YOYOTech launches range of low-cost Kaveri gaming rigs

With Intel continuing to commit ever larger amounts of die space to graphics, AMD's decision to acquire ATi in 2006 and begin fusing the CPU with the GPU, looks like a smart one. UK specialist system builder, YOYOTech, has wasted no time in getting a full range of Kaveri-powered gaming rigs to market. KitGuru lifts the flaps to see what's under the bonnet. 

While the majority of the world's leading technology sites give ample pagination to the latest and greatest gaming components – with more GDDR5 than your average netbook – the reality is that almost all of us will be dealing with two significant issues when it comes to our next desktop rig:-

• General budgetary constraints
• The other half looking at the credit card bill when it arrives – and wondering where their diamond earings/holiday went

The latest generation of APU from AMD goes someway to getting you a new rig, without the pain. AMD claims that, in certain situations, you can get Kaveri graphics scores that are up to 35% faster than the previous generation, Richland.

At the very least, according to AMD's Developer Relations Guru Nic Thibieroz, almost every game on the market should be playable (i.e. at least 30fps) with a fast Kaveri chip. Sure, you might need to play with the image quality settings, but simply being able to play HD at native resolution, should make everything look better.

Then there is the increased flexibility over ‘CrossFire' with the 7000 series APUs. According to AMD, you can now pair almost any 7-series APU with any 7-series graphics card and get some kind of boost. Inflexibility in this area was a significant drawback to upgrading the 6-series APUs. Trying to work out which Radeon was compatible with which APU was something of a dark art. Essentially, you were being asked to ‘guess' if a compatibility entry existed in a drive table. Not easy.

According to KitGuru's recent exclusive interview with AMD's head of Product Marketing for Kaveri, Sasa Marinkovic, Kaveri's new memory system is one of the key reasons for this increased compatibility, performance and flexibility.

So what has YOYOTech brought to the party, just as AMD completes its launch?

Well, there is a Warbird Kaveri 2.0 with the addition of an R7 260X graphics card and A10 7850K running at 4GHz for £899, but the one that's caught our eye is the sub-£500 YOYOTech Warbird Kaveri 1.1 system that aims to deliver 1080p gaming solely with the GPU cores integrated into the A-10 7700K. It is built on Gigabyte's GA-F2A88XM-DS2 FM2+ mainboard and ships with the latest version of Windows 8.1 (Start button and all).

It has a Cooler Master EVO 103 cooler, so you will be able to test your clocking skills and the system comes complete with a gaming keyboard and mouse.

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KitGuru says: We're expecting a glut of these systems to hit the market over the next 2 months.Will they win the battle for hearts, minds and wallets?

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