The 7870k: A GPU-Exclusive Solution that Falls Short

AMD's Ryzen 7 7870k is a mid-range CPU that, despite its impressive graphics performance, has limitations when it comes to pairing it with a GPU. The CPU's design focuses on delivering strong gaming performance, but this comes at the cost of flexibility and compatibility with other components.

In general, the 7870k is not designed to be used as a CPU-exclusive solution. Instead, it's meant to be paired with a high-end GPU to take advantage of AMD's dual Graphics Architecture (DGA). This approach offers significant performance gains in games like CS:GO, Dota, and LOL, where the 7870k can deliver a 2X performance increase compared to its own specifications. However, this comes at a price: the CPU is essentially "throwing away" half of its die area dedicated to graphics processing.

The 7870k's true strengths lie in low-end games like CS:GO, Dota, and LOL, where it can deliver impressive performance on its own or with a DGPU. However, when paired with a high-end GPU, the 7870k's performance is significantly surpassed by more powerful configurations, such as AMD's own 760 or 860k plus a DGPU.

For those who are looking to build a mid-range system, the 7870k may seem like an attractive option. However, for most users, spending $20-40 extra on a DGPU will provide significantly better performance and flexibility. In fact, AMD's own 760 or 860k plus a DGPU is a more viable solution than the 7870k in many use cases.

The only primary use cases where the 7870k makes sense are in foreign markets where the price disparity between the CPU and GPU is much greater, or in unique form factor builds that don't allow for a traditional GPU installation. These scenarios are relatively niche, but they do represent potential opportunities for AMD to market the 7870k as a more affordable option.

In general, the 7870k is not particularly competitive against other CPUs on the market. Its performance in standalone applications is not exceptional, and it can be outperformed by lower-end options like Intel's Core i3 or i5 processors.

If AMD were to drop the price of the 7870k more permanently, around $120, it would become a much more viable option for builders on a budget. At this price point, the gap between DGPU-plus-CPU solutions and traditional configurations would be significantly reduced, making the 7870k a more attractive option for those looking to save money without sacrificing performance.

Ultimately, for most users, the 7870k is not a bad processor at all – it's just not designed to be used as a CPU-exclusive solution. In games like CS:GO, Dota, and LOL, it can deliver impressive performance on its own or with a DGPU, making it a solid choice for those who prioritize gaming above all else. However, for more general use cases, there are better options available that offer greater flexibility and value.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enhey everyone I'm Steve from Gamers nexus.net and today we're talking about amd's A10 7870k Apu this is the new Apu that's been a refresh to the 7850k so this is sort of familiar to their recent r300 series refresh of the r200 series in that it's not an architectural update to the existing cavar platform but it enhances it by doing a couple of things like clock rate increases and that's really primarily where the change is with the A10 7870k so a couple of things and then we'll jump into the specs and Benchmark it and all that the A10 7870k is generally priced at about $150 on Amazon or other retailers online I've seen it for $120 there was a one-day sale where it hit that low so that is something we'll keep in mind during the conclusion but at 150 that's what you should expect to pay for it on average so jumping straight into the specs here the A10 7870k is an AMD Apu that means has integrated graphics on it unlike the Athlon X4 series which effectively takes these chips and disables the igp component so the integrated Graphics uses an R7 graphics processor and with amds apus that takes about 50% of the die so it's really quite a lot of the total die size is dedicated to the igp and for other specs the 7870k is effectively identical to the 7850k except for clock rate so it's got four CPU cores eight GPU cores it uses R7 graphics and the 7870k has a 4.1 GHz turbo clock and 3.9 GHz base and the 7850k is 4.0 and 3.7 so that's a 0.1 difference on the turbo and 02 difference on the base clock and then it's got the same cache 4 megabytes of L2 but the GPU is overclocked actually somewhat reasonably it goes to 866 MHz from 720 MHz on the 7 50k so that is a fairly reasonable overclock that is more than 100 MHz it's 146 MHz OC on the GPU component the A10 7870k Apu is an fm2 plus socketed processor it goes into fm2 plus boards and it also uses the cavar platform so that means the same chipsets associated with cavar apus and the Richland and cavar CPUs will be used here so that would be a88x at the high end for your Prim chipsets that allows for overclocking and Crossfire SLI things like that this Apu is on the same nomenclature that AMD launched a number of years ago the bulldozer pile driver Steamroller initiative it's using the steamroller architecture and Steamroller Advanced amds positioning for IPC and single-threaded performance which is something that bulldozer and pile driver were really not very good at so Steam Roller did Advance those things this is all kind of old news at this point we're just recapping what's happened up till now and amd's Steamroller architecture is still very much an arithmetic and integer powerered Arc it's much better at arithmetic processing and compute and this remains true with their gpus as well if you look at the Fiji architecture it's really quite impressive for compute it has a huge Shader array and that's something we discuss in the fury X review if you're curious what all that is about so that continues with the apus but that means that they're not necessarily inherently that great at gaming so that's what we're benchmarking here we're trying to see a few things one at what point does the CPU component of the 7870k bottleneck when we couple it with a high-end GPU or mid-range GPU and two how well do the integrated Graphics perform for gaming so that would include csgo and DOTA testing at the low end and then three we coupled the competing processors at a very low price point with an appropriate dedicated or discret GPU solution dgpu so that would be the G 3258 at $65 plus the $96 now deprecated R7 250X and the 760k which has been replaced by the 860k which is a $75 processor coupled with the same R7 250X so those two solutions are $10 to $20 more than the 7870k which is becoming a decent jump at the $20 more price point that would be the AMD solution but the Intel solution is only $10 more and is something that we'll investigate as an alter alternative let's dive into the benchmarks here and see how the Apu performs we're going to start with the igp performance using the R7 graphics processor the 7870k isn't that bad at csgo on Ultra or Dota 2 on medium settings this is about where the 7870 K's GPU belongs for performance and it's not great but it's certainly playable at about 60 FPS or a little more in some cases and that said the 7870k is rapidly outpaced by the CPU plus DG GPU solutions by nearly 2x in GTA 5 the g3258 looks playable at an average FPS of more than 70 in some instances but has a dismal 0.1% low of four that makes for a jarring and unpleasant experience this is exactly why we test frame time variance and in this instance you're going to want to opt for the slower average FPS AMD 760k Plus dgpu Solution over the g3258 strictly because of this performance at .1% lows and that is a Threading issue looking at CPU performance only by coupling a 980 TI with the CPUs we see where GPU bottlenecks exist in certain games on the CPUs the 7870k is outpaced readily by the 4160 which is actually a cheaper CPU at $117 and to this end if you're buying mid-range or higher end gpus and coupling them with a mid $100 CPU for instance it makes better sense to buy an I3 or cheap I5 than the 7870k the 7870k is just not designed to be used as a CPU exclusive solution you're basically throwing out 50% of the die immediately that's dedicated to Graphics because you're replacing it with something significantly better that can't be coupled using amd's dual Graphics architecture the 7870k does well in one place and one place only and that is with games like csgo DOTA and LOL and if you're playing any one of those games you actually get about a 2X performance increase by opting for amd's own 760 or 860k plus a dgpu now that is A10 to $20 jump in price so that is certainly of note if that's absolutely unaffordable then the 7870k is really not bad at low end games like csgo DOTA and LOL but in general it's going to be worth spending the extra at least 10 to 20 because you get a huge gain in graphics performance you're going to be able to play other games like GTA 5 on normal where the 7870k would not be able to tolerate those games without a g GPU on its own to this end there are only a few primary use cases for the 7870k and those would be in foreign markets where the price disparity is much different and in the Asia Market I know the 787k is priced much differently and potentially more affordable I'm really not familiar with that market but that is one target that AMD could be going after and the Second Use case would be in odd unique form factor builds where you're building in an enclosure that doesn't even allow for a GPU of any kind it doesn't have any expansion slots and a few of those boxes exist Silverstone makes a few they're basically htpc boxes that resemble a DVR and don't even have room for a dgpu but a lot of them at this point do they just rotate the GPU and use a uh an expansion slot that extends to the GPU wherever it is so it's an interesting Market the 7870k is not particularly good against the competition but it is fairly impressive from a graphic standpoint Standalone so the csgo DOTA and L performance are all very good you can play all those games on the 7870k in general we would strongly advise Builders who are using a tight budget to investigate the option of an 860k plus a d GPU at the low end rather than the 7870k if you absolutely can't afford that $20 the g3258 is not a bad consideration just keep in mind that the 0.1% lows on the Intel g3258 dual core processor are pretty bad in some games like GTA that are heavily multi-threaded but in those games generally the 7870k would not be a good performer anyway so that's another thing to keep in mind so if AMD drops the price more permanently to about $120 which is where we saw it during a brief sale online then it becomes a much more viable platform it's it's something that is much easier to recommend because at 120 you have now a 30 to $40 price Gap at some ends between the dgpu plus CPU Solutions and that begins to put your build into another price category altogether so 120 if you see it for that and you're trying to save a lot of money and build something that basically exists only to play games like DOTA and CSO and maybe do your media Management on like a TV htpc or something then this is an okay processor to consider but in any other use case very heavily consider the option of dgpu plus CPU and even amd's own 860k is better with a dgpu than than this solution so it's not like we're saying just by Intel because that's not the case here so that is all for this review check out the link in the description below for the full review all the charts things like that and please consider looking into our patreon campaign that's something we've been pushing lately and we're trying to use it to Leverage The viewer base to eliminate some of our Reliance upon traditional advertising as a means for generating revenue and creating content because that gives us a lot more freedom to continue being objective and critical in the way that we are so check that out if you are interested in like our content but only in those instances and I will see you all next time forhey everyone I'm Steve from Gamers nexus.net and today we're talking about amd's A10 7870k Apu this is the new Apu that's been a refresh to the 7850k so this is sort of familiar to their recent r300 series refresh of the r200 series in that it's not an architectural update to the existing cavar platform but it enhances it by doing a couple of things like clock rate increases and that's really primarily where the change is with the A10 7870k so a couple of things and then we'll jump into the specs and Benchmark it and all that the A10 7870k is generally priced at about $150 on Amazon or other retailers online I've seen it for $120 there was a one-day sale where it hit that low so that is something we'll keep in mind during the conclusion but at 150 that's what you should expect to pay for it on average so jumping straight into the specs here the A10 7870k is an AMD Apu that means has integrated graphics on it unlike the Athlon X4 series which effectively takes these chips and disables the igp component so the integrated Graphics uses an R7 graphics processor and with amds apus that takes about 50% of the die so it's really quite a lot of the total die size is dedicated to the igp and for other specs the 7870k is effectively identical to the 7850k except for clock rate so it's got four CPU cores eight GPU cores it uses R7 graphics and the 7870k has a 4.1 GHz turbo clock and 3.9 GHz base and the 7850k is 4.0 and 3.7 so that's a 0.1 difference on the turbo and 02 difference on the base clock and then it's got the same cache 4 megabytes of L2 but the GPU is overclocked actually somewhat reasonably it goes to 866 MHz from 720 MHz on the 7 50k so that is a fairly reasonable overclock that is more than 100 MHz it's 146 MHz OC on the GPU component the A10 7870k Apu is an fm2 plus socketed processor it goes into fm2 plus boards and it also uses the cavar platform so that means the same chipsets associated with cavar apus and the Richland and cavar CPUs will be used here so that would be a88x at the high end for your Prim chipsets that allows for overclocking and Crossfire SLI things like that this Apu is on the same nomenclature that AMD launched a number of years ago the bulldozer pile driver Steamroller initiative it's using the steamroller architecture and Steamroller Advanced amds positioning for IPC and single-threaded performance which is something that bulldozer and pile driver were really not very good at so Steam Roller did Advance those things this is all kind of old news at this point we're just recapping what's happened up till now and amd's Steamroller architecture is still very much an arithmetic and integer powerered Arc it's much better at arithmetic processing and compute and this remains true with their gpus as well if you look at the Fiji architecture it's really quite impressive for compute it has a huge Shader array and that's something we discuss in the fury X review if you're curious what all that is about so that continues with the apus but that means that they're not necessarily inherently that great at gaming so that's what we're benchmarking here we're trying to see a few things one at what point does the CPU component of the 7870k bottleneck when we couple it with a high-end GPU or mid-range GPU and two how well do the integrated Graphics perform for gaming so that would include csgo and DOTA testing at the low end and then three we coupled the competing processors at a very low price point with an appropriate dedicated or discret GPU solution dgpu so that would be the G 3258 at $65 plus the $96 now deprecated R7 250X and the 760k which has been replaced by the 860k which is a $75 processor coupled with the same R7 250X so those two solutions are $10 to $20 more than the 7870k which is becoming a decent jump at the $20 more price point that would be the AMD solution but the Intel solution is only $10 more and is something that we'll investigate as an alter alternative let's dive into the benchmarks here and see how the Apu performs we're going to start with the igp performance using the R7 graphics processor the 7870k isn't that bad at csgo on Ultra or Dota 2 on medium settings this is about where the 7870 K's GPU belongs for performance and it's not great but it's certainly playable at about 60 FPS or a little more in some cases and that said the 7870k is rapidly outpaced by the CPU plus DG GPU solutions by nearly 2x in GTA 5 the g3258 looks playable at an average FPS of more than 70 in some instances but has a dismal 0.1% low of four that makes for a jarring and unpleasant experience this is exactly why we test frame time variance and in this instance you're going to want to opt for the slower average FPS AMD 760k Plus dgpu Solution over the g3258 strictly because of this performance at .1% lows and that is a Threading issue looking at CPU performance only by coupling a 980 TI with the CPUs we see where GPU bottlenecks exist in certain games on the CPUs the 7870k is outpaced readily by the 4160 which is actually a cheaper CPU at $117 and to this end if you're buying mid-range or higher end gpus and coupling them with a mid $100 CPU for instance it makes better sense to buy an I3 or cheap I5 than the 7870k the 7870k is just not designed to be used as a CPU exclusive solution you're basically throwing out 50% of the die immediately that's dedicated to Graphics because you're replacing it with something significantly better that can't be coupled using amd's dual Graphics architecture the 7870k does well in one place and one place only and that is with games like csgo DOTA and LOL and if you're playing any one of those games you actually get about a 2X performance increase by opting for amd's own 760 or 860k plus a dgpu now that is A10 to $20 jump in price so that is certainly of note if that's absolutely unaffordable then the 7870k is really not bad at low end games like csgo DOTA and LOL but in general it's going to be worth spending the extra at least 10 to 20 because you get a huge gain in graphics performance you're going to be able to play other games like GTA 5 on normal where the 7870k would not be able to tolerate those games without a g GPU on its own to this end there are only a few primary use cases for the 7870k and those would be in foreign markets where the price disparity is much different and in the Asia Market I know the 787k is priced much differently and potentially more affordable I'm really not familiar with that market but that is one target that AMD could be going after and the Second Use case would be in odd unique form factor builds where you're building in an enclosure that doesn't even allow for a GPU of any kind it doesn't have any expansion slots and a few of those boxes exist Silverstone makes a few they're basically htpc boxes that resemble a DVR and don't even have room for a dgpu but a lot of them at this point do they just rotate the GPU and use a uh an expansion slot that extends to the GPU wherever it is so it's an interesting Market the 7870k is not particularly good against the competition but it is fairly impressive from a graphic standpoint Standalone so the csgo DOTA and L performance are all very good you can play all those games on the 7870k in general we would strongly advise Builders who are using a tight budget to investigate the option of an 860k plus a d GPU at the low end rather than the 7870k if you absolutely can't afford that $20 the g3258 is not a bad consideration just keep in mind that the 0.1% lows on the Intel g3258 dual core processor are pretty bad in some games like GTA that are heavily multi-threaded but in those games generally the 7870k would not be a good performer anyway so that's another thing to keep in mind so if AMD drops the price more permanently to about $120 which is where we saw it during a brief sale online then it becomes a much more viable platform it's it's something that is much easier to recommend because at 120 you have now a 30 to $40 price Gap at some ends between the dgpu plus CPU Solutions and that begins to put your build into another price category altogether so 120 if you see it for that and you're trying to save a lot of money and build something that basically exists only to play games like DOTA and CSO and maybe do your media Management on like a TV htpc or something then this is an okay processor to consider but in any other use case very heavily consider the option of dgpu plus CPU and even amd's own 860k is better with a dgpu than than this solution so it's not like we're saying just by Intel because that's not the case here so that is all for this review check out the link in the description below for the full review all the charts things like that and please consider looking into our patreon campaign that's something we've been pushing lately and we're trying to use it to Leverage The viewer base to eliminate some of our Reliance upon traditional advertising as a means for generating revenue and creating content because that gives us a lot more freedom to continue being objective and critical in the way that we are so check that out if you are interested in like our content but only in those instances and I will see you all next time for\n"