AMD's Steamroller core, found in Kaveri APUs, is an interesting duck. It's the first chip to ship with HSA support, the first CPU core that can be paired with a GCN-based graphics core, and it promised significant improvements in performance-per-clock that were then largely offset by a lower clock speed. Our investigation shows that the situation isn't that simple, however -- there are some areas, particularly on the APU side of the equation, where Steamroller is far better than its predecessor. This article is a low-level investigation into where the chip improved, where it fell short, and what AMD might do going forward.