AMD Releases eSports-focused A10-7870K Black Edition APU

AMD’s just-released A10-7870K is part of a Kaveri refresh that has an interesting focus: eSports. Well, to be more accurate, eSports on a budget. This $137 model APU is clocked a bit higher than the previous top-end model, with a max turbo of 4.1GHz, and stock speed of 3.9GHz. That’s not really what makes this chip special, though; that’s the IGP, which is gifted a clock boost of 146MHz, resulting in an 866MHz core clock.

AMD says the best competition for its A10-7870K is Intel’s Core i3-4370, which retails for $149. Versus that chip, the company says its 7870K can beat Intel’s offering by 5% in PCMark 8, and a staggering 129% in 3DMark. With that kind of gaming performance, AMD says that you’d have to purchase a GPU such as the NVIDIA GeForce GT 740, a card that costs about $90.

But what does that equate to? With the IGP alone, and max detail 1080p settings (with anti-aliasing), AMD says its 7870K can deliver 35 FPS in StarCraft II, 89 FPS in League of Legends (5 v 5), 49 FPS in Dota 2, and 62 FPS in Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. See what I mean by that eSports focus?

With the just-released (in early access) Dirt Rally, AMD says its new chip can hit 40 FPS at 1080p with medium settings – not bad given just how gorgeous the game is. Like its previous APUs, the A10-7870K can be paired up with a Radeon discrete card for hybrid CrossFire. If you were to do that with the lowly R7 250, an $80 card, the FPS can be increased to about 45 FPS, and the graphical detail be boosted to high.

That solution should also prove ideal once DirectX 12 games get here. In an example scenario given to us by AMD, a strategy game can make use of the APU with your discrete card to render different objects on the screen. They’d work in perfect symmetry, delivering a much improved experience.

AMD Kaveri Wafer Shot (click for 3840×2160)

The A10-7870K is compatible with all of AMD’s current chipsets, including the A88X, A78, A68H, and A58. It’s also compatible with AMD’s FreeSync technology, which could prove to be a boon for a modest graphics chip like what’s under the hood of the 7870K. Also, like any IGP, this one will greatly benefit from fast memory; going from 1 stick of DDR3-1600 to two sticks of DDR3-2400 will literally double the graphics performance. Paying more for faster RAM just to get better gaming performance is a bit strange, but would be worth it if you could score a good deal on a kit.

Overall, this looks to be a great offering from AMD. If there’s a downside, it’s that we were told it’d be a $137 chip, but Newegg currently has it listed for $149. That’s still a fair price, but it’d be nice to see it come down to what was anticipated.