AMD Intros A10-7890K, Fastest Godavari APU Yet – Features 4.3 GHz Boost, Also Announces Refreshed AM3+ and FM2+ Boards

Hassan Mujtaba

AMD has officially announced at CES 2016 that they will be launching their fastest Godavari APU yet, the A10-7890K this quarter. The A10-7890K APU was confirmed a while ago but we haven't seen it being introduced to the desktop market but now AMD has finally confirmed that their fastest APU yet will be available to users in Q1 2016 along with refreshed motherboards series and the latest Wraith CPU cooler.

AMD A10-7890K To Be The Fastest APU Yet, 4.3 GHz Boost Clock

First of all, being simply known as the Kaveri-Refresh platform, Godavari features the same architectural enhancements as Kaveri with the same CPU and GPU cores. We are talking about x86 Steamroller and GCN here which have already been fused on the current AMD A-7000 Series offerings. Godavari will retain the maximum four x86 core and 512 stream processor design and will be available in several variants as a part to refresh the current A-Series lineup. AMD uses the 7000 series branding for Godavari based desktop chips and 8000 series branding for the OEM chips. The new chips stick to the FM2+ platform supporting DDR3 memory at 2133 MHz.

The AMD A10-7890K is going to be the fastest AMD that AMD has launched yet. The AMD A10-7890K being the flagship APU of the lineup featues a 4 core and 4 thread design. The chip boasts a clock speed of 4.1 GHz base and 4.3 GHz boost while featuring an unlocked design for overclocking. The chip is featuring the Radeon R7 graphics core based off the Sea Islands GCN architecture that has 512 streaming cores and a clock speed of 900 MHz. The chip will feature 4 MB of L2 cache, 95W TDP and DDR3 memory support of up to 2133 MHz. It will feature a price close to $139.99 US since that is what the A10-7870K currently retails for in the market. There's no precise date or price given at the moment but Q1 2016 is confirmed to be the launch time frame.

APU NameAMD A10-7890KAMD A10-7870KAMD A10-7860KAMD A8-7670KAMD A8-7650KAMD A6-7470KAMD Athlon X4 845
Family NameGodavariKaveriGodavariKaveriKaveriGodavariCaarrizo
Process Node28nm28nm28nm28nm28nm28nm28nm
Architecturex86 Steamrollerx86 Steamrollerx86 Steamrollerx86 Steamrollerx86 Steamrollerx86 Steamrollerx86 Excavator
Cores/Threads4/44/44/44/44/42/24/4
Base Clock4.1 GHz3.9 GHz3.6 GHz3.6 GHz3.3 GHz3.7 GHz3.5 GHz
Turbo Clock4.3 GHz4.1 GHz4.0 GHz3.9 GHz3.8 GHz4.0 GHz3.8 GHz
L2 Cache4 MB4 MB4 MB4 MB4 MB4 MB2 MB
Unlocked DesignYesYesYesYesYesYesYes
Graphics CoreGCN Radeon R7 SeriesGCN Radeon R7 SeriesGCN Radeon R7 SeriesGCN Radeon R7 SeriesGCN Radeon R7 SeriesGCN Radeon R5 SeriesN/A
GPU Cores512 SPs512 SPs384 SPs384 SPs384 SPs256 SPsN/A
GPU Clock900 MHz866 MHz757 MHz757 MHz720 MHz800 MHzN/A
TDP95W95W65W95W95W65W65W
Launch2016201520162015201520162016

As for performance and clock speeds, the clock speeds will obviously get a slight bump since that is what’s the refresh is all about. The chips will retain their TDPs. As for the performance, it will be anywhere from 5-10% better than the current Kaveri APUs due to better driver support and improved clock speeds. Aside from the APU lineup, AMD also launched the Wraith CPU cooler which we have covered extensively in an article before and since it is already being bundled with some FX Series processors, there's no doubt that it will start shipping with more and more processors later this year as it is planned for launch in Q1 2016 too.

Last but not least, AMD's board partners are finally offering refresh AM3+ and FM2+ motherboards for users who are planning to purchase a current generation AMD CPU or APU platform. The new updates to the lineup will include the addition of USB 3.1 and M.2 storage support (through external controllers). This sounds like a really good update even though AMD will be soon introducing their AM4 motherboards which will be part of their unification strategy that brings APUs and CPUs on a single platform/socket. MSI, Gigabyte and ASUS all will have new refreshed boards available in a short while.

ASUS has already showcased one of their latest AM3+ motherboard at CES 2016 known as the ASUS 970 PRO Gaming / Aura motherboard. The board comes with the AMD 970+ (SB950) PCH and is the world's first board based on AMD to get certified NVIDIA SLI support. It comes with RGB LEDs which are a trend setter for boards this year and has a tons of features which include M.2 SSD (NVMe) support, ASUS SupremeFX, Sonic Radar II technology and Intel's Gigabit Ethernet LAN. There are four DDR3 DIMM slots and expansion slots include two PCI-e 2.0 x16, two PCI-e 2.0 x1 and two PCI slots. Storage options include 6 SATA III ports and there's a range of connectivity options on the I/O panel. Expect to see more of such boards in the months ahead.

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