Haswell, Richland, or Kaveri

[IInuyasha74]

Hello everyone,

I am pretty sure that I will buy a laptop. I am gone from home a lot so I don't get to use my desktop as much and thought it was about time I bought a laptop. I want the laptop to have good battery life, pretty good CPU, and at least decent graphics.

I am torn on the decision of what to get though. I haven't been able to find any good benchmarks comparing mobile CPU performance. The decision is between getting one of the three following:

1. Haswell i5 CPU
2. Richland based Quad core a8 or a10 CPU
3. Kaveri based Quad Core CPU

I haven't been able to find a lot of information comparing the performance between mobile CPU's like I said so that would be a big help. I know more than enough about computers in general to pick out a system, just need help deciding what type of CPU I want at its core.

Any information, advise, or thoughts are much appreciated.

 

[luckiest charm]

Haswell of course.

Its the fastest CPU out there out of them all and has best per core performance. Ideal for gaming, rendering and everything else. HD 4000 Graphics are no less behind APUs.

 

[kirilmatthew]

Rule out Richland immediately. The A10 and A8 can only compete with the i3, they get destroyed by the i5. Unless you need good iGPU performance, go i5 over Richland. As for kaveri, its impossible to say. There are no leaks for kaveri specifically, but steamroller, the design kaveri is based on, is rumored to have a 30% or more IPC increase. This could bring it back in the game along with HSA enhancements and a GCN GPU. We won't know until launch in Q4 exactly what it brings, so wait it out unless you need to buy now, in which case go i5. I hope this helps.

 

[kirilmatthew]

Haswell of course.

Its the fastest CPU out there out of them all and has best per core performance. Ideal for gaming, rendering and everything else. HD 4000 Graphics are no less behind APUs.

I agree with i5 until we've seen kaveri but it loses in iGPU. That is for sure. Even Intel fanboys admit that.

 

[luckiest charm]

Yeah Intel's Integrated Graphics are not as good as that of AMD's APUs.

However if it was Intel HD 5200 Iris Pro, it would have blown the APUs into ashes. Damn card is literally a beast and is sort of equal to GT 640 and GTX 650M. But i5s don't come with Iris Pro so, for now in graphics, AMD wins the deal provided A10 - 6800K is in comparison.

If its more of CPU power then i5 tops out.

 

[kirilmatthew]

Yeah Intel's Integrated Graphics are not as good as that of AMD's APUs.

However if it was Intel HD 5200 Iris Pro, it would have blown the APUs into ashes. Damn card is literally a beast and is sort of equal to GT 640 and GTX 650M. But i5s don't come with Iris Pro so, for now in graphics, AMD wins the deal provided A10 - 6800K is in comparison.

If its more of CPU power then i5 tops out.

Couldn't agree more. Iris pro is pretty much vaporware. You can't buy it and its only in a 48W package anyways, so its a niche product on a laptop.

 

[IInuyasha74]

Oh yea I forgot to mention the Richland laptop I was considering had a pretty good integrated GPU with it and 2GB dedicated vRAM, that was the big reason for considering it. I know the Haswell 4400 IGPU isn't too bad either though so it really does make more sense.

I guess my big hold up was because I didn't know how far behind the Richland APU would be in processing power on a mobile platform. I know that on desktops the best Richland APU is a direct competitor to the best i3 CPU, I tested them both actually and they are pretty close between those two, but with laptops I wasn't sure how much that would change. The Haswell CPU I still thought would be better but I wasn't sure if it would be quite as significantly better since the Richland APU is still a quad core, while the i5 I have found for around $500 is only a dual core with hyper threading.

Anyone want to take an educated guess at around what Kaveri's wattage will be? Most APU's are 35w right now. With the 20% improvement in performance, if the power usage drops to about 25w then I think Kaveri may be a better option but like a couple of you have said its completely in the dark still.

 

[kirilmatthew]

Oh yea I forgot to mention the Richland laptop I was considering had a pretty good integrated GPU with it and 2GB dedicated vRAM, that was the big reason for considering it. I know the Haswell 4400 IGPU isn't too bad either though so it really does make more sense.

I guess my big hold up was because I didn't know how far behind the Richland APU would be in processing power on a mobile platform. I know that on desktops the best Richland APU is a direct competitor to the best i3 CPU, I tested them both actually and they are pretty close between those two, but with laptops I wasn't sure how much that would change. The Haswell CPU I still thought would be better but I wasn't sure if it would be quite as significantly better since the Richland APU is still a quad core, while the i5 I have found for around $500 is only a dual core with hyper threading.

Anyone want to take an educated guess at around what Kaveri's wattage will be? Most APU's are 35w right now. With the 20% improvement in performance, if the power usage drops to about 25w then I think Kaveri may be a better option but like a couple of you have said its completely in the dark still.

CPU wise the best richland compete with i3s. They cannot touch i5s just like on the desktop. If you could link the laptops it would be great, we could help you with that then I've done a lot of research on kaveri and HSA and I know a lot about them. You should see them at the same TDPs as now: 17W, maybe 25W and 35W. The 17W will be ULV and the 25W will be low voltage if it exists. AMD has done a good job of keeping us in the dark about kaveri and there's not much we know. Feel free to ask more questions though, I like to think I know as much as I can about kaveri having heavily researched it haha

 

[IInuyasha74]

Here are the two main systems I am considering but I am still browsing.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834314119
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834314150

If I get either I plan to immediately upgrade it with an extra 8GB stick of ram but either way I don't plan to change it. If any of you have seen better for not a huge amount more I wouldn't mind seeing.

 

[IInuyasha74]

Oh yea I forgot to mention the Richland laptop I was considering had a pretty good integrated GPU with it and 2GB dedicated vRAM, that was the big reason for considering it. I know the Haswell 4400 IGPU isn't too bad either though so it really does make more sense.

I guess my big hold up was because I didn't know how far behind the Richland APU would be in processing power on a mobile platform. I know that on desktops the best Richland APU is a direct competitor to the best i3 CPU, I tested them both actually and they are pretty close between those two, but with laptops I wasn't sure how much that would change. The Haswell CPU I still thought would be better but I wasn't sure if it would be quite as significantly better since the Richland APU is still a quad core, while the i5 I have found for around $500 is only a dual core with hyper threading.

Anyone want to take an educated guess at around what Kaveri's wattage will be? Most APU's are 35w right now. With the 20% improvement in performance, if the power usage drops to about 25w then I think Kaveri may be a better option but like a couple of you have said its completely in the dark still.

CPU wise the best richland compete with i3s. They cannot touch i5s just like on the desktop. If you could link the laptops it would be great, we could help you with that then I've done a lot of research on kaveri and HSA and I know a lot about them. You should see them at the same TDPs as now: 17W, maybe 25W and 35W. The 17W will be ULV and the 25W will be low voltage if it exists. AMD has done a good job of keeping us in the dark about kaveri and there's not much we know. Feel free to ask more questions though, I like to think I know as much as I can about kaveri having heavily researched it haha

Haha wellI would love to hear anything you have seen on Kaveri. I have tried to research them as much as possible but like you said AMD has done a good job of keeping it in the dark. I have heard a lot of good things about the HSA, lower power usage, greatly increased single and multithreaded performance in the range of 20%, even the inclusion of an ARM RISC CPU for extra security on a hardware level and to add compatibility with android based programs through utilization of this CPU, but I haven't found enough information to satisfy me though lol.

 

[kirilmatthew]

Here are the two main systems I am considering but I am still browsing.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834314119
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834314150

If I get either I plan to immediately upgrade it with an extra 8GB stick of ram but either way I don't plan to change it. If any of you have seen better for not a huge amount more I wouldn't mind seeing.

If you want to do any gaming whatsoever go with the richland laptop. It is way better rounded and is also a good bit lighter with a bit better rated battery life. CPU performance is fine, not as good as the i5, but certainly good enough, with GPU performance allowing for some gaming. I hope this helps!

 

[kirilmatthew]

Oh yea I forgot to mention the Richland laptop I was considering had a pretty good integrated GPU with it and 2GB dedicated vRAM, that was the big reason for considering it. I know the Haswell 4400 IGPU isn't too bad either though so it really does make more sense.

I guess my big hold up was because I didn't know how far behind the Richland APU would be in processing power on a mobile platform. I know that on desktops the best Richland APU is a direct competitor to the best i3 CPU, I tested them both actually and they are pretty close between those two, but with laptops I wasn't sure how much that would change. The Haswell CPU I still thought would be better but I wasn't sure if it would be quite as significantly better since the Richland APU is still a quad core, while the i5 I have found for around $500 is only a dual core with hyper threading.

Anyone want to take an educated guess at around what Kaveri's wattage will be? Most APU's are 35w right now. With the 20% improvement in performance, if the power usage drops to about 25w then I think Kaveri may be a better option but like a couple of you have said its completely in the dark still.

CPU wise the best richland compete with i3s. They cannot touch i5s just like on the desktop. If you could link the laptops it would be great, we could help you with that then I've done a lot of research on kaveri and HSA and I know a lot about them. You should see them at the same TDPs as now: 17W, maybe 25W and 35W. The 17W will be ULV and the 25W will be low voltage if it exists. AMD has done a good job of keeping us in the dark about kaveri and there's not much we know. Feel free to ask more questions though, I like to think I know as much as I can about kaveri having heavily researched it haha

Haha wellI would love to hear anything you have seen on Kaveri. I have tried to research them as much as possible but like you said AMD has done a good job of keeping it in the dark. I have heard a lot of good things about the HSA, lower power usage, greatly increased single and multithreaded performance in the range of 20%, even the inclusion of an ARM RISC CPU for extra security on a hardware level and to add compatibility with android based programs through utilization of this CPU, but I haven't found enough information to satisfy me though lol.

You know a good deal. Most info I have relating to the cores revolves around steamroller. Steamroller is very significant because it fixes on of the biggest issues BD was criticized for, the 1 FPU per 2 cores. Steamroller has an additional FPU per 2 cores, resulting in 2 per 2 cores. This negates the "half core" issue many people speak of. It also has substantial cache speed improvements and minor tweaks. According to reports this adds between 30-40% in IPC alone. It should also clock higher. CPU performance could get back in the game. It will also be more efficient as it is based on the 28nm process instead of the 32nm. Its something as well. More efficiency will probably come from HSA. Since GPU and CPU will work together on tasks it will reduce useless waste of resources through running parallel. It could also gain access to GDDR5 memory instead of DDR3. This will help GPU performance, but it may slow down normal compute ram performance because latency increases. Haha I hope I haven't bored you too much!

 

[IInuyasha74]

Here are the two main systems I am considering but I am still browsing.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834314119
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834314150

If I get either I plan to immediately upgrade it with an extra 8GB stick of ram but either way I don't plan to change it. If any of you have seen better for not a huge amount more I wouldn't mind seeing.

If you want to do any gaming whatsoever go with the richland laptop. It is way better rounded and is also a good bit lighter with a bit better rated battery life. CPU performance is fine, not as good as the i5, but certainly good enough, with GPU performance allowing for some gaming. I hope this helps!

You don't think the CPU performance falls too far behind?
That is my big hold up, the graphics in this one seem really great but I am worried about it being significantly slower. I don't think I will be doing a lot of encoding or anything too stressful with it, this laptop will be more for when I am at school and work, and some games on occasion but they will probably be more emulators. Though the idea of being able to play Bioshock Infinity on my laptop is really attractive.

 

[luckiest charm]

Just FYI -

That APU does not have HD 8750D but HD 8550D.
Which is basically HD 7550 whereas HD 8750D is HD 7750.

That thing is either mistype or lie. In either case, that GPU is good for nothing and you won't run a game properly on it. You are better off with Intel here considering its awesome CPU performance. If that APU really had HD 8750D then it would be winner here but .. sadly it hasn't.

And no it won't run Bioshock Infinite for sure. Think about a second before buying, HD 7550 (Or HD 6550 to say better) with a weak CPU.

HD 4400 is equal to that or well, better than that I suppose. What really is better is the CPU. Its damn powerful.

 

[IInuyasha74]

Oh yea I forgot to mention the Richland laptop I was considering had a pretty good integrated GPU with it and 2GB dedicated vRAM, that was the big reason for considering it. I know the Haswell 4400 IGPU isn't too bad either though so it really does make more sense.

I guess my big hold up was because I didn't know how far behind the Richland APU would be in processing power on a mobile platform. I know that on desktops the best Richland APU is a direct competitor to the best i3 CPU, I tested them both actually and they are pretty close between those two, but with laptops I wasn't sure how much that would change. The Haswell CPU I still thought would be better but I wasn't sure if it would be quite as significantly better since the Richland APU is still a quad core, while the i5 I have found for around $500 is only a dual core with hyper threading.

Anyone want to take an educated guess at around what Kaveri's wattage will be? Most APU's are 35w right now. With the 20% improvement in performance, if the power usage drops to about 25w then I think Kaveri may be a better option but like a couple of you have said its completely in the dark still.

CPU wise the best richland compete with i3s. They cannot touch i5s just like on the desktop. If you could link the laptops it would be great, we could help you with that then I've done a lot of research on kaveri and HSA and I know a lot about them. You should see them at the same TDPs as now: 17W, maybe 25W and 35W. The 17W will be ULV and the 25W will be low voltage if it exists. AMD has done a good job of keeping us in the dark about kaveri and there's not much we know. Feel free to ask more questions though, I like to think I know as much as I can about kaveri having heavily researched it haha

Haha wellI would love to hear anything you have seen on Kaveri. I have tried to research them as much as possible but like you said AMD has done a good job of keeping it in the dark. I have heard a lot of good things about the HSA, lower power usage, greatly increased single and multithreaded performance in the range of 20%, even the inclusion of an ARM RISC CPU for extra security on a hardware level and to add compatibility with android based programs through utilization of this CPU, but I haven't found enough information to satisfy me though lol.

You know a good deal. Most info I have relating to the cores revolves around steamroller. Steamroller is very significant because it fixes on of the biggest issues BD was criticized for, the 1 FPU per 2 cores. Steamroller has an additional FPU per 2 cores, resulting in 2 per 2 cores. This negates the "half core" issue many people speak of. It also has substantial cache speed improvements and minor tweaks. According to reports this adds between 30-40% in IPC alone. It should also clock higher. CPU performance could get back in the game. It will also be more efficient as it is based on the 28nm process instead of the 32nm. Its something as well. More efficiency will probably come from HSA. Since GPU and CPU will work together on tasks it will reduce useless waste of resources through running parallel. It could also gain access to GDDR5 memory instead of DDR3. This will help GPU performance, but it may slow down normal compute ram performance because latency increases. Haha I hope I haven't bored you too much!

Haha no not boring me at all. Honestly just reminding me how tempting it is to wait for Steamroller and Kaveri. I had seen hints of this information but not anything very conclusive.

 

[kirilmatthew]

Here are the two main systems I am considering but I am still browsing.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834314119
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834314150

If I get either I plan to immediately upgrade it with an extra 8GB stick of ram but either way I don't plan to change it. If any of you have seen better for not a huge amount more I wouldn't mind seeing.

If you want to do any gaming whatsoever go with the richland laptop. It is way better rounded and is also a good bit lighter with a bit better rated battery life. CPU performance is fine, not as good as the i5, but certainly good enough, with GPU performance allowing for some gaming. I hope this helps!

You don't think the CPU performance falls too far behind?
That is my big hold up, the graphics in this one seem really great but I am worried about it being significantly slower. I don't think I will be doing a lot of encoding or anything too stressful with it, this laptop will be more for when I am at school and work, and some games on occasion but they will probably be more emulators. Though the idea of being able to play Bioshock Infinity on my laptop is really attractive.

No, I am not worried about the CPU. For your purposes it will be very snappy. This is way better for any games and is good enough for CPU.

 

[IInuyasha74]

Just FYI -

That APU does not have HD 8750D but HD 8550D.
Which is basically HD 7550 whereas HD 8750D is HD 7750.

That thing is either mistype or lie. In either case, that GPU is good for nothing and you won't run a game properly on it. You are better off with Intel here considering its awesome CPU performance. If that APU really had HD 8750D then it would be winner here but .. sadly it hasn't.

And no it won't run Bioshock Infinite for sure. Think about a second before buying, HD 7550 (Or HD 6550 to say better) with a weak CPU.

HD 4400 is equal to that or well, better than that I suppose. What really is better is the CPU. Its damn powerful.

Are you completely sure? I don't know what IGPU the APU has built into it, but this laptop is saying it has a dedicated graphics card built into it also with 2GB vRAM, and the system is supposed to use the dedicated card most of the time for grpahics and the IGPU on the APU only for low power saving situations.

I know that I will be able to play Bioshock infinity really either way, I was able to get it going on an i3-3225 using the HD 4000 graphics. The settings were all pretty much bottomed out except screen resolution but it still played. I just have doubts I would get it playing well on either laptop if the AMD one doesnt have the 8750D GPU.

I know the Haswell will have better CPU performance but have you seen anywhere mentioning how much? Seeing an estimate of how much greater the CPU will perform would also be a big help.

 

[kirilmatthew]

Just FYI -

That APU does not have HD 8750D but HD 8550D.
Which is basically HD 7550 whereas HD 8750D is HD 7750.

That thing is either mistype or lie. In either case, that GPU is good for nothing and you won't run a game properly on it. You are better off with Intel here considering its awesome CPU performance. If that APU really had HD 8750D then it would be winner here but .. sadly it hasn't.

And no it won't run Bioshock Infinite for sure. Think about a second before buying, HD 7550 (Or HD 6550 to say better) with a weak CPU.

HD 4400 is equal to that or well, better than that I suppose. What really is better is the CPU. Its damn powerful.

Why are you comparing laptop and desktop GPUs.... The 4400 is nowhere near the dual graphics, not by a long shot! This is the GPU: http://www.notebookcheck.net/AMD-Radeon-HD-8750M.87147.0.html
As you can see, BioShock infinite in low-medium. Your information is confusing and misleading.

 

[kirilmatthew]

Just FYI -

That APU does not have HD 8750D but HD 8550D.
Which is basically HD 7550 whereas HD 8750D is HD 7750.

That thing is either mistype or lie. In either case, that GPU is good for nothing and you won't run a game properly on it. You are better off with Intel here considering its awesome CPU performance. If that APU really had HD 8750D then it would be winner here but .. sadly it hasn't.

And no it won't run Bioshock Infinite for sure. Think about a second before buying, HD 7550 (Or HD 6550 to say better) with a weak CPU.

HD 4400 is equal to that or well, better than that I suppose. What really is better is the CPU. Its damn powerful.

Are you completely sure? I don't know what IGPU the APU has built into it, but this laptop is saying it has a dedicated graphics card built into it also with 2GB vRAM, and the system is supposed to use the dedicated card most of the time for grpahics and the IGPU on the APU only for low power saving situations.

I know that I will be able to play Bioshock infinity really either way, I was able to get it going on an i3-3225 using the HD 4000 graphics. The settings were all pretty much bottomed out except screen resolution but it still played. I just have doubts I would get it playing well on either laptop if the AMD one doesnt have the 8750D GPU.

I know the Haswell will have better CPU performance but have you seen anywhere mentioning how much? Seeing an estimate of how much greater the CPU will perform would also be a big help.

The GPU in your laptop is ahead of the iris pro: http://www.notebookcheck.net/Comparison-of-Laptop-Graphics-Cards.130.0.html
It will destroy the HD 4400.

 

[IInuyasha74]

The 8750 does have a huge lead on the Intel graphics, I am not surprised but it does make the thing look all the more tempting.

However I think I am starting to lean a little more towards waiting for Steamroller and Kaveri in honest. I like the AMD based laptop I linked before a lot, but I realized it lacks any USB 3.0 slots and there are no doors on the bottom for easy access. I have taken laptops apart more than a few times now but I prefer to have easy access to basic parts still. SO unless I find a similar one at similar price with a little better exterior I think I will wait for Kaveri.

I know it seems a little picky, but I probably will keep whatever I get for the next 5 years at least so I wan't to make sure these small details are right.

Thanks for all of your help though from everyone, especially you kirilmatthew. I will add to this once again if I find a suitable laptop trade off, or decide to settle for the Haswell system. The graphics aren't as good, but it is $80 cheaper on Amazon.