OpenCL performance of next-gen low-power APUs

OpenCL performance preview part 2: Temash-2C and Kabini-4C

Besides the OpenCL performance preview going live for Saturn (or Bonaire) GPUs, there are a few gems that were left in the corner.

The OpenCL results for Dual-core Temash (presumably AMD A4-1200), and a quad-core Kabini for desktop also went online, dated February 11, 2013 and February 7, 2013 respectively. According to the OpenCL environment parameters, the GPU on dual-core Temash has two compute units running at 225 MHz and quad-core Kabini has the same GPU but running at a higher frequency of 496 MHz.

A little background information here, Kabini and Temash are based off the same SoC design, the design includes a maximum of four Jaguar CPU cores, and 2 GCN compute units (128 SPUs, 8 TMUs). Both will have FCH integrated on-die for a smaller device footprint, Kabini will target the 9W to 15W TDP space for value ultrathin notebooks, while Temash will target the tablet space with tablet-optimized I/Os.

If you are into codenames, the OpenCL environment parameters should provide you with enough information. The codename for the integrated GPU on Kabini and Temash SoC design is Kalindi, a river in West Bengal, India. And for those who are into device IDs, the GPU on dual-core Temash has a device ID of 9839, and 983D for the GPU on the quad-core Kabini. And so now you can guess how many GPU variants AMD has for the next-gen low-power APU lineups.  We are probably looking at a minimum of five variants.

And now we present you the numbers. These tests were performed under Windows OS with an OpenCL driver version 1124.2 (SDK 2.8).

OpenCL performance of Kabini-4C vs. Temash-2C, both having 2 compute units.

OpenCL performance of Kabini-4C vs. Temash-2C, both having 2 compute units.

We are seeing a 120% clock speed difference here, translating to nearly 90% more performance for the quad-core Kabini APU. Another interesting point here is that we see the quad-core Kabini being comparable to the Radeon HD 6520G graphics (BeaverCreek GPU with 320 SPUs, 16 TMUs running at 400 MHz) on the AMD A6-3400M APU.

OpenCL performance of Kabini-4C compared to Radeon HD 6520G (AMD A6-3400M APU)

The take home message of the day? Keep an eye on Temash and Kabini, they might surprise you in games with visual effects written in OpenCL and DirectCompute, like TressFX. Currently the duo are scheduled to launch in the second quarter this year. S|A

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Leo Yim

Author at SemiAccurate
Leo Yim is our correspondent from the far flung reaches of East Asia. Fluent in Mandarin, Cantonese and English he'd rather be talking about computers no matter what language. A true detail man he dreams of building gaming rigs from workstation class parts.