Why do people use APUs?

[Nalydyenlo]

I'm seeing more and more people having these hybrid CPU/GPU chips in their machines instead of proper discrete graphics cards and CPUs. Integrated graphics have been around a while now and these APUs seem like just the next generation of this. I can't see the point of them - the GPU element in them doesn't have it's own RAM and is dependant on system RAM. Plus, the whole thing is bound to get hotter than a CPU would on it's own. The only thing they've got going for them is that you can override them with a proper GPU.

[100% Recycled Awesome]

Easy, budget. If you don't have the cash, you go with an APU. Then get an AMD card later that will sync up with the APU. It's a good budget way of getting in.

I'm using APUs on two Intel systems for my parents. They don't need a discrete card at all. For $65 got a solid Ivy bridge Pentium with graphics built it. Why spend $150+ for something they'll never ever use.

[Air]

APUs are good for PCs that don't have gaming in mind. Less cost and less heat is generated.
I personally plan to use an Intel CPU with integrated graphics for a compact HTPC build in the future. When you get into very small PCs, it's harder to manage heat and not every graphics card will fit.

[Chicken Maker?]

I personally want one to see just how far I can push that little chip. Others go for budget and others still like them because of how small of a system you can make.

[Rove]

AMD APUs for gaming because you get to save money on graphics until you can afford a nice proper dedicated GPU rather than some low end trash likely as bad or worse than integrated graphics.

Also once you add in a proper high-end GPU then the GPU portion of the APU is still used to assist the CPU with GPGPU computing. This is why the newest top APU the A10-7850K is advertised as having "12 compute cores (4CPU+8GPU)" which are useful for things like HSA and newer OpenCL 2.0 and can make it hugely faster when using apps that are programmed to take advantage of APU power to buff up the CPU.

[_I_]

find a game review where an i3 does not match or beat an amd a10 apu or fx6000

thief
http://www.techspot.com/review/787-thief-benchmarks/page4.html

bf4
http://www.techspot.com/review/734-battlefield-4-benchmarks/page6.html

arma3
http://www.techspot.com/review/712-arma-3-benchmarks/page5.html

watch dogs
http://www.techspot.com/review/827-watch-dogs-benchmarks/page5.html

amd apu is not for gaming, unless low settigns with the apu @720p or lower
and the game does not need a fast cpu

else its good for watching video streams and flash games @1080
in that case a pentium g would do just as good

[Ranko]

Początkowo opublikowane przez _I_:

find a game review where an i3 does not match or beat an amd a10 apu or fx6000

thief
http://www.techspot.com/review/787-thief-benchmarks/page4.html

bf4
http://www.techspot.com/review/734-battlefield-4-benchmarks/page6.html

arma3
http://www.techspot.com/review/712-arma-3-benchmarks/page5.html

watch dogs
http://www.techspot.com/review/827-watch-dogs-benchmarks/page5.html

amd apu is not for gaming, unless low settigns with the apu @720p or lower
and the game does not need a fast cpu

else its good for watching video streams and flash games @1080
in that case a pentium g would do just as good

ummm dude, why is it they're all using the same GPU?.... I thought you were trying to argue that the GPU that could come on the I3s were better....?

[NetworkGuru]

I used to be an AMDroid and followed that blindly, just to hate Intel for no reason. But then I realized it doesn't matter. I just go with what fits my needs. If an APU fits their needs (solitaire) then more power to them.

[_I_]

nobody does gaming on an apus gpu if they can help it
or if they wan to upgrade the gpu it will be a severe cpu bottleneck with a higher end gpu

[Rove]

A A10 shouldn't bottleneck even a R9 290X. Specially not playing Mantle games.

Seriously though someone who bought a APU due to budget in the first place probably is not adding in more than a R7 250 to R9 270X GPU later on again due to budget.

[Rumpelcrutchskin]

Mostly out of ignorance. People look at low price tag and artificially high Ghz numbers and think they get a great deal. Until they later realize how crap the per-core performance actually is.

[_I_]

Początkowo opublikowane przez Rove:

A A10 shouldn't bottleneck even a R9 290X. Specially not playing Mantle games.

Seriously though someone who bought a APU due to budget in the first place probably is not adding in more than a R7 250 to R9 270X GPU later on again due to budget.

the fx8350 bottlenecking high end gpus, 290x-gtx 780
and you dont think the a10 will bottleneck mid-upper gpus?

[Kate]

Początkowo opublikowane przez _I_:

find a game review where an i3 does not match or beat an amd a10 apu or fx6000

http://www.gamespot.com/forums/pc-mac-discussion-1000004/crysis-3-is-an-example-of-how-well-amd-cpus-perfor-29356784/
FX-6300 beating an i5. Even the FX-4100 beat the i3.

[_I_]

crysis 3 was a horrible port that does require many cores and fast cpus
http://www.techspot.com/review/642-crysis-3-performance/page6.html

i5 3470 is right with the fx8350
thas also a 3g i3, haswell has made more improvements

[Kate]

Początkowo opublikowane przez _I_:

crysis 3 was a horrible port that does require many cores and fast cpus
http://www.techspot.com/review/642-crysis-3-performance/page6.html


i5 3470 is right with the fx8350
thas also a 3g i3, haswell has made more improvements

You asked for one review, I provided one review. Funny how an FX matches an i7 on it for 3 FPS less. And no, it's not a horrible port. If it was a bad port, then all CPUs would have low FPS, but in the same usual order. Instead we see multi-core processors going up the rank. Adding multi-core optimizations doesn't make it a bad port, although it does go against your usual recommendations.

[_I_]

its a horrible port
the game code is in console code, it needs to be transcoded so a pc cpu can run it, then executed

it was even barley playable on consoles
http://gearnuke.com/the-5-worst-console-ports-from-current-generation/

the game is a cpu bottleneck with every current cpu
suprised they didnt test it with the 2011 i7s