AMD Announces $137 A10-7870K ‘Godavari’ APU For Budget Gamers

AMD has just announced a new processor that will sit atop the leaderboard when it comes to FM2+ processors. The new processor, the A10-7870K APU, is priced at a respectable $137 and will be available beginning June 2.

Before we start getting into the meat of this announcement, we must clear up a bit of confusion that is surrounding this release. AMD has given the A10-7870K the codename of Godavari, however, it is actually a light refresh of the existing Kaveri core meaning that it’s still using that microarchitecture along with a 28nm manufacturing process.

With that out the way, let’s look at the A10-7870K for what it really is — a higher clocked version of the existing A10-7850K. You still get four CPU cores and 8 GPU cores, but the base CPU clock has been increased from 3.7GHz to 3.9GHz, while the Max Turbo frequency has increased from 4GHz to 4.1GHz. Even the GPU has received a speed bump, rising from a core clock of 720MHz to 866MHz. Not surprisingly, the A10-7870K is DirectX 12/Mantle compliant and features support for AMD FreeSync, Virtual Super Resolution, and HSA.

Now that the A10-7870K is strutting its stuff as the king of the castle, the A10-7850K, which originally debuted at $173, now has a MSRP of $127, which undercuts its newer sibling by just $10.

Now it wouldn’t be AMD if the company didn’t get in a few digs at Intel. AMD, which is billing the A10-7870K as the perfect companion for “Online and e-Sports Gaming,” is aiming the processor directly at the Intel Core i3 4370 (MSRP $150). AMD is proud to brag that its single-processor solution mops the floor of the Core i3 4370 when it is paired with a “comparable” NVIDIA GeForce GT 740 add-in GPU. AMD is also quick to point out that this graphics solution adds another $80 to the cost of your budget gaming rig; money that could be spent on more important hardware like an SSD or better cooling.

Even when compared to the aged A10-7850K, the A10-7870K offers some tangible performance benefits — especially in 3DMark and Basemark CL —for its piddling $10 increase in price. But AMD says that its latest processor doesn’t just excel in synthetic benchmarks and that it will provide respectable performance in games like StarCraft II, League of Legends, and Counter Strike: Global Offensive.

Needless to say, the A10-7870K offers a lot of bang for the buck and makes a compelling alternative to Intel’s competing solution. If you’re a gamer on the budget, skip right on over the A10-7850K and head straight for the A10-7850K when it becomes widely available next week.