AMD Lists New Kaveri Desktop Processors

[Dirk Broer]

We are now six months down the line from the AMD Kaveri launch, and the only two Kaveri processors available on Newegg today are the A10-7850K at $170 and the A10-7700K at $160. Both of these SKUs come with games as part of the purchase, but as AMD’s biggest desktop processor launch of the year, one might have expected more processors to come to market by this point. This is especially true as AMD sampled the A8-7600 SKU to media with a configurable TDP which showcased a large jump in graphics APU performance at the 45W TDP margin, but this model number has not hit consumer shelves in North America. Perhaps then we get a sigh of relief that AMD are announcing seven new Kaveri APUs, including that A8-7600. More...

[AMDave]

On the face of it there seems to be no difference between the A10-7850K and the A10 PRO-7850B.
What am I missing?

[Dirk Broer]

On the face of it there seems to be no difference between the A10-7850K and the A10 PRO-7850B.
What am I missing?

The A10 PRO-7850B is not unlocked
Perhaps the Pro Bs are meant as successors to the FirePro APUs?

[Dirk Broer]

On the face of it there seems to be no difference between the A10-7850K and the A10 PRO-7850B.
What am I missing?

The A10 PRO-7850B is not unlocked (other weblink)
Rumour has it that the 7850K can be overclocked up to 4.5 GHz, supporting DDR3-2666
Wonder what it could do with these:

If 3000MHz just isn't fast enough for you, this kit comes with a Kingpin Cooling memory cooler for LN2 overclocking.

[AMDave]

Nice gear. I suppose we'd need some fast high bandwidth ram.
These chips have no L3 cache and I am not sure why.
Since they also have a GPU I would anticipate higher caching requirements on the die.
There's something significant going on in the architecture changes.

[AMDave]

I vote TechSpot's answer as the most likely answer to this conundrum:
"Although L3 cache increases performance in certain situations, it also elevates power consumption and essentially ruins the efficiency of these chips. Whereas the smaller dedicated L2 cache can be enabled or disabled as the cores are needed, the entire L3 cache stays awake even when only one core is being used. Apparently, AMD felt the performance tradeoff wasn't worth it."
http://www.techspot.com/review/580-amd-a10-5800k/

Some of the other answers I just read were plain stupid. This one makes sense.

[Dirk Broer]

I suppose we'd need some fast high bandwidth ram

Yes, when you want to really use an APU (or SandyBridge, IvyBridge or Haswell with HD graphics) for e.g. BOINC you are better off with faster RAM (=more bandwidth).

[Dirk Broer]

Apparently, AMD felt the performance tradeoff wasn't worth it." http://www.techspot.com/review/580-amd-a10-5800k/ Some of the other answers I just read were plain stupid. This one makes sense.

Omitting the L3 cache also gave room for the IGP. You can compare the (BOINC) performance of the A10 Trinities and Richlands with the FX-4320 and 4350 in order to see what that L3 cache exactly is capable of.
But don't forget the IGP part of the A10s!