Hardware AMD A8-3850 Review

Not intended as a criticism as such, but seeing as you tested and saw such a big difference between 1,333MHz and 1,600MHz memory, and the chip is rated at up to 1,866MHz memory, I'm just surprised you didn't then test it with some 1,866MHz to see what it could really do...

I do think this is a great product though. As a few others have said, I can see it eating up the low end of the ready-built market - I think MrJay covered some of the reasons why quite nicely.

That's assuming Intel doesn't do what it did before and illegally bribe/threaten manufacturers and stockists not to build and sell the thing of course. That's half the reason AMD are so far behind Intel now: The last time they came out with a good product they were blocked from selling it and gaining market share. A couple of billion quid years and years later doesn't really make up for the lost brand recognition and lost time and money spent on R&D.

 

Isn't there a hardwired TDP limit meaning if you draw too much power from the cpu then the gpu will go slow and vica versa? If so you can only crank up the cpu or the gpu, not both.

 

And on a slightly different tack, I think it would go great with one of these:

http://www.quietpc.com/gb-en-gbp/products/pc-cases/nof-set-a40

A totally silent HTPC that can also game. (Just a shame the case is a bit fugly...).

 

MY HTPC is hooked up to a 1080P LCD TV NOT a 22" monitor...

Fail !

dunx

 

Yes and No. The UEFI is always designed to over-write any limitation to allow overclocking.

The upcoming Opterons have an adjustable TDP for server admins.

 

But being in your front room you are unlikely to be sat on top of it in which case 720p will scale nicely and you probably won't even notice, works for the consoles.

 

I'm also for a little 1866MHz addition to the graphs on the last page, just so people can see what it does, if anything.

Great review by the way, looking forward to the future reviews of llano

 

Well for an inexpensive low power "APU" it isn't that tragic. However that a dual core processor kicks its but up and down the street in anything CPU bound is pretty bad. Combine that with significantly higher power consumption, Prime 95 loaded it was burning 26w more power, heavy gaming I bet it is a lot higher than that with the GPU loaded. Sure it performs better in gaming because of the better iGPU...but I've got news, in inexpensive discrete GPU and an i3, or frankly a new SB PENTIUM (which is quite a bit cheaper) is going to stomp on the new Llano desktop parts...probably only cost a hair more, and might actually use a bit less power.

Food for thoughts. The cheapest possible machine that can play games probably still goes to these Llano machines, but for a very small cost increment (pentium SB, "low end" board and something like a 6550, maybe $30-70 more which is pretty small for total system price), you can have a much better Intel based dual core SB processor and discrete GPU.

 

I doubt most 'mainstream' users would be able to tell the difference between this APU and one of the latest core i3's from intel, heck I would hasten to guess that without the aid of side by side comparisons or benchmarking / graphs we wouldn't be able to either.

My point was this APU is 'fast enough' is pretty much every scenario a mainstream user will throw at it.

Of course it's architectural deficiencies will show it up in a game that is known to favour IPC over multithreading but in the majority of apps the real world difference will be much smaller.

 

The real question here is if AMD can leverage on GPU Compute power in those kinds of applications that run 50% slower than the intel offering. I'm supposing that the Gimp version used in these tests doesn't have any significant GPU acceleration built in. I'm not an expert on what software can see performance improvements through a stronger graphics unit, but AMD really needs to work to tell it's users what software sees major improvements from their powerful embedded GPU.

It's not completely up to AMD to implement GPU Compute in software across the board, but it is up to them to make it easy for their customers to know what to get.

 

Too bad that this is only a paper-tiger currently. You can't get hold of any Llano-based notebook so far allthough they officially launched allmost four weeks ago.
There's only test-samples outthere, but nothing for the end-consumers.

But let's speak about performance for a moment.....

Look at the charts you did there. It's a quadcore CPU vs. an intel dual-core with HT. Still in productivity tasks the intel i3-2100 beats the A8-3850. Only Cinebench profits from the built in GPU-power offered by AMD.
And are we seriously talking about playing games without a discrete GPU... a part that is available for some $50-60 and paired with a current X4 Phenom CPU even better for gaming while at the same price?

No sorry, but this Llano APU thingy doesn't cut it. It sounded very good indeed, but the result is lacking and not worth the money imho. And for notebooks a first-gen intel i5 + discrete GPU is aswell superior and not a lot more expensive. You can get an intel i5-480M + Radeon HD6470 for $450 allready and beat the Llano APU by a mile or you top up to the i5-2410M + HD6470 available for $550.

Seriously. Those APUs are totally overhyped and not worth their money.

 

We used the multitasking test from our Media Benchmark suite to generate the power draw figures as this loads both the CPU and GPU portions of the chip (we stated this on the Power Consumption page).

Also bear in mind that the Intel chip was tested with an M-ATX as opposed to ATX board which can affect power draw (again, we highlight this on the power consumption page). Obviously this isn't ideal but as i've said in this thread already, the M-ATX board we were going to test Llano with got bricked by a bad BIOS update when we were setting up for testing.

EDIT: Hmmm, well I did write that in the original article but it seems it got changed back to the whole 'we tested using prime95' stuff before it went up. I've changed it back now.

 

In pure gaming terms Llano would better a SB i5 coupled with a HD6470. The HD6470 is the weak link here as it has a mere 160SP and a 64bit memory interface.

 

Again, I agree but it simply came down to time, bricking our test board put us up against it - there simply wasn't enough hours in the day. I'm sure we'll revisit it in the future.

 

cheers.

 

I think part of the issue is that the K10.5 CPU just isn't up to snuff. When you combine that with having to keep within the TDP of both that CPU and something vaguely equivelent to a 6450 GPU and still keep within a resonable TDP, you have sacraficed performance. Example, look at the CPU clocks...lower than last generation AMD quad core phenoms. The tweaked Llano CPU end of things is supposedly around 5% faster clock for clock (which frankly considering a process shrink, even if you aren't changing the core any is pretty pathetic), but it is running at much slower clocks because of integrating the GPU.

It think it is a decent idea for the real entry level bargain basement machines, but it doesn't even come up to the level of a mid grade machine. If you are spending the money on that you either A) Want a lot better CPU compute power as a workstation user or B) Want better GPU performance for gaming or C) all of the above. Llano can't deliver in a midgrade machine and deffinitely not a high end. The Phenoms and Thubans could at least grace the "lower end" of midgrade compared to Intel...but the Llano's can't accomplish that.

Now maybe Bulldozer has a shot at the mid level computers, but I ain't holding my breath.

Looking at "APUs" both desktop and laptop parts, it seems like the biggest issue is just trying to do too much with the TDP you have available. I think it is going to take at least another process shrink and some further advancements in design to really warrant considering an "APU" as anything that can really be in a midgrade machine of anytype. Intel at least has a really good CPU even if the GPU isn't much more than adaquete for basic tasks and very casual gaming. The AMD GPU in this case is better for the casual gaming, and might even handle a few "serious" games at low resolutions and detail turned way down, but the CPU end of things really is tragic.

At least with the Intel you can always through in a discrete GPU and have a kick butt computer. Throw a discrete GPU on to the Llano machine and I doubt you'd improve performance much at all, as the CPU is going to be holding it back big time then.

 

I think most people make the mistake of looking at these chips from an enthusiast point of view. sure paying a few more bucks gets you an AM3/ Core i3 rig with a dedicated card. however if you look at it as an OEM they make lots of sense. Low power, cheap, able to fit into a tiny case while still being reasonably powerful enough for most things. Thats a whole lot of plus points that the marketing people can leverage on.

 

Can someone explain to me why in the multitasking stage of the CPC test suite a quad core at 2.9GHz gets 757 points and a 2.66GHz dual gets 1000 points?
CPC even say themselves for that part of the test: "..to run multiple applications well you need a powerful (ideally multi-core) CPU and plenty of RAM."

The overall score confuses me too. The A8, a processor with twice as many cores and each at a higher frequency, only achieves 59 points more than the E6750?

 

As a famous smuggler once said "Don't get excited!"

This has only shown what a decent intregrated GPU can do. What this doesn't show is a decent GPU and a decent CPU. Even the Intel Dual Core ran a few rings around this AMD Quad Core.

Not interested in this at all. Hands up, whose bought a cheap GPU recently?...........

I thought not.

Add this product to the pissing contest shelf and move along.

 

I imagine prices will settle out on motherboards, and if the 3800 can appear for under £95 then this may still work out.

I personally think if OEMs can crowbar this into a footprint approximatly the size of an ATX mobo box, then it would make for a pretty decent casual LAN party box.

Also, any word on xfireing with a discreet card?