AMD Kaveri APUs have officially been launched and now available to consumers around the globe. The 2014 AMD A-Series APU lineup consists of two new SKUs which include the A10-7850K and A10-7700K providing users with a wide variety of features inside an all-in-one package.

AMD Kaveri APUs Officially Launched - Steamroller, GCN and HUMA Fusion APU

The AMD Kaveri APU is the next step into the fusion between the CPU, GPU and Memory. Powered by the latest Steamroller core architecture, the Kaveri APUs enhance the IPC upto 20% over Piledriver while GCN cores deliver increased graphics performance compared to the older VLIW based integrated graphics. Both the CPU and GPU work in harmony through the HSA enhancements which provides a unified coherent memory access to both the CPU and GPU to leverage the performance and ease the development for this platform.

The AMD Kaveri APUs are built on the 28nm SHP processmeasuring at 245mm2and features a total of 2.41 Billion transistors crammed inside the die. The Steamroller core architecture is a completely new design with each module featuringtwo separate threads are provided with their own parallelinstructiondecoder. AMD's Steamroller architecture will aim to deliver faster processing power in a clock-to-clock comparison against the Richland APUs and is a step forward.

Onthe graphicsside, we are getting the latest GCNarchitectureover the VLIW4 featured on previous AMD APUs. The die has upto 8 GCNcomputeunits which feature AMD AudioTrue technology, AMD Eyefinity tech, UVD, VCE, DMA Engine and the addition of coherent shared unified memory. Being based on the same GPU as Hawaii, the Kaveri APU die has 8 ACE (AsynchronousComputeEngine) which can manage 8 Queues and have access to L2 Cache and GDS .

The most significant enhancement Kaveri would adopt is the HSA (Heterogeneous SystemArchitecture) powered with the new HUMA enhancements which allow coherent memory access within the GPU and CPU. HUMA would make sure that both the CPU and GPU would have uniform access to an entire memory space which would be done through the memory controller. HUMA also means an increase in performance on the OpenCL front which has been a plus side for AMD based hardware. This also suggests that faster memory speeds would result in better overall performance fromthe graphicscard.

AMD A10-7850K and A10-7700K - Fourth Generation APUs

The Kaveri APU can scale down to server platforms, from the high-end desktop PCs all the way to notebooks, servers and embedded applications. The Kaveri APU would come with TDP’s as high as 95W, down to 35W mobility products and 15W in embedded applications. The initial launch lineup consists of two Kaveri APUs consists of two products, the A10-7850K and A10-7700K.

AMD A10-7850K

The A10-7850K as expected would be the flagship Kaveri APU of 2014 boasting 4 Steamroller cores, 4 MB L2 Cache and clock speeds of 3.7 GHz base and 4.0 GHz turbo. Onthe graphicsside, the APU would feature 8 Compute Units resulting in 512 stream processors clocked at 654 MHz base and 720 MHz in boost. The APU is fully unlocked allowing users tooverclockthe chip past the limits and supports DDR3-2133 MHz and comes in a 95W TDPpackage. The A10-7850K costs $173 US officially.

AMD A10-7700K

The A10-7700Kis another unlocked chip featuring the Steamroller core architecture with a max boost clock of 3.8 GHz and base clock of 3.5 GHz. It features 4 MB of L2 cache while the GPU side ships with a GCN graphics die featuring 6 shader units equaling to a total of 384 Streamprocessorsclocked at 720 MHz. The A10-7700K features a TDP of 95W so we may see one Kaveri APU part to feature 65W TDP.The A10-7700K costs $152 US officially.

AMD A8-7600

The A8-7600 would be the last quad core variant in the Kaveri APU lineup featuring 3.1 GHz base and 3.8 GHz turbo frequencies with 4 MB L2 cache, 65W TDP and DDR3-2133 MHz support. The graphics side would include 384 Stream processors (6 Compute Units) and a core speed of 654 MHz base and 720 MHz boost. The APU would cost $119 US.

AMD will bundle both APUs (A10-7850K and A10-7700K) with Battlefield 4 which adds $59.99 US worth of value to these products. Battlefield 4 is also EA's flagship title which will be the first to support the latest Mantle API which enhances performance on GCN hardware and multi-core CPUs to utilize their full potential. So Mantle doesn't only help code the game better for a specific set of hardware but also enhances performance for end users and gamers.

Multiple game developers have already started to support the new Mantle API and 20 titles which actively support the API are currently in development. Titles such as Thief and Lichdom would be among the first to feature TrueAudio tech which delivers rich and pure surround sound quality by shifting the audio processing load from the CPU over to DSPs integrated on the GCN architecture. Overall, the Kaveri APUs are feature rich and a ready for gaming package available for a cost under $200 US.

AMD Kaveri APU Review Round-Up:

AMD A8-7600 Review @ TechReport

AMD A10-7850K Review @ PCPerspective

AMD A10-7850K Review @ Computerbase

AMD A10-7850K Review @ VR-Zone

AMD A10-7850K Review @ HardwareCanucks

AMD A10-7850K Review @ AnandTech

AMD A10-7850K Review @PCTuning.CZ

AMD A10-7850K Review @ ExtremeTech

AMD A10-7850K Review @ Semiaccurate

AMD A8-7600 Review @ Bit-Tech

AMD A10-7850K Review @ ExtremeTech

AMD A10-7850K Review @ Hexus

AMD A10-7850K Review @ Guru3D

AMD A10-7850K Review @ HardwareHeaven

AMD Kaveri APU Availability Links:

A10-7850K @ Newegg

A10-7700K @ Newegg

AMD Kaveri APU Unboxing Video:

AMD Kaveri APU 2014 Lineup:

AMD FM2+ Motherboards (Details/Official Page):

ASRock FM2+ Motherboards - Details / Official PageASUS FM2+ Motherboards - Details / Official PageGigabyte FM2+ Motherboards - Details / Official PageMSI FM2+ Motherboards - Details / Official PageBioStar FM2+ Motherboards - Details / Official Page

AMD Kaveri Die Shot:

AMD Kaveri APUs Tech Slides: