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AMD APU vs 8800gt

M

Mincading

n00b
Joined
May 28, 2012
Messages
47
ive been looking around but cant find anything/

quick question: will the intergrated gpu in the llano apu (3850) play games better than the 8800 GT 512 mb?

according to my research, the 8800 holds more than 100 cuda cores, which is basically the same as stream processors. in the APU, it contains 400, so in theory, would the apu beat the 8800 in terms of gaming performance?
 
Mincading said:
ive been looking around but cant find anything/

quick question: will the intergrated gpu in the llano apu (3850) play games better than the 8800 GT 512 mb?

according to my research, the 8800 holds more than 100 cuda cores, which is basically the same as stream processors. in the APU, it contains 400, so in theory, would the apu beat the 8800 in terms of gaming performance?
Click to expand...

nVidia cuda cores don't translate exactly to AMD stream processors, so you can't directly compare the 8800gt's 112 cuda cores to the 400 stream processors on the AMD A8's integrated graphics. The A8-3850 actually uses a Radeon 6550D graphics core http://www.techspot.com/review/418-amd-a8-3850-apu/, not to be confused with the ati Radeon 3850, released around the same time as the 8800gt. Tom's Hardware Graphics Card Hierarchy Chart rates the 8800gt several tiers above the 6650D: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gaming-graphics-card-review,3107-7.html.

TL;DR, the 8800gt is better for game performance.
 
The 8800GT would perform better in most situations, however the APU supports more APIs. So it really depends on the workload. Another consideration is allocated vRam. If the APU has more then 512mb allocated to it, it may perform better at some resolutions then the 8800gt. At the end of the day though, I have to agree with those above me, from a purely game performance based standpoint, the 8800GT should outperform the APUs integrated GPU.
 
not by itself, no. you can't directly compare cards from amd and nvidia based on things like
shaders and clock speed alone since their internal architectures varies quite a bit in how
efficiently they use those resources. you can however compare radeons to radeons and
geforces to geforces. then benchmark comparisons on the net will give you an idea how 2
cards compare even if not directly compared in a review. another place you can look to
compare relative performance between radeons, geforces and intel graphics is the last page
of each monthly gpu buyer's guide at tomshardware. but this is the [H] , so maybe not. i also
think tom's undervalues the performance of the desktop A8's integrated gpu by at least a level
or 2. it's like this. a 8800gt=9800gt=hd4830=hd5670=hd6670=hd7670(not far below 8800gtx,
either). as for the A8 in question(hd6550d), it's between hd2900pro/xt, 3850/3870, and 4650/4670,
and a little below hd5570/6570/7570. on the geforce side that would be 8800gts640/320, 9600gt,
gt240, and similar to some lower end dx11cards. so the hd6550 is generally slower than 8800gt.

however, the gpu in the A8 is fully dx11 compliant while the 8800gt is only dx10 compliant. that
can make a difference in some games. for example, when the hd5570 came out it was perhaps a
bit slower than the hd4670 when running certain games with the dx9/dx10 code path, but notably
faster when it ran the dx11 code path. dx11 improves performance and/or features vs. dx10/dx9.
right now the minimum code path for a AAA title is dx10(BF3) and a 8800gt would not allow you to
use any additional features or performance available in that game by running it in dx11 mode(not
that any card in this range probably can and remain playable). the latest geforces and radeons are
dx11.1 compliant and there may come a time in the not too distant future that the minimum code
path for the average game may be dx11, making a 8800gt not able to play them at all.

another thing about the gpu in the A8 is that you can add another similar performance level radeon
in the pci express graphics(peg) slot and run them in crossfire to boost performance. probably the
closest in performance is the 6570gddr3. that combo could be notably faster than a 8800gt.

there is a rub, though. the lower level radeons have a 128bit interface to vram and the A8's gpu
shares 128bit(dual channel) of ddr3 with the cpu cores while the 8800gt has a 256 bit path to
its gddr3. 128 bit cards with gddr3 suffer notable performance loss compared to the same models
with gddr5(twice the data transfer per clock compared to gddr3). maybe this clears up some of your
confusion(or maybe adds to it?), you can also look at a few pages on wikipedia for more info.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_AMD_graphics_processing_units
between the desktop hd5000 section and the hd6000 section is an igp section with the a8's gpu.
you can also click on links above those sections to take you to seperate pages with more detail
on those generations and maybe comparisons to similar nvidia cards( or are those on the geforce
pages of wikipedia?).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_Nvidia_graphics_processing_units
here is the nvidia page. pay special attention to the sections between geforce 8 and geforce 500.
they also have links to those generation's pages above their corresponding charts. hope this helps.

edit(3rd time now?) another thing to consider is that the 8800gt can likely be overclocked quite a
bit, if it doesn't already come heavily overclocked from the factory. good luck pushing that model
A8 very far. overclocking may be severely limited or even impossible on the desktop 3850 apu.

(off topic, i suggest no one walk away from a pan of boiling eggs to edit a forum post. hope they're ok.)
 
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these APUs may have lots of SP but they are clocked low and I believe they uses system memory. I used a 6530D and overall it was not really better than my old oced 8600gt. in fact in Dead Space 2, it was slower. lol
 
cannondale06 said:
these APUs may have lots of SP but they are clocked low and I believe they uses system memory. I used a 6530D and overall it was not really better than my old oced 8600gt. in fact in Dead Space 2, it was slower. lol
Click to expand...

really? i would think a 6530d would be about twice as fast as a 8600gt. how far did you push that card?
 
jtenorj said:
really? i would think a 6530d would be about twice as fast as a 8600gt. how far did you push that card?
Click to expand...
the 6530D only has 320sp clocked at 443mhz. that right there would only make it marginally better than the 2600xt which had 120sp clocked at 800mhz. a stock 8600gt was basically even with the 2600xt but mine was oced by 20% on the memory and core which both scale really well in most games. plus the 6530D had to use system memory which slows in down a little. so bottom line is yes my oced 8600gt was just as fast as 6530D in the few games I tried and was even faster than the 6530D in Dead Space 2.
 
cannondale06 said:
the 6530D only has 320sp clocked at 443mhz. that right there would only make it marginally better than the 2600xt which had 120sp clocked at 800mhz. a stock 8600gt was basically even with the 2600xt but mine was oced by 20% on the memory and core which both scale really well in most games. plus the 6530D had to use system memory which slows in down a little. so bottom line is yes my oced 8600gt was just as fast as 6530D in the few games I tried and was even faster than the 6530D in Dead Space 2.
Click to expand...

ok, i can see that. especially with the sweet oc you got on the 8600gt. right on!
 
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