AMD A8-7100 vs AMD A6-7000

AMD A8-7100

The AMD A8-7100 is a power efficient ULV (Ultra Low Voltage) quad-core processor based on the Kaveri architecture. It was revealed in June 2014 for notebooks and is manufactured by GlobalFoundries using a 28 nm SHP process. In addition to having two CPU modules for a total of four integer cores clocked at 1.8 - 3.0 GHz, the AMD chip also integrates a Radeon R5 GPU clocked at up to 514 MHz with 256 GCN shaders and a dual-channel DDR3-1600 memory controller.

Architecture 

Kaveri is the successor to the 2013 Richland architecture (e.g. A10-5750M). The revised CPU cores, codenamed Steamroller, represent the third generation of the module-based Bulldozer design. A number of major changes include modified decoders (now one per integer core), optimized branch prediction, and increased L1 I-cache from 64 KB to 96 KB per module. These revisions boost the performance per clock slightly over a similarly clocked Richland APU. For more details about the AMD Kaveri architecture, see our detailed analysis here:

Analysis of the AMD Kaveri Notebook Platform

Performance 

According to our benchmarks, the A8-7100 offers a CPU performance similar to the Haswell-based Intel Core i3-4010U. While the Core i3 wins in single-thread benchmarks, the A8-7100 takes the lead in some multi-thread tests. Overall, the A8-7100 will be sufficient for all daily workloads (Office, Internet browsing, multimedia) as well as light multitasking.

Graphics

The Radeon R5 (Kaveri) GPU of the A8-7100 features a core clock of up to 514 MHz and 256 shader units. Since the GPU is based on AMD's GCN 1.1 architecture, both DirectX 11.2 "Tier 2" and Mantle are supported. Furthermore, the GPU can be used for general purpose computing in various applications, such as Adobe Photoshop via the OpenCL API. 

In terms of 3D performance, the GPU is roughly as fast as a dedicated GeForce 710M and can handle many current games at low settings and (W)XGA resolution (as of 2014).

Power Consumption

The power consumption of the entire APU is rated at 19 Watts, which is somewhat above the Haswell ULV CPUs from Intel (15 W including chipset). Nevertheless, the A8-7100 is suited for 12 - 13-inch notebooks or larger.

AMD A6-7000

The AMD A6-7000 is a mobile dual-core processor based on the Kaveri architecture. In addition to one CPU module (2 integer cores) clocked at 2.2 - 3.0 GHz, the chip also integrates a Radeon R4 graphics unit (192 GCN shaders, 533 MHz). According to its TDP of 17 watts, the APU is suitable even for very small and thin laptops (11 - 12 inches or bigger).