB 1600MHz CL9	AMD Radeon R9 Gamer Series 2x8 GB, 2400 MHz, CL11
ROM	Intel SSD 520 240 GB
Power Supply	Corsair AX1200i 1200W
Cooling the CPU	Thermalright Archon
Frame	CoolerMaster Test Bench V1.0
Operating system	Windows 7 Ultimate X64 Service Pack 1
AMD card software	AMD Catalyst 14.4 WHQL
NVIDIA card software	335.23 WHQL

In the NVIDIA driver settings, CPU is always selected as the processor for PhysX computation. In AMD settings, the Tesselation setting is always switched from AMD Optimized to Use application settings. In CrossFire configurations, the Frame Pacing option remains enabled.

Benchmark set
Program	API	Settings	Permission
3DMark 2011	DirectX 11	Entry profile	-
3DMark	DirectX 11	Cloud Gate Test	-
Unigine heaven 4	DirectX 11	DirectX 11, min. quality	1920x1080
DiRT Showdown. Built-in benchmark	DirectX 11	Medium quality, Global Illumination off. Nevada track, 8 cars	1920x1080
Far Cry 3 + FRAPS	DirectX 11	DirectX 11, min. quality, HDAO. Start of the Secure the Outpost mission	1920x1080
Tomb Raider. Built-in benchmark	DirectX 11	Min. quality	1920x1080
Bioshock Infinite. Built-in benchmark	DirectX 11	Min. quality. Postprocessing: Normal	1920x1080
Crysis 3 + FRAPS	DirectX 11	Min. quality. Post Human mission start	1920x1080
Metro: Last Light. Built-in benchmark	DirectX 11	Min. quality	1920x1080
Company of Heroes 2. Built-in benchmark	DirectX 11	Min. quality	1920x1080
Batman: Arkham Origins. Built-in benchmark	DirectX 11	Min. quality	1920x1080
Battlefield 4 + FRAPS	DirectX 11	Min. quality. The beginning of the Tashgar mission	1920x1080
Thief. Built-in benchmark	DirectX 11	Min. quality	1920x1080
World of Tanks + FRAPS	DirectX 11	Medium quality". Ensk card	1920x1080
War Thunder. Built-in benchmark		High quality. Eastern Front benchmark
Diablo III: Reaper of Souls + FRAPS		Texture quality: high; shadow quality: medium; physics: high; clutter density: high; anti-aliasing: off. Beginning of the game

⇡ Discrete GPUs on AMD vs Intel platform

The two versions of the 3DMark benchmark show that the Core i5 platform has an extremely small advantage over the AMD A10 when using a discrete graphics card. In contrast, in most gaming tests, the AMD processor performs slightly better. Apparently, with adapters of this class, performance is entirely limited by the GPU, and the x86 core does not play a big role. The only exception is World of Tanks, which takes a huge advantage from the Intel platform.

Game tests + Unigine Heaven 4

So, in general, anything depends on the processor only in World of Tanks, that is, the lower performance of the CPU part of AMD chips will almost never affect the final results. Let's take these results into account and move on to comparing the performance of integrated and low-end discrete graphics.

⇡ Synthetic tests

There is a significant difference between the two Kaveri models. And if the A10-7700K is not far from the discrete Radeon R7 240, then the A10-1850K is closer to the R7 250 or GeForce GT 640.

In the new version of the benchmark, the APU lags behind the leading adapters, R7 250 and GT 640, much more. On the other hand, the difference between AMD chips with integrated graphics is less pronounced.
The APUs were inferior in performance even to the Radeon R7 240, although they easily coped with the GeForce GT 630 and the Intel HD Graphics 4600 core built into the Core i5 processor.

Unigine heaven 4

A similar picture is observed in Unigine Heaven. The difference between the A10-7700K and the A10-1850K is negligible, and both are inferior to the discrete Radeon R7 240.
The advantage of APUs over Intel HD Graphics and the lowest discrete adapters is still great.

⇡ Game tests

DiRT Showdown

DiRT brings success to AMD APUs. Senior Kaveri managed to cope even with the Radeon R7 250, although it does not compare with the GeForce GT 640.
The younger Kaveri, in turn, is slightly ahead of the Radeon R7 240.
The rest of the test participants are located far behind the Kaveri chips.
Please note that the benchmark was run with medium (and not minimal, like most others) graphics settings, at which the APUs provide frame rates of 50 FPS and higher.

Far cry 3

The Radeon R7 250 dominates this game.
Together with the R7 240, both APUs form a tight group, within which the difference in performance is minimal.
But, albeit with a minimal margin, the APU managed to outperform the GeForce GT 640, not to mention the obviously slower GT 630.
Both APUs are unable to provide the minimum acceptable frame rate of 30 FPS, despite the lowest graphics settings.

Tomb raider

The A10-7850K gave way to the Radeon R7 240, and the A10-7700K did not even cope with the GeForce GT 630. Only Intel HD Graphics or the Radeon R5 230 are worse.
However, both maintain frame rates above 30 FPS.

Bioshock Infinite

The results for AMD processors are almost the same and do not differ at all from what the Radeon R7 240 demonstrated. Both APUs are very far from the R7 250 and GT 640.
However, the advantage over the youngest discrete GPUs has not gone away, as well as the acceptable frame rate.

Crysis 3

Again, in terms of absolute results, the two APUs differ little from each other.
Graphics adapters based on NVIDIA chips were unsuccessful: both gave way to integrated graphics from AMD, and the GT 630 hardly differs from Intel HD Graphics.
There is no need to talk about a comfortable frame rate in relation to the APU in Crysis 3 - despite the wide scaling, it is still too heavy an engine.

Metro: Last Light

APUs are intermediate between the GeForce GT 630 and the Radeon R7 240 and, unlike the R7 250 and GT 640, do not provide a playable frame rate.
On the integrated graphics of the Core i5, the game simply did not start, so the corresponding line in the diagram remained empty.

Company of Heroes 2

As a lucky exception, AMD APUs took the honorable second and third place on the chart, behind the Radeon R7 250.
The test created great difficulties for NVIDIA video adapters, dropping the GT 640 to the level of the junior Kaveri chip.
And yet, among all the contenders, only the R7 250 hit the 30 FPS bar. Integrated graphics can't do that.

Batman: arkham origins

APUs, which again showed similar results, are inferior even to the Radeon R7 240, and much, and the difference with the R7 250 and GT 640 is simply colossal.
However, AMD processors still deliver their 30 FPS.

Battlefield 4

Kaveri chips are comparable in performance with the Radeon R7 240, but once again they differ slightly. The minimum acceptable frame rate is provided.
AMD products clearly outperform competitors from NVIDIA in this test. The game sees no difference between the GT 630 and the GT 640. Both adapters are far behind AMD's integrated GPUs.

APUs have taken their usual place just behind the Radeon R7 240. The performance level of the R7 250 or GT 640 remains an unattainable pinnacle.
Despite the relative advantage of Kaveri graphics over GeForce GT 630, there is no fundamental difference between them, because in any case the resulting frame rate is much lower than the threshold for a comfortable game.
Weaker discrete video adapters are no match for hybrids.

Diablo III: Reaper of Souls

Diablo III is a fairly democratic game that even the GeForce GT 630, with decent graphics options, produced a playable frame rate. However, we note that a fairly light initial scene of the game was used to measure the performance.
The A10-7700K is not far behind the GT 630, while the A10-7850K has taken its place between the Radeon R7 240 and R7 250.

Based on the test results, we can safely say that both APU models feel confident among gaming video adapters in the lower price category. In terms of performance, in a series of discrete AMD video cards with hybrid processors, the Radeon R7 240 in the GDDR5 modification - the youngest model based on the GCN architecture - borders. The Radeon R5 230, which is also sold in retail, is based on the 40nm Caicos core with the outdated WLIV5 architecture and today is little more than a video adapter in the original sense of the word - that is, a device that provides an image display on the screen. In a number of tests, APUs even outperform the R7 240, despite the limitation in the form of DDR3 system memory. Among NVIDIA products, AMD A10 hybrids fit into the gap between the GeForce GT 630 and GT 640 (GDDR5), unconditionally ahead of the former and unable to reach the latter. Integrated Intel HD Graphics remains the weak point of Intel desktop processors and is completely unsuitable for toys.

When buying a laptop, one of the most important questions for any buyer is the choice of the type of graphics core: integrated or discrete. If you play computer games, then you will definitely need a laptop with a dedicated graphics system, if you want to play comfortably, run games at high graphics settings and high display resolutions, for example, Full HD (1080p), then in this case you you will have to fork out for a laptop with a discrete gaming video card of at least an entry-level such as nVidia Ge Force GTX 850 \ 950M, but as a rule the cost of such laptops exceeds 50,000 rubles.

And what if you want to play on a laptop, but you don't have the money for a high-performance machine. There is certainly a way out of this situation, but only if your needs for 3D graphics are limited to three-dimensional user interfaces, and in computer games you will be content with low graphics settings and low resolutions, in such cases a laptop with an integrated GPU is suitable for both not by the way. Laptops with integrated graphics are usually sold for less, and the performance level of some integrated graphics cards has recently been on par with discrete graphics cards in the lower and even mid-range price ranges. For a long time, the integrated graphics market was completely under the control of Intel, while the level of performance of integrated graphics in 3D applications was below any criticism. However, it was originally intended for the corporate sector of the market and fully satisfied its needs, but as time went on, more and more performance was required from the integrated graphics. Soon it pulled up to Intel, and AMD, and for some time it even managed to get ahead with its hybrid APUs, but with the release of new processors on the architecture, Broadwell and Skylake from intel this year, the performance of embedded solutions in 3D applications from both companies almost equal.

So, let's take a look at what AMD and Intel are currently offering us in the segment of integrated mobile graphics.

The next generation of integrated graphics from Intel.

Let's start with Intel. An interesting feature that first appeared in the architecture of Intel Sandy Bridge processors was the integrated video core. This meant that, despite having a discrete graphics solution in your laptop, you could always take advantage of the additional processor power, which made it possible to encode video, watch high-definition movies, watch 3D content and run simple games without any problems. Today the composition Skylake includes an integrated graphics card that is in many ways superior to similar solutions in previous processors. The ninth generation of the integrated graphics subsystem - Intel Gen9 Graphics, is implemented as part of the new architecture and, like the entire Skylake chip, manufactured in compliance with the 14nm process technology, has received powerful structural changes along with increased energy efficiency. Inheriting the basic features from the previous Broadwell architecture, the new graphics include a huge range of solutions, from the basic logic HD Graphics 510(GT1e) based on one module with 12 actuators up to the most powerful graphics subsystem Iris Pro Graphics 580(GT4e) based on three modules with 72 execution units, built-in eDRAM buffer with a capacity of 128 MB, with a total peak performance of up to 1152 gigaflops (Gen9 GT4 is about one and a half times more than Gen8 GT3). Graphics performance varies significantly between the 9th generation, with integrated graphics being the lowest performing HD Graphics 510(GT1e), Graphics 515(GT2e) and Graphics 520(GT2e), these solutions will become an integral part of the Core M processors. The built-in video cards as part of the Core M CPU will, at best, run only old games at low graphics settings. They are followed in terms of performance by the integrated graphics core HD Graphics 530 (GT3e), which will become an integral part of some processors of the Core i5, Core I7 line, in terms of performance, this graphics solution can easily cope with many computer games, though only at a display resolution of no more than 720p ( HD), and at low, and in some gaming applications and at medium graphics settings. Essentially graphics performance HD Graphics 530 corresponds to the discrete graphics card GeForce 920M. The next group includes HD Graphics 540 and HD Graphics 550 this integrated graphics will most likely become an integral part of UVL processors on the Skylake architecture, from HD Graphics 530 these two solutions are distinguished by a twofold increase in the number of actuators 48 versus 24 in HD Graphics 530 the rest of the characteristics of all three integrated video cards have the same frequency characteristics of 300-1150 MHz, and the memory bandwidth is 64/128 bits. By performance HD Graphics 540 \ 550 roughly correspond to the discrete graphics card GeForce 920M. Well, the high-performance graphics core closes the line of integrated video cards from Intel Iris Pro Graphics HD Graphics 580 (GT4e) which is the most powerful integrated graphics solution from Intel at the moment. Performance as promised by the manufacturer Graphics 580 in 3D applications, it will be comparable to a desktop video card NVIDIA GeForce GTX 750, GT4e should provide performance at the level of 1.15 Gflops; the gain relative to GT3e (Broadwell) will be about 50%. Just in time for the appearance of Windows 10, Intel's new graphics have full hardware support for Direct X 12 for games, as well as Open CL 2.0 and Open GL 4.4 technologies for a clearer and better picture. According to Intel, the new graphics will provide up to 40% faster 3D gaming performance over the previous generation. The new ninth generation of Intel graphics also supports an expanded list of hardware accelerated encoding and decoding functions (HEVC, AVC, SVC, VP8, MJPG), advanced processing and conversion of raw data directly from a 16-bit digital camera matrix in quality up to 4K 60p, as well as advanced features of the Quick Sync engine with Video Fixed-Function (FF) mode, allowing H.265 / HEVC decoding without resorting to computational cores.

Specifications

HD Graphics 5xx
Manufacturer
intel
Architecture
Skylake gt2e			Skylake gt3e			Skylake gt4e
Name
HD Graphics 510	HD Graphics 515	HD Graphics 520	HD Graphics 530	HD Graphics 540	HD Graphics 550	HD Graphics 580
Executive devices
12	24	24	24	48	48	72
Core clock speed
300-950 MHz	300-1000 MHz	300-1050 MHz	300-1150 MHz	300-1050 MHz	300-1100 MHz	no data MHz
Memory bus width
64 \ 128 Bit
eDRAM
No						128 MB
DirectX
DirectX 12
Technology
14 n.m.

The next generation of integrated graphics from AMD.

AMD Carrizo - this is the sixth generation of AMD Carrizo mobile APUs - these are the world's first production-class APUs that are completely located on a single die, whereas earlier in chips of this class, a graphics chip or a south bridge, if located on a single substrate with the processor, then in the form of a separate die. Here, the north bridge, Fusion Controller Hub (south bridge), graphics and processor cores fit on a single crystal grown within the 28 nm Global Foundries process technology. The Carrizo uses graphics that AMD itself calls its third-generation GCN. In the third generation, the architecture underwent some changes - in fact, this GCN generation was used in the Tonga GPU (Radeon R9 285). Also, the integrated graphics core received 512 KB of its own L2 cache. Among other things, DirectX 12 (Level 12) support, improved performance when working with tessellation, lossless color compression, updated ISA instruction set, CPU and GPU cache connectivity, and a high-quality scaler are announced. In Carrizo, the Radeon R7 graphics controller has 8 computing clusters, while the mobile versions of Kaveri had only six such units, that is, the Carrizo graphics core has 512 stream processors and is capable of delivering peak performance up to 819 GFLOPS. Carrizo has three built-in display controllers and supports up to 4K resolution. The sixth generation of the A-series is also the first laptop solution to support HEVC hardware decoding, HSA 1.0 heterogeneous system architecture and ARM TrustZone technology. The manufacturer especially emphasized the support of the new processors for the functionality released. The presence of a hardware decoder H.265 / HEVC in the new AMD Carrizo processors allows not only smoother playback of high-definition video, but also provides many times longer battery life. Windows 10 operating system, including DirectX 12 graphics optimization. AMD 6th Gen notebook processors use discrete graphics grade GPUs and Graphics Core Next (GCN) architecture delivers up to 2x the performance of the competition. Thanks to this, the user is able to play the most popular online games in HD resolution on a laptop, including: DoTA 2, League of Legends and Counter Strike: Global Offensive. In other games, the fps increase in comparison with Kaveri will be from 30 to 40% / We also note that AMD Dual Graphics technology allows the use of 6th generation processors for notebooks and AMD Radeon R7 Mobile graphics cards, which makes it possible to increase frame rates up to 42%, and proprietary AMD FreeSync technology ensures smooth gameplay. Note that the processor supports multi-threaded APIs, including DirectX 12, Vulkan and Mantle, allowing you to use advanced gaming technologies aimed at improving performance and image quality. The AMD Radeon Rx integrated graphics lineup starts with the AMD Radeon R7 Mobile integrated graphics core and is the most powerful graphics adapter in the lineup. AMD Radeon R7(Carrizo) - integrated video card in APU Carrizo, at the time of announcement (mid-2015) used in AMD FX-8800P SoC with 512 GCN shaders and 800 MHz. Depending on the TDP configuration (12-35 W) and the RAM used (up to DDR3-2133 in dual channel mode), performance can vary significantly. Next comes AMD Radeon R6(Carrizo) is a low-end integrated graphics card announced in mid-2015. It is designed for APU Carrizo, for example, AMD A10-8700P or A8-8600P, and has 384 GCN shaders and 720 respectively. The graphics offer two configurations, differing in TPD (12 to 35 W) and the type of memory used (up to DDR3-2133 in dual channel mode). Next graphics accelerator Closes the ruler Radeon R5(Carrizo), which is built into some processors, such as the AMD A6-8500P. Its performance is barely enough even for the most undemanding 2-year-old games (Tomb Raider, Dead Space 3, BioShock Infinite) at minimum settings in games like Crysis 3 or Battlefield 4, this video accelerator produces a maximum of 10-20 frames per second. Integrated graphics Radeon R5(Carrizo) has in its arsenal 256 shader processors (4 GCN modules) operating at 800 MHz. As for the integrated graphics Radeon R4 \ R3 \ R2, its capabilities will be enough at best for games 4-5 years ago.

Specifications

AMD Radeon Rx
Manufacturer
AMD
Architecture
Carrizo
Name
AMD Radeon R7	AMD Radeon R6	AMD Radeon R5
Shader processors
512	384	256	128 (Carrizo-L)
Core clock speed
800 (Boost) MHz		850 (Boost) MHz
Memory bus width
64 \ 128 Bit			64 Bit
Memory type
no video memory of its own
DirectX
DirectX 12
Technology
28 nm

Synthetic tests

First, let's see the performance of the built-in graph in a synthetic test. 3DMark (2013)- Fire Strike Standard Score at 1920x1080 pixels.

Intel Iris Pro Graphics 6200- (Core i7 5950HQ)

Intel Iris Pro Graphics 5100- (Core i5 4158U)

Kaveri AMD Radeon R5- (AMD A8-7200P)

Kaveri AMD Radeon R4- (AMD A6 Pro-7050B)

In the synthetic 3D Mark Fire Strike benchmark, as you would expect, AMD's integrated graphics lag slightly behind Intel's graphics solutions. Both in the segment of high-performance solutions and among budget video cards. If everything is clear with synthetic tests, it will still be interesting to see how the integrated graphics behave in real gaming applications. In our opinion, it makes no sense to focus on the performance of the integrated graphics of processors such as Core i7 4750HQ and the like, which are intended for enthusiasts and gamers. In 99% of cases, the laptop will have a more efficient discrete 3D card. We also note that "heavy" graphics settings reveal a number of games where the potential of even such graphics as Iris Pro Graphics will be clearly insufficient. Acceptable performance in the coveted Full HD resolution will only be achieved by reducing the quality of the graphics to a minimum, at best, to an average level.

Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare- has been developed over the course of three years, taking into account all the capabilities of the new generation gaming systems. The updated approach to game creation will allow for new tactics. Advanced military technologies and a unique exoskeleton will help you survive where an ordinary soldier won't last even five minutes! Plus, there's a gripping storyline and new characters, one of whom is Oscar-winning Kevin Spacey. The game engine for Call of Duty Advanced Warfare is a proprietary product developed by Sledgehammer Games. There is practically no information on the network about the structure and development of this engine. Most likely, the engine is a further development of the product line for games based on the proprietary intellectual property of the Sledgehammer Games studio.

720p (HD) Low

720p (HD) Normal

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 850M + (Core i7 4720HQ)

Intel Iris Pro Graphics 5200- (Core i7 4750HQ)

Intel Iris Pro Graphics 6100- (Core i5 5257U)

Intel HD Graphics 530- (Core i7 6700HQ)

Intel HD Graphics 5600- (Core i7 5700HQ)

Intel HD Graphics 5500- (Core i5 5300U)

Intel HD Graphics 4600- (Core i5 4210M)

Intel HD Graphics 4400- (Core i7 4500U)

AMD Radeon R9 M370X + (Core i7 4870HQ)

Carrizo AMD Radeon R7- (AMD FX-8800P)

Kaveri AMD Radeon R7- (AMD FX-7600P)

Carrizo AMD Radeon R6- (AMD A10-8700P)

Kaveri AMD Radeon R6- (AMD A10-7400P)

Carrizo AMD Radeon R5- (AMD A6-8500P)

Metro last light(Russian Metro: Ray of Hope) is a computer game in the first-person shooter genre, the sequel to Metro 2033. The sequel was developed on three main guiding principles: the first is to preserve the atmosphere of horror of the first part, the second is to diversify the set of weapons, the third is to improve technologies Metro 2033. Developers from 4A Games also took into account some of the wishes of the players and promised this time to fix some bugs, tweak artificial intelligence and stealth elements. The authors of Metro: Last Light decided not to take the events of the second book by Dmitry Glukhovsky as the basis for the plot. Instead, the game is a direct sequel to the first installment with a rich, linear storyline. The main character of "Metro: Last Light" again becomes Artyom, who this time has to prevent a civil war between the inhabitants of the Moscow metro. Metro Last Light was developed on a modified version of the 4A Engine that was used in Metro2033. Among the improvements, more advanced AI and optimization of the graphics engine should be noted. Thanks to the use of PhysX, the engine has received many features, for example, destructible environments, simulation of bends on clothes, waves on water and other elements that are completely influenced by the environment. Metro Last Light is currently one of the most technological products of our time, even though the game was released not only for personal computers, but also for the current generation of game consoles.

720p (HD) Low (DX10)

720p (HD) Medium, (DX10) 4xAF

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 850M + (Core i7 4720HQ)

Intel Iris Pro Graphics 5200- (Core i7 4750HQ)

Intel Iris Pro Graphics 6100- (Core i5 5257U)

Intel HD Graphics 530- (Core i7 6700HQ)

Intel HD Graphics 5600- (Core i7 5700HQ)

Intel HD Graphics 5500- (Core i5 5300U)

Intel HD Graphics 4600- (Core i5 4210M)

Intel HD Graphics 4400- (Core i7 4500U)

AMD Radeon R9 M370X + (Core i7 4870HQ)

Carrizo AMD Radeon R7- (AMD FX-8800P)

Kaveri AMD Radeon R7- (AMD FX-7600P)

Carrizo AMD Radeon R6- (AMD A10-8700P)

Kaveri AMD Radeon R6- (AMD A10-7400P)

Perhaps the key trend in today's consumer electronics market is the search for new product shapes. The release of devices "sharpened" for narrow groups of buyers, the expansion of the functionality of existing devices and the release of familiar devices in fundamentally new form factors - all these phenomena can be combined under this heading. And the logic of manufacturers is easy to understand: the period of consumer euphoria and market saturation has long passed, and now even such popular devices as smartphones and tablets, most consumers prefer to choose based on a combination of characteristics and functionality - what can we say about personal computers, which today are in almost every home ...

Of course, it cannot be said that the supply catastrophically exceeds the demand, but it can be noted that many users have already decided on which device best suits their tasks, and are in no hurry to change the hardware that already exists and performs its functions for modern counterparts. Those who decide to update their fleet of equipment do so with more rational motives than the desire to get everything at once: most often the purchase is preceded by a precise definition of tasks and a careful selection of hardware that can solve them as efficiently as possible.

Someone only needs Internet access, music and video playback. Someone needs high computing power and performance of the disk subsystem, and the graphics part is completely irrelevant, someone is tired of the quality of modern games and wants to return the experience of the golden classics - the number of options is not limited. Will the PC be able to cope with these tasks in its traditional form? Yes, absolutely. But the question of the expediency of using a universal platform where only a certain part of its resources is involved is much more interesting.

Hardware manufacturers themselves understand the relevance of this issue, responding to market requests in the ways indicated in the first paragraph of this article. There is a need to organize a home server - get a case in which the number of seats for data drives is limited only by the height of the chassis itself. You need an ultra-compact PC for surfing the Net and other undemanding tasks - here's a ready-made platform with a soldered-in processor and passive cooling. If you want to get serious about design and modeling on your home computer - modern video cards can not only handle graphics in games, but also act as computational accelerators, greatly facilitating the process of rendering scenes and applying filters.

Returning to the topic of this article - the development of integrated graphics is also a consequence of the above processes. If earlier no one considered integrated chips seriously - it would be nice if they would not interfere with office workers from making reports in text editors - but today it is already clear that for various reasons many owners of "home" PCs find a discrete video card unnecessary. Therefore, modern integrated chips should not only provide a certain minimum level of performance in applications that are not overloaded with graphics - their tasks include correct operation with modern web browsers that do not hesitate to use GPU resources, and playback of high-resolution video content, and even games that play a role HTPC or living room platforms not only does not exclude, but even contributes.

In other words, regardless of the tasks performed on the computer, integrated graphics should not act as a "weak link". Therefore, in this article, it is supposed to consider the performance of modern solutions of this type from two positions: how much the integrated cores of Haswell and Kaveri processors are ahead of their direct predecessors, and whether they can be considered as an alternative to discrete entry-level video cards.

Meet the participants

Solutions of the previous model range, namely Intel HD Graphics 4000 and Radeon HD7660D / HD8670D have already been discussed in detail by the author in a number of previous articles, and it does not make much sense to repeat what was said earlier. In addition, the architectural features and performance of these solutions have long been studied by users and may be of interest only as a "starting point" for comparison with their modern counterparts. Therefore, let's go straight to getting acquainted with the new products.

Intel HD Graphics 4600

It is also worth making a reservation - this article does not consider mobile graphics, which may well serve as a topic for a separate study, but exclusively desktop solutions, so the choice of HD Graphics 4600 looks quite justified - this graphics core is the most productive solution in the current line of Intel central processors ... Yes, the company promises to equip the upcoming Devils Canyon processors with HD Graphics 5000 series chips, but for now, these certainly interesting cores remain the prerogative of exclusively mobile processors.

The HD Graphics 5000 line (namely, Iris Pro (HD 5200), Iris (HD 5100) and HD 5000 chips itself) would be of interest primarily because their key feature is the second computing unit, which proportionally increases the number of rasterization units, pixel pipelines and computing cores, as well as allowing to distribute the load between already two nodes. Add to this the increased amount of caches and some tricks in solving the problem of insufficient RAM speed for the needs of integrated graphics ... but unfortunately, for the reasons stated above, desktop users are forced to be content with only HD Graphics 4600, the architecture of which turns out to be much simpler.

Unlike the older solution, this graphics core does not provide revolutionary changes. In fact, the HD 4600 is an evolutionary development of the HD 4000, using the same architecture and layout, but offering more execution units. The HD 4600 has 20 shader processors, two rasterization units and four texture units - thus, solely according to the passport data, the new product should be a quarter ahead of its predecessor.

The rest of the innovations in the HD 4600 do not directly affect the graphics performance, but they are also worthy of attention. So, the chip received support for instructions DirectX11.1, OpenCL 1.2 and OpenGL 4.0, and support for Direct Compute 5.0 and Intel Quick Sync technology were also preserved. Of the useful innovations, it should be noted the ability to connect up to three monitors to the integrated core, combining them into a single workspace - previously this was a distinctive feature of discrete graphics.

AMD R7 Graphics

Unlike Intel, which takes advantage of the scalable architecture of its graphics cores and produces more performance solutions mainly by increasing the number of execution units, AMD has made a long-awaited revolution. As you know, the Devastator graphics cores in the Richland and Trinity processors were based on the legacy VLIW4 architecture that underlies the HD6000 series graphics cards. Currently, the corresponding chips have survived only in the ultra-budget price segment, giving way to the more progressive GCN architecture, so the transfer of the graphics part of the APU to it looks even a bit belated decision.

So, the graphics part of the Kaveri processors is based on the updated version of the Graphics Core Next architecture, which makes it similar to such chips as Hawaii (R9 290 line) and Bonaire (HD 7790 and R7 260 line). Accordingly, support for all proprietary technologies such as improvements in the accuracy of the original LOG / EXP operations and MQSAD optimizations to accelerate motion estimation algorithms, as well as hardware multimedia handlers that are more relevant for HTPC (including True Audio) are included.

The design features of this architecture have already been considered earlier, so the equipment of the chip is of interest. In its top-end version, Kaveri integrated graphics contain 8 computational units (or 512 shader processors), which exceeds the analogous performance of the Oland XT chip, which is the basis of the Radeon R7 250 video card, and strangely makes this chip similar to the Radeon HD 7750 (Cape Verde Pro) , although an equal sign between them still cannot be put. Another similarity is the presence of only one geometry engine in the integrated R7 Graphics, but there are not four raster operations units, like in Cape Verde, but only two, like in Oland. As the readers could see earlier, this circumstance does not hinder the R7 250 equipped with fast gddr5 memory, but the integrated graphics, forced to borrow part of the RAM, which is slow by the standards of video cards ... in general, is unlikely to benefit.

In contrast, the presence of eight asynchronous computing engines (ACEs), whose role is to distribute tasks between computational units and access the shared cache of the second level, turns out to be a positive factor. The increase in the number of these blocks had a good effect on the performance of the energy-efficient Kabini / Temash platforms, as well as the graphics part of the Playstation 4 (which also has 8 ACEs), so this solution allows us to hope for an efficient distribution of the computational load between the blocks.
The rest of the innovations, as in the case of the HD Graphics 4600, do not directly affect the performance, but they noticeably improve the consumer characteristics of the product. Hardware-based Universal Video Decoder (UVD) accelerates video playback in H.264, VC-1, MPEG-2, MVC, and MPEG-4 formats. The updated version, which received version 4, is essentially no different from the previous one, but AMD claims to be more robust to errors during decoding.

The Video Codec Engine (VCE) decoder is analogous to technologies such as Intel Quick Sync and Nvidia NVEnc. Although third-party reviewers claim that competing decoders are still ahead of this AMD solution, the manufacturer's attention to this aspect is encouraging.

New to integrated graphics, True Audio technology is also a bit curious given that HTPC audio isn't the least of its kind. In theory, when using this technology, sound processing is taken over by the three cores of the Tensilica HiFi2 EP Audio audio processor integrated into R7 Graphics. Moreover, using this technology, you can output sound not only through HDMI or Display Port, but also through a 3-millimeter jack - thus, True Audio does not replace the sound card, but supplements it, processing sound through sets of effects and algorithms, which are accessed by True Audio. API, a kind of analogue of API Mantle, only for sound. Unfortunately, binding to software is a significant disadvantage of this technology: if Mantle is already used not only in Battlefield 4, the only game with True Audio support so far is the new Thief.

Test stand and testing methodology

The contenders for HD Graphics 4600 and AMD R7 Graphics were expectedly Intel HD Graphics 4000 and Radeon HD8670D. In addition, the testing was attended by discrete video cards discussed in the previous article - GeForce GT 640 and R7 250, which can be considered the minimum level for gaming accelerators.

Testbed configurations were selected as follows. Components common to all test platforms were:

CPU cooling system: Thermalright AXP-100;
Thermal interface: Gelid GC-Extreme;
RAM: Kingston KHX1866C9D3K2 / 8G;
Disk subsystem: SSD Kingston SH103S3 / 120G;
Optical drive: LiteOn iHAP122;
Frame: CoolerMaster 690 II Regular. The standard fans have been replaced with two Termalright X-Silent 140 at 650 rpm on the front panel and side wall;
Reobass: Xilence FCP;
Power Supply: Corsair CX 750M.

For platform LGA 1155 the following components were selected:

Motherboard: AsRock Z77 Pro3;
CPU: Intel Core i5-3570K.

For platform LGA 1150:

Motherboard: MSI Z87-G43;
CPU: Intel Core i5-4670K.

For platform socket FM2 / FM2 +:

Motherboard: Asus A88XM-Plus;
CPU: AMD A10-6800K / AMD A10-7850K.

All test processors worked in normal mode, since their performance is obviously sufficient for integrated graphics. The RAM also worked in the normal mode - 1600 MHz with timings 9-9-9-27 for HD Graphics 4000 and HD Graphics 4600, and 2133 MHz with timings 10-11-10-30 for Radeon HD8670D and R7 Graphics. The graphics cores themselves were tested in two modes: at the nominal frequencies and in the maximum overclocking mode.

All tests were carried out under Windows 7 Professional with Service Pack 1 installed. The following driver versions were used:

AMD: Catalyst 14.4;
Nvidia: ForceWare 335.23;
Intel: 15.33.18.64.3496;

Synthetic tests were carried out with standard settings, tests in games - with average graphics settings, corresponding to the level of the tested video cards and graphics cores. Three resolutions were used for the tests: 1366x768, 1680x1050 and 1920x1080 pixels. The settings are described in more detail on the charts.

Synthetic tests

Traditionally, a test package opens the line of synthetics 3DMark 2013... In this version, Futuremark followed current trends, and from a hardcore benchmark for top-end PCs, its most famous product is gradually turning into a universal system for testing platforms of various degrees of mobility. Therefore, of the three benchmarks, we are only interested in one - Fire Strike, which is still able to bring even premium-segment hardware to its knees.

This time in this test there were practically no surprises - the integrated graphics were arranged in the order that corresponds to the performance of these solutions "on paper". It turned out that the only interesting thing was that the integrated graphics of Kaveri are confidently ahead of the GeForce GT640, although looking ahead, in real applications such a situation is far from always encountered.

Next in line is the benchmark Unigine heaven, which has not received updates for a long time, but still remains quite demanding on the performance of the video card.

But in this test, the results are much more interesting. The confident advantage of Haswell's integrated graphics over Ivy Bridge is natural, but the gap turned out to be much more impressive than in 3DMark. However, it is interesting that the HD 4600 here fights almost on equal terms with the Radeon HD8670D - a very good result for Intel, and a more than noticeable increase in comparison with the previous generation. However, the same words can be applied to AMD as well: Kaveri integrated graphics are also noticeably faster here than Richland graphics core. But the rivalry with the GeForce GT640 does not end with a quick victory: Kaveri is faster in the nominal value, but loses in overclocking - obviously, slow memory starts to affect.

New development of the company Unigine - benchmark Valley- takes us from fantastic heavens to real earth and pleases the eyes of Russian enthusiasts with native birch pines and glades overgrown with chamomile and Ivan tea, not forgetting to load and warm up the video cards well.

This benchmark is traditionally more loyal to Nvidia products, so Kaveri can catch up with the GeForce GT640 only in overclocking, and that advantage cannot be called noticeable. But what is curious, here the overclocked Radeon HD 8670D turns out to be slightly faster than the R7 Graphics at the nominal frequencies. As for Intel graphics, Haswell is again faster than its predecessor, but it is no longer able to compete with AMD solutions.

Game tests

Batman: arkham city

The second part of the adventures of the Dark Knight, the protector of Gotham. The game does not borrow the entourage of Christopher Nolan's extremely successful film trilogy and uses a comic book style, which does not prevent it from delivering an excellent plot, a successful combination of action and stealth elements, detective riddles and more. The modified (once again) Unreal Engine 3 is responsible for the graphics part, and today the game can be called demanding only at the highest graphics settings.

At low resolutions with medium settings, you can play comfortably even on the HD4000, but Haswell is still faster, especially in terms of the minimum FPS level. Integrated AMD graphics are in a dense group, the balance of forces here roughly corresponds to Intel solutions, although the level of performance is certainly much higher. R7 Graphics lags behind GeForce GT640, but the gap between them is not so critical.

With an increase in resolution, Haswell's integrated graphics still provide a minimum comfortable level of FPS, while its predecessor is no longer able to cope with the load. Nevertheless, all Intel solutions here noticeably lag behind AMD products, the performance of which can be described as comfortable. The gap between R7 Graphics and GeForce GT640 remains at the same level.

In Full HD, it will be possible to play on the integrated Intel graphics only if the settings are further reduced, but the rest of the test participants maintain the same balance of power as in the previous modes.

Battlefield 4

A game that does not need special introduction. Another reincarnation of the recognized leader in the genre of team shooters, another new word in graphics, another foray of hordes of fans on the forums - everything is as usual. However, the value of this game lies in the new version of the Frostbite engine, which already today takes away the title of "universal machine of the world" from the Unreal Engine - in any case, the Bioware studio creates new games on this engine, which will be followed by other developers in the future.

Battlefield 4 was created in close collaboration with AMD, so the results should come as no surprise. Already in low resolution, of all Intel chips, only the overclocked HD Graphics 4600 produces a more or less smooth frame rate, although this is not enough for a comfortable game. But the graphics cores of Richland and Kaveri perform very well here - no matter how strange the idea of playing Battlefield on integrated graphics may seem, in practice it is possible - of course, subject to the selection of settings and resolutions.

However, with an increase in the resolution, even the HD8670D gets closer to the minimum comfortable level - you can still play, but the not very smooth frame rate hinders the success in destroying opponents. R7 Graphics, on the other hand, is doing much better, due to the love of the Frostbite engine for the GCN architecture. Kaveri's integrated graphics outperform the GT640 in nominal mode here and show a similar level of performance after overclocking.

In Full HD, the GeForce GT 640 is only slightly ahead of the HD8670D and is noticeably inferior to R7 Graphics, but here all the named solutions provide only a minimal comfortable level of performance.

Dirt 3

The last part of the once famous series, which has retained at least some connection with real racing competitions. From the point of view of gameplay, there are many complaints about the game, but in terms of graphics, the eighth part of the series is quite good, and besides, it does not differ in exorbitant system requirements - just what is needed for budget video cards and integrated solutions.

Already at low resolutions, HD Graphics 4000 does not provide the desired performance, although the successor in the face of HD Graphics 4600 is doing well. Nevertheless, the lagging of Intel graphics cores from AMD products needs no comment - in fact, their performance ends where the HD8670D and R7 Graphics start. But even overclocking does not help the latter to reach the discrete graphics in the form of the GeForce GT640.

At a resolution of 1680x1050 pixels, the FPS counter stops going off-scale when measuring the performance of discrete cards, but the rest of the picture changes little. So, from the Intel camp, only the overclocked HD 4600 demonstrates a noticeable result, and R7 Graphics in overclocking mode finally manages to outperform the GeForce GT640 at nominal frequencies, but the overall balance of forces remains the same.

Full HD resolution with medium graphics settings is the final triumph of AMD's APUs - you can play even on the HD8670D in nominal mode, and overclocking leaves room for higher settings.

FarCry 3

The once created and lost Crytek brand, taken up by Ubisoft, finally got rid of the shortcomings of the second part, returning players from the dull brown savannah to the tropical jungle. The plot (it is in the game, and this is already pleasing against the background of Crysis 3) delivers with its originality, the gameplay is a combination of shooter and role-playing parts, as well as a full-fledged sandbox gameplay, and the graphics are delivered by themselves.

At low resolutions, Haswell's integrated graphics deliver an impressive lead over its predecessor and deliver the minimum performance required. Moreover, in overclocking the HD4600 manages to catch up with the Radeon HD8670D at nominal frequencies. But R7 Graphics, although it bypasses its ancestor by an equally impressive number of frames, is still not able to catch up with the GeForce GT640, although the increase in frequencies allows it to come very close.

But with the increase in resolution, you will have to forget about the game on the integrated Intel graphics, and the Radeon HD8670D with a resolution of 1680x1050 pixels does not cope very well. But this mode sets a more serious task for the GeForce GT640, which allows R7 Graphics to catch up with it after overclocking.

In Full HD, the game turns out to be even more demanding on the PC's graphics subsystem. The Radeon HD 8670D cannot cope with this resolution even after overclocking, and the R7 Graphics and GeForce GT640 produce almost the same frame rate, which is barely enough to make the gameplay more or less smooth.

Hitman: Absolution

A new part of the adventures of the assassin, known under the code number "47". The cold-blooded, completely devoid of emotions antihero during the existence of the series managed to form a whole army of fans around him, the ranks of which he could not even thin out the release of several frankly failed parts. However, Absolution does not belong to the latter - it has a worthy plot and level of production, complex gameplay and the necessary level of player freedom.

Like Battlefield 4, the game is quite loyal to AMD graphics cards, so the results are not surprising at all. The graphics part of the Haswell processor is noticeably ahead of the HD 4000, but even overclocking does not allow it to come close to the comfort limit. However, for other test participants, Hitman graphics turns out to be a difficult task: Radeon HD8670D, R7 Graphics and GeForce GT640 are an extremely dense group, only the R7 250 with gddr5 memory demonstrates a fundamentally different level of performance.

With an increase in resolution, the alignment of forces does not change - the GeForce GT640 is located between the Radeon HD8670D and R7 Graphics, only the R7 250 brings performance to a new level.

In Full HD, R7 Graphics manages to win a convincing victory over the GT640, but at this resolution with medium graphics settings, the integrated graphics are no longer able to provide an acceptable frame rate.

TES V: Skyrim

Not just another game from The Elder Scrolls series, but this time a worthy successor to the laurels of Morrowind. Delivers wiki ... nords, mead, dragons, the harsh and dull beauty of the northern landscapes, blooming at night with heavenly lights of all kinds of shades, as well as the presence of a sane central plot and a bunch of side quests. In terms of technology, the game does not bear any revelations, but it turns out to be quite demanding on PC resources, especially at maximum settings and with high-resolution textures.

Not being part of any marketing programs, which happens quite rarely today, Skyrim is able to adequately work on a wide variety of hardware. So, at low resolutions you can play comfortably even on HD Graphics 4000, and its successor, HD Graphics 4600, demonstrates a fundamentally different level of performance at all, after overclocking it is practically equal to the Radeon HD8670D at nominal frequencies. It is noteworthy that the latter, as a result of overclocking, is equal to R7 Graphics, and the integrated Kaveri graphics are ahead of the GeForce GT640.

What is especially curious - the owners of integrated Intel graphics cores may not be limited to low resolutions, Skyrim also plays well at 1680x1050 pixels, although HD Graphics 4000 in this case needs to be overclocked. Otherwise, the alignment of forces does not change - Haswell is again stepping on the heels of the overclocked Richland, and Kaveri is approaching the GT640.

In Full HD, the integrated graphics of Ivy Bridge are already completely choking, but Haswell is still able to cope with the game, but it is no longer possible to catch up with AMD products. It is curious that at this resolution the AMD graphics cores of both generations demonstrate practically the same performance, and the overclocked R7 Graphics is only equal to the GeForce GT640.

Sleeping dogs

An unexpected hit in the style of GTA, which was in development for a long time and shot out of the blue in November 2012. Immersing the player in the frightening, but in its own way attractive atmosphere of the underworld of Hong Kong, literally imbued with the spirit of the films of John Woo, the game adds a significant proportion of martial arts and Asian flavor to the standard mechanics, which looks fresh and original. The game is a multi-platform project, but the PC version with high-resolution textures is very demanding on the graphics subsystem.

Already at low resolutions, Intel integrated graphics are out of the question, while AMD graphics cores provide quite high performance. R7 Graphics even outperforms the GeForce GT640 in nominal terms, although the overclocking brings back the victory in this competition to the Nvidia product.

With the increase in resolution to 1680x1050 pixels, the GeForce GT 640 loses its ardor, stopping between the overclocked Radeon HD8670D and R7 Graphics at nominal frequencies. At the same time, the new AMD here is noticeably ahead of its predecessor, providing a much more comfortable gaming process.

In Full HD, the gap between the two AMD solutions widens even more, but the GeForce GT640 unexpectedly finds the strength to pursue R7 Graphics.

Tomb raider

Not just another part of the franchise, perhaps even known to people far from computer games, but its complete reboot, made in a much more realistic style. The main character is no longer a goddess of war with fantastic forms, but just yesterday's student, who for the first time faced real danger and was forced to fight for survival, and the adventure elements no longer include dashing shooting from pistols with endless ammunition. For which the writers should be thanked. Technically, the game is again a cross-platform project, although the PC version is equipped with many improvements.

Again, even at low resolutions, Intel graphics are no match, although the overclocked Haswell graphics core demonstrates acceptable speed. It is noteworthy that the gap between R7 Graphics and its predecessor is not as noticeable here as in the case of Sleeping Dogs, and AMD's new product only manages to approach the GeForce GT640.

With the increase in resolution, Intel products lose their last ambitions, but this mode is already becoming a test for other test participants. R7 Graphics here demonstrates a noticeable advantage over the Radeon HD8670D, but after overclocking it is only slightly ahead of the GeForce GT640 at nominal frequencies.

In Full HD, the situation repeats again - R7 Graphics turns out to be faster than the Radeon HD8670D, but the GeForce GT640 goes ahead in overclocking mode.

World of tanks

The game, the name of which appears first in the contextual search of Google when you search for "world of", and that says it all. Perhaps one of the first MMO projects that turned out to be able to satisfy the needs of users tired of the adventures of long-eared and green-skinned people. At the same time, it is highly popular among history buffs, reenactors, modelers and others involved, which is only beneficial to the community of players, reducing the percentage of schools and interesting characters. Differs in historical accuracy, realistic damage model, rich fleet of vehicles, but the gameplay at the same time has a fairly low entry threshold. The first versions of the game had modest system requirements, but as a result of recent innovations, the load on the PC hardware has increased many times over.

If at the time of patch 8.11 it was quite comfortable to play on HD Graphics 4600 (which the author, above all, did), then with the release of update 9.0 Intel's integrated graphics are out of work even at low resolutions. At the same time, AMD products, which the BigWorld engine fiercely hates and strives to destroy in every possible way, demonstrate a more than sufficient level of performance. It should be noted that the overclocked Radeon HD8670D is equal to R7 Graphics at nominal frequencies, and in general Kaveri's advantage over its predecessor does not look very convincing here. On the other hand, even the overclocked Radeon HD8670D manages to bypass the GT640 - given the engine's love for Nvidia products, this is a good result.

Increasing the resolution only makes the indicated tendencies clearer. AMD's integrated graphics provide enough performance to play games, but the R7 Graphics doesn't show a clear advantage over the Radeon HD8670D. At the same time, the integrated cores Richland and Kaveri show the same performance level as the GeForce GT640.

In Full HD, the general alignment of forces remains unchanged, but the GT640 is already confidently ahead of the Radeon HD8670D and only slightly behind the R7 Graphics, which finally manages to break away from its predecessor here.

World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria

A great and terrible MMORPG, which has existed, perhaps longer than some game studios have been working, the record holder for relatively honest taking money from the population. The WoW graphics engine has always been distinguished by excellent optimization: for example, the author of this article during the 1.3 patches managed to play the subject on the GeForce 2 MX 400 installed in his work computer. The video card was already ancient then, but nevertheless it pulled the game in a resolution of 800 x 600 pixels. A similar situation is observed now: with the correct selection of settings, you can play tolerably well even on Intel HD Graphics 2000, but in order to set the parameters to the maximum, you will need almost top-end hardware.

Confirming the above, even the HD4000 provides acceptable performance at low resolutions, although Haswell's integrated graphics are noticeably faster. Unlike WoT, here R7 Graphics immediately gains an advantage over the Radeon HD8670D and, moreover, outperforms the GT640.

However, at a resolution of 1680x1050 pixels, the picture turns out to be different: R7 Graphics is not so much ahead of the Radeon HD8670D here, and it succeeds in catching up with the nominal GT640 only after overclocking.

In Full HD, the situation is almost exactly the same, except that the gap between R7 Graphics and Radeon HD8670D slightly increases.

conclusions

As you'd expect, new generations of integrated graphics have taken performance one step further. This is especially noticeable on the example of Intel HD Graphics 4600, the performance gain of which is observed in literally all test applications, and at times even allows it to compete with the integrated AMD graphics of the previous generation, which HD Graphics 4000 could not have under any circumstances. It is likely that HD Graphics 5200/5100 will be able to equal and even surpass the Radeon HD8670D, but their appearance in the Devils Canyon processors is still close, but still the future. And these processors are not designed to work with integrated graphics, and Haswell and Haswell Refresh will still be equipped with HD Graphics 4600.

In general, the idea of increasing the execution units, made by reducing the technical process and reducing the overall power consumption of the chip, worked well - the performance increased so much that when assembling a budget PC, it may be more profitable not to purchase a video card like the GeForce GT630, but to buy a more productive one (including a graphics card). parts) processor. And users who primarily need the performance of computing cores do not need to think about buying a discrete video card.

As for the R7 Graphics in Kaveri processors, the opposite is true. AMD made the long-awaited technological revolution by transferring integrated graphics to the current GCN architecture, but the performance did not make a revolutionary leap. Yes, Kaveri's integrated graphics are fast - in fact, it's the fastest integrated graphics solution to date, and even the HD Graphics 5200 hardly has a chance to compete with it. But at the same time, the increase in performance compared to the Radeon HD8670D is by no means amazing: yes, games run faster, yes, those resolutions are available in which the predecessor is completely blown away, but budget gaming video cards like the R7 250 still provide much higher performance. On the other hand, the obvious advantages of integrated graphics have not been canceled either. Supplied under the same cover with the processor, unlike a discrete video card, it does not require additional expenses, does not take up much space, allowing you to assemble the system in an ultra-compact case, and allows you to get rid of an unnecessary heat source, which in the latter case can be a weighty argument.

Thus, what conclusion can be drawn from the results of this article? In fact, despite the increased overall performance, the power balance between Intel and AMD in the integrated graphics segment has not changed at all compared to the days of Ivy Bridge and Richland / Trinity. Intel continues to focus on computing cores, and AMD's APU concept remains unrivaled where it is intended. Just as Richland used to be the top choice for home multimedia PCs without discrete graphics, Kaveri is now in that position. Is that the possibilities of playing video and audio in the new products are slightly wider, however, the implementation of these capabilities directly depends on the software, and therefore cannot be considered an advantage in the full sense of the word.

« Why is this building needed? Give more cores, megahertz and cache!"- asks and exclaims the average computer user. Indeed, when a discrete graphics card is used in a computer, there is no need for integrated graphics. I must admit that I was lying about the fact that today a central processor without integrated video is harder to find than with it. There are such platforms - they are LGA2011-v3 for Intel chips and AM3 + for AMD “stones”. In both cases, we are talking about top-end solutions, and you have to pay for them. Mainstream platforms such as Intel LGA1151 / 1150 and AMD FM2 + are all equipped with processors with integrated graphics. Yes, in laptops, "embedded" is irreplaceable. If only because in 2D mode mobile computers work longer on battery power. In desktops, there is a lot of integrated video in office assemblies and the so-called HTPC. First, we save on components. Secondly, we again save on energy consumption. However, lately AMD and Intel have been seriously talking about their integrated graphics - all graphics cards! Suitable for gaming as well. This is what we will check.

We play modern games on the graphics built into the processor

300% increase

Integrated into the processor graphics (iGPU) was first introduced in Intel Clarkdale (1st generation Core architecture) solutions in 2010. It is integrated into the processor. An important amendment, since the very concept of "embedded video" was formed much earlier. Intel - back in 1999 with the release of the 810th chipset for Pentium II / III. At Clarkdale, the integrated HD Graphics video was implemented as a separate chip located under the processor's heatsink cover. The graphics were produced according to the old 45-nanometer process technology at that time, the main computing part - according to 32-nanometer standards. The first Intel solutions, in which the HD Graphics block "settled" along with the rest of the components on a single die, were the Sandy Bridge processors.

Intel Clarkdale is the first processor with integrated graphics

Since then, stone-built graphics have become the de facto standard for LGA115 * mainstream platforms. Generations of Ivy Bridge, Haswell, Broadwell, Skylake all have integrated video.

Processor Graphics Introduced 6 Years Ago

In contrast to the computing part, "integration" in Intel solutions is progressing noticeably. HD Graphics 3000 in Sandy Bridge K-series desktop processors has 12 execution units. HD Graphics 4000 in Ivy Bridge - 16; HD Graphics 4600 in Haswell - 20, HD Graphics 530 in Skylake - 25. The frequencies of both the GPU itself and the RAM are constantly increasing. As a result, the performance of the embedded video has increased 3-4 times in four years! But there is also a much more powerful series of Iris Pro built-ins, which are used in certain Intel processors. 300% interest over four generations is not 5% per year for you.

Intel Integrated Graphics Performance

Onboard graphics are where Intel has to keep up with AMD. In most cases, the Reds' decisions turn out to be faster. This is not surprising, as AMD is developing powerful gaming graphics cards. So, in the integrated graphics of desktop processors, the same architecture and the same developments are used: GCN (Graphics Core Next) and 28 nanometers.

AMD's hybrid chips debuted in 2011. The Llano family of crystals was the first in which integrated graphics were combined with a computational part on a single crystal. AMD marketers realized that they would not be able to compete with Intel on its terms, so they introduced the term APU (Accelerated Processing Unit, a processor with a video accelerator), although the idea was hatched by the "red" ones since 2006. After Llano, there were three more generations of hybrid cars: Trinity, Richland and Kaveri (Godavari). As I already said, in modern chips the integrated video is architecturally no different from the graphics used in discrete 3D Radeon accelerators. As a result, in the 2015-2016 chips, half of the transistor budget is spent on the iGPU.

State-of-the-art integrated graphics take up half the usable area of the CPU

The most interesting thing is that the development of APU has influenced the future ... of game consoles. So in the PlayStation 4 with the Xbox One, the AMD Jaguar chip is used - an eight-core, with graphics on the GCN architecture. Below is a table with characteristics. The Radeon R7 is the most powerful integrated video the Reds have to date. The block is used in AMD A10 APUs. The Radeon R7 360 is an entry-level discrete graphics card that, according to my recommendations, can be considered a conditional gaming in 2016. As you can see, the modern "build-in" in terms of characteristics is not much inferior to the Low-end adapter. This is not to say that the graphics of game consoles have outstanding characteristics.

The mere appearance of processors with integrated graphics in many cases puts an end to the need to buy an entry-level discrete adapter. However, today the integrated video of AMD and Intel encroaches on the sacred - the gaming segment. For example, in nature there is a quad-core processor Core i7-6770HQ (2.6 / 3.5 GHz) on the Skylake architecture. It uses Iris Pro 580 integrated graphics and 128MB eDRAM as a L4 cache. The integrated video has 72 execution units at once, operating at a frequency of 950 MHz. This is more powerful than the graphics of the Iris Pro 6200, which uses 48 actuators. As a result, the Iris Pro 580 turns out to be faster than discrete graphics cards such as the Radeon R7 360 and GeForce GTX 750, and in some cases imposes competition between the GeForce GTX 750 Ti and the Radeon R7 370. technical process, and both manufacturers will eventually begin to use HBM / HMC memory together with integrated graphics.

Intel Skull Canyon - Compact PC with Most Powerful Integrated Graphics

Testing

To test modern integrated graphics, I took four processors: two each from AMD and Intel. All chips are equipped with different iGPUs. So, AMD A8 hybrid (plus A10-7700K) video Radeon R7 comes with 384 unified processors. The older series - A10 - has 128 blocks more. The flagship also has a higher frequency. There is also the A6 series - in it, with its graphic potential, everything is quite sad, since it uses a "built-in" Radeon R5 with 256 unified processors. I did not consider it for games in Full HD.

The most powerful integrated graphics are available in AMD A10 and Intel Broadwell processors

As for Intel products, the most popular Skylake Core i3 / i5 / i7 chips for the LGA1151 platform use the HD Graphics 530 module. As I said, it contains 25 execution units: 5 more than HD Graphics 4600 (Haswell). but 23 less than the Iris Pro 6200 (Broadwell). The junior quad-core Core i5-6400 was used in the test.


	AMD A8-7670K	AMD A10-7890K	Intel Core i5-6400 (review)	Intel Core i5-5675C (review)
Technical process	28 nm	28 nm	14 nm	14 nm
Generation	Kaveri (Godavari)	Kaveri (Godavari)	Skylake	Broadwell
Platform	FM2 +	FM2 +	LGA1151	LGA1150
Number of cores / threads	4/4	4/4	4/4	4/4
Clock frequency	3.6 (3.9) GHz	4.1 (4.3) GHz	2.7 (3.3) GHz	3.1 (3.6) GHz
Third level cache	Not	Not	6 MB	4 MB
Integrated graphics	Radeon R7, 757 MHz	Radeon R7, 866 MHz	HD Graphics 530, 950 MHz	Iris Pro 6200, 1100 MHz
Memory controller	DDR3-2133 Dual Channel	DDR3-2133 Dual Channel	DDR4-2133, DDR3L-1333/1600 dual channel	DDR3-1600 Dual Channel
TDP level	95 watts	95 watts	65 watts	65 watts
Price	RUB 7,000	RUB 11,500	RUB 13,000	RUB 20,000
Buy

The configurations of all test benches are described below. When it comes to the performance of the integrated video, it is necessary to pay due attention to the choice of RAM, since it also determines how many FPS the integrated graphics will show in the end. In my case, we used DDR3 / DDR4 whales operating at an effective frequency of 2400 MHz.


Test benches
№1:	№2:	№3:	№4:
Processors: AMD A8-7670K, AMD A10-7890K;	Processor: Intel Core i5-6400;	Processor: Intel Core i5-5675C;	Processor: AMD FX-4300;
			Motherboard: ASUS 970 PRO GAMING / AURA;
		RAM: DDR3-2400 (11-13-13-35), 2x 8 GB.	Video card: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 750 Ti;
			RAM: DDR3-1866 (11-13-13-35), 2x 8 GB.
Motherboard: ASUS CROSSBLADE Ranger;	Motherboard: ASUS Z170 PRO GAMING;	Motherboard: ASRock Z97 Fatal1ty Performance
RAM: DDR3-2400 (11-13-13-35), 2x 8 GB.	RAM: DDR4-2400 (14-14-14-36), 2x 8 GB.	RAM: DDR3-2400 (11-13-13-35), 2x 8 GB.
Motherboard: ASUS CROSSBLADE Ranger;	Motherboard: ASUS Z170 PRO GAMING;
RAM: DDR3-2400 (11-13-13-35), 2x 8 GB.	RAM: DDR4-2400 (14-14-14-36), 2x 8 GB.
Motherboard: ASUS CROSSBLADE Ranger;
RAM: DDR3-2400 (11-13-13-35), 2x 8 GB.
Operating system: Windows 10 Pro x64;
Peripherals: monitor LG 31MU97;
AMD driver: 16.4.1 Hotfix;
Intel driver: 15.40.64.4404;
NVIDIA driver: 364.72.

RAM support for AMD Kaveri processors

Such kits were chosen for a reason. According to official data, the built-in memory controller of Kaveri processors works with DDR3-2133 memory, however, motherboards based on the A88X chipset (due to an additional divider) also support DDR3-2400. Intel chips, coupled with the flagship logic Z170 / Z97 Express, also interact with faster memory, there are noticeably more presets in the BIOS. As for the test bench, for the LGA1151 platform we used a two-channel kit Kingston Savage HX428C14SB2K2 / 16, which works without any problems at overclocking up to 3000 MHz. Other systems used ADATA AX3U2400W8G11-DGV memory.

Choice of RAM

A little experiment. In the case of Core i3 / i5 / i7 processors for the LGA1151 platform, using faster memory to accelerate graphics is not always rational. For example, for Core i5-6400 (HD Graphics 530), changing the DDR4-2400 MHz kit to DDR4-3000 in Bioshock Infinite gave only 1.3 FPS. That is, with the graphics quality settings I set, the performance "rested" on the graphics subsystem.

Intel processor integrated graphics performance versus RAM frequency

The situation looks better when using AMD APUs. An increase in the speed of the RAM gives a more impressive increase in FPS, in the delta frequencies of 1866-2400 MHz we are dealing with an increase of 2-4 frames per second. I think that the use of RAM with an effective frequency of 2400 MHz in all test benches is a rational decision. And more close to reality.

Dependence of the performance of the integrated graphics of the AMD processor on the frequency of the RAM

We will judge the performance of the integrated graphics based on the results of thirteen gaming applications. I conditionally divided them into four categories. The first includes popular but undemanding PC hits. They are played by millions. Therefore, such games ("tanks", Word of Warcraft, League of Legends, Minecraft - here) have no right to be demanding. We have the right to expect a comfortable FPS level with high graphics quality settings in Full HD resolution. The rest of the categories were simply divided into three time frames: games 2013/14, 2015 and 2016.

Integrated graphics performance varies with RAM frequency

The quality of the graphics was selected individually for each program. For undemanding games, these are mostly high settings. For other applications (with the exception of Bioshock Infinite, Battlefield 4 and DiRT Rally) - poor graphics quality. Nevertheless, we will test the integrated graphics in Full HD resolution. Screenshots describing all the graphics quality settings are located in the one of the same name. Let's assume that 25 fps is playable.


Undemanding games	2013/14 Games	2015 Games	2016 Games
Dota 2 - high;	Bioshock Infinite - Medium;	Fallout 4 - Low	Rise of the Tomb Raider - low;
Diablo III - High	Battlefield 4 - Medium;	GTA V - standard;	Need for Speed - Low;
StarCraft II - high.	Far Cry 4 - Low.		XCOM 2 - Low.
		DiRT Rally - high.
Diablo III - High	Battlefield 4 - Medium;	GTA V - standard;
StarCraft II - high.	Far Cry 4 - Low.	The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt - Low;
		DiRT Rally - high.
Diablo III - High	Battlefield 4 - Medium;
StarCraft II - high.	Far Cry 4 - Low.
Diablo III - High
StarCraft II - high.

HD

The main goal of testing is to examine the performance of the integrated graphics of processors in Full HD resolution, but first we will knead at a lower HD. The iGPU Radeon R7 (for both A8 and A10) and Iris Pro 6200 felt quite comfortable in such conditions. But HD Graphics 530 with its 25 executive devices in some cases produced a completely unplayable picture. Specifically: in five games out of thirteen, since in Rise of the Tomb Raider, Far Cry 4, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, Need for Speed and XCOM 2 there is nowhere to reduce the quality of the graphics. Obviously, in Full HD, the integrated video of the Skylake chip is going to be a complete failure.

HD Graphics 530 merges already in 720p resolution

The Radeon R7 graphics used in the A8-7670K failed with three games, the Iris Pro 6200 with two, and the A10-7890K insert with one.

Test results in a resolution of 1280x720 pixels

Interestingly, there are games in which the integrated video of the Core i5-5675C seriously outperforms the Radeon R7. For example, in Diablo III, StarCraft II, Battlefield 4 and GTA V. Low resolution affects not only the presence of 48 executive devices, but also the processor dependence. And also the presence of a fourth-level cache. At the same time, the A10-7890K beat its opponent in the more demanding Rise of the Tomb Raider, Far Cry 4, The Witcher 3 and DiRT Rally. GCN architecture is doing well in modern (and not so) hits.

This is not to say that AMD produces weak video cards, especially in the low-cost segment. The performance of video cards is often sufficient for most tasks. Especially if these are not highly demanding tasks, such as video rendering or working with 3D graphics. In order to better determine the level of performance, two AMD Radeon R7 200 Series graphics cards should be considered.

The table describes the characteristics of AMD Radeon R7 200 Series, namely, a comparative analysis of two video cards from this series is presented.

Graphics card parameters	Radeon R7 240
	Oland XT
Core frequency	780 MHz
Graphics memory type	DDR3
Memory Amount	2 GB
Memory frequency	1600 MHz
Technical process	28
Streaming Processes	320
Rendering blocks	8
	20
	128 bit
Transistors	1040 million	1040 million
Heat sink	30 watts
Support	DirectX 12

It should be borne in mind that the base frequency of the R7 240 core is 730 MHz, and 780 MHz is the frequency after overclocking. In the parameters of video cards, the type of memory is DDR3, but there is also an option with GDDR5 memory. In comparison, DDR3 will be used, since it is the most common type at the moment.

Radeon R7 200 Series Review

AMD Radeon R7 200 Series belongs to the category of budget and affordable video cards. Nevertheless, it is done with a good quality. The video cards reviewed in this review are from Gigabyte.

Radeon R7 240 review

The model received 2 GB of DDR3 video memory. It also has an initial factory overclock. The assembly itself is made with high quality, although it is a budget segment.

On top of the graphics card is a cooling cooler with a large heatsink. This decision is caused by strong heating of AMD cards. The radiator is made of aluminum, and the fan itself protrudes slightly. The length of the entire video card is 19.5 cm.

In Metro Last Light, the results are good. The cores worked at 900 MHz. The video card was loaded by 90-100%, while the average temperature did not exceed 46 degrees. Coolers worked at 33%, and the frequency of revolutions per minute reached 2 thousand. The cooler made almost no noise.

Radeon R7 250 review

The external design of the graphic card is no different from the younger model. It also has a blue PCB insulating coating and is 19.5 cm wide. The heatsink is as bulky as the AMD Radeon R7 240.

The considered cards differ exclusively in memory chips and power phases. The Radeon R7 250 has a three-phase power supply, as opposed to the two-phase R7 240.

The test results in the Metro Last Night game are similar. The video card worked stably at 90-100%, while not getting too hot. The temperature did not exceed 46-47 ° C.

The only difference is the number of revolutions per minute. The fan worked at 1200 rpm, which is half the speed of the Radeon R7 240. The FPS remained stable at around 30-40 frames.

How to overclock a Radeon R7 200 Series graphics card

First you need to install the following utilities: MSI Afterburner, 3DMark, TechPowerUp GPU-Z, FurMark.

Launch MSI Afterburner and click on the settings button (gear).
Select the "User interface" tab and set the desired language in the settings.
Click on the "Settings" button and in the "Monitoring" tab we bring up the following parameters: GPU core frequency, GPU memory frequency, frame rate, GPU1 temperature.
For each of the selected parameters, set the option "Show in Overlay Display" and save the changes.
Click again on the "Settings" button and in the "General" tab put a checkmark for "Unlock voltage control" and for "Unlock voltage monitoring".
We launch the FurMark program and select the desired screen resolution, as well as the maximum available anti-aliasing.

Now the most important stage is overclocking the AMD Radeon R7 200 Series graphics card. Let's start by overclocking the video memory. First, we increase the memory frequency by 100 MHz and save the setting. Then we run the video card in FurMark. We repeat this procedure until the first artifacts appear.

If the computer freezes during testing, you should restart it immediately. After the reboot, we set those parameters for which there are no artifacts.

Finally, we check the card in the 3DMark program in order to avoid glare, smudges and other defects.

The situation is the same with overclocking the video core. We set the “Power Limit” parameter to the maximum, after which we increase the core frequency by 10 MHz. The tests are carried out in programs that were used to overclock the memory.

If artifacts appear, then we increase the voltage on the core. We repeat the procedure until the desired result is achieved.

Test results in games

In GTA V, both video cards perform well. At low graphics settings, both video cards gave out in the region of 35-40 FPS. At the initial frequencies, the R7 240 DDR3 outperforms a little and produces 10-15 FPS more. Such indicators are achieved not only due to the high performance of video cards, but also due to the good level of optimization of GTA V.

In War Thunder, video cards deliver stable 35 FPS at base frequencies. And the Radeon R7 240 is 13 FPS ahead of the GT 730. The situation after overclocking is even better. Both video cards from AMD are not only on a par with the GeForce GT 730 DDR3 and GeForce GT 730 of the GDDR5 type, but are also ahead of them by several percent. It should be noted that the graphics settings were set to average values.

And the last game is Dota 2. Both cards from AMD work stably at around 45 FPS. In heavily loaded scenes, the number of frames dropped to 25-30 FPS. At base frequencies, the Radeon R7 240 outperformed the GeForce GT 730 by 25 FPS.

The situation with the R7 250 is slightly worse. The lack of overclocking of the video memory frequency greatly affects the performance gain. Therefore, the FPS of the Radeon R7 250 is slightly lower than the GeForce GT 730 (GDDR5). The tests were carried out on the lowest graphics settings.

Overall, the benchmarks in the AMD Radeon R7 200 Series games show satisfactory results. Video cards are capable of playing quite modern games, albeit at low settings. Comparative analysis showed that in most cases, AMD video cards outperform Nvidia video cards. But keep in mind that video cards are in the budget segment.

Test and review: AMD Kaveri in Dual Graphics configuration. APU vs GPU: Comparative Review

⇡ Test participants

⇡ Test stand, testing methodology

⇡ Discrete GPUs on AMD vs Intel platform

⇡ Synthetic tests

⇡ Game tests

The next generation of integrated graphics from Intel.

Specifications

The next generation of integrated graphics from AMD.

Specifications

Synthetic tests

Meet the participants

Intel HD Graphics 4600

AMD R7 Graphics

Test stand and testing methodology

Synthetic tests

Game tests

Batman: arkham city

Battlefield 4

Dirt 3

FarCry 3

Hitman: Absolution

TES V: Skyrim

Sleeping dogs

Tomb raider

World of tanks

World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria

conclusions

300% increase

Testing

HD

Radeon R7 200 Series Review

Radeon R7 240 review

Radeon R7 250 review

How to overclock a Radeon R7 200 Series graphics card

Test results in games

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