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AMD Llano APU Review - Slow CPU, Fast GPU
Vigile writes "Though we did see the fruits of AMD's Fusion labor in the form of the Brazos platform late in 2010, Llano is the first mainstream part to be released that combines traditional x86 CPU cores with Radeon-based SIMD arrays for a heterogeneous computing environment. The A-series of APUs reviewed over at PC Perspective starts with the A8-3850 that is a combination of a true quad-core processor and 400 shader processors similar to those found in AMD's Radeon HD 5000 series of GPUs. The good news for the first desktop APU is that the integrated graphics blows past the best Intel has to offer on the Sandy Bridge platform by a factor of 2-4x in terms of gaming. The bad news is the CPU performance: running at only 2.9 GHz the Phenom-based x86 portion often finds itself behind even the dual-core Intel Core i3-2100. On the bright side you can pick one up next month for only $135."
I'm curious to see the output of this chip when mining Bitcoins. Bitcoin output depends heavily on the number of shaders and right now the Radeon 5000 series are the best value for your money, with a 5870 offering over 400 Mhash/s (which is a lot). CPU power on the other hand doesn't matter at all, so all in all this Liano chip sounds like the perfect candidate for a Bitcoin mining rig. With the current conditions, you'll probably earn your chip back in less than a month.
Pretty good is actually pretty bad.
On newegg that core i3-2100 is retailing for $124; how do the graphics in the llano stack up against the i3's graphics? Might not be such a bad deal at all.
Article (or at least the material they got from AMD) indicates that graphics is precisely where it shines, so an i3-class CPU with nearly-discrete-class graphics, at an i3 pricetag, sounds quite compelling.
Nice how the marketing worked on you.
This new AMD product specifically targets the budget user with occasional gamings. It allows entry level gaming, for the price of a very cheap CPU + GPU at lower TDP. It's also a better solution than a CPU + Discrete graphics because it already gives you entry level gaming without taking up a PCI-E slot; at the same time allows for asymmetrical CrossFire so in case you want to get a high end CPU you can see a benefit (in DX10 & DX11 titles)
This new APU from AMD shoots down any budget graphics Intel has to offer whilst giving you more CPU power to do anything Atom does.
At the end of the day, Core i3 + HD3000 costs more and has a higher idle power usage.
IMO the title should read: "Brilliant new budget gaming APU from AMD!"
Ladies and gentlemen, I remind you about how well-documented this sort of thing is: the wheel of reincarnation. Personally, I'm betting that hardware is now so disposable that we'll eventually get to having our machines in one hunk of silicon, and the wheel will stall.
Bio questions? Ask me to start a Q&A journal. Computer analogies available for most topics!
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/amd-a8-3850-llano,2975.html#xtor=RSS-182
Looks pretty solid for entry level stuff. Interesting to see the "Enhanced Bulldozer" design that also incorporates the GPU elements.
Come on little baby AI, practice speaking some more...
I can see CPUs being available now, but where are the boards to put them on?
Figure in redesign needed for software that expect GPU memory pipes when that memory is now more direct, and you easily see where significant improvement is yet to be noted. AMD realizes that and seems to purposely left Llano as limited edition for its speed. Meant for those that want to afford one strictly for optimization. The known slowness help identify potential optimization techniques. They already have one with faster core, yet to be released. Hold out if fast is all you want, as Llano seems strictly for developers.
To saw its slow is a little ridiculous. Compared to a 286? I know, that this is in comparison to other modern CPUs, but any modern CPU is pretty fast.
I wonder if AMD or Intel will ever manage to develop an x86 integrated chip for handheld devices. It would be pretty interesting to have binary compatability between desktop and handheld devices.
Whats the story on overclocking these things?
I'd imagine there's a whole new set of problems to overcome before they can be reliably tweaked by the end user
Well, people that don't want to reward Intel's illegal behavior for a starter. I recently got a Llano based laptop and was shocked at how well the chip handles the things that I do on a day to day basis. Sure, there's no chance of playing The Witcher or DNF on it, but it handles casual gaming just fine, especially the older games that I tend to like to play.
In practice, the dual core is much more responsive than the celeron I was using a couple years back, even though it's a third slower than that older Intel chip.
It's not for those that want top speeds, but it was substantially less expensive than the Intel option. A $100 price difference is pretty significant these days in terms of the machines that most people use. And in practice, I'm not so sure that it is only a $100 price difference as you then don't need to shell out for a graphics chip or the circuitry to make that worse. I ended up spending several hundred dollars less than I would have for the Intel option. Personally, I'd rather spend the money upgrading the warranty or paying for a back up plan.
The article does not test using Quick Sync technology for the video rendering portion. When this is turned on, an Intel HD3000 is 6 times faster at video encoding than a top-of-the-line Radeon. (Benchmarks here). And also some of the tests show the Core i7-970 is twice as SLOW than a Core i5?? Gotta call B.S. on that one. And what's the point of testing a dual card (APU + Radeon) against a single Intel integrated graphics? We all know the HD3000 isn't for gaming, that's why you get a $65 Radeon to run your games. Most mid-range laptops come with some sort of discrete graphics card that rivals the GPU performance of the Llano. I waited around for Llano and was severely dissapointed with the CPU results. TomsHardware and Anandtech reviewed it in-depth and found the gaming performance was comparable against a mid-range discrete card, along with similar battery life and similar heat. However cost is the only thing working in AMD's favor. I still don't see why somebody would buy a 4-year old CPU architecture that will be EOL'd by the time Bulldozer comes out in a few months.
The i3 does not have the best graphics for the SB, the i7 does. They say it is 2x-4x what that is. Well, that means pretty reasonable lower-midrange graphics. Enough to play modern games, though probably not with all the eye candy.
That could make it worthwhile for budget systems. $135 for an all inclusive solution rather than $124 for a CPU and $50 on a video card.
Of course there are some downsides too in that it is a weaker CPU and some games (Bad Company 2 and Rift come to mind) need better CPUs and of course with the GPU you could spend $80 instead of $50 and get one that far outperforms any integrated GPU, this one included.
Still, I can see the idea being appealing. If they can firm up their CPU performance a bit with Bulldozer (which isn't likely to be as fast as Sandy Bridge but will be faster) and maybe bring down the price a bit it is a good budget gaming alternative.
I know people who are interested in PC gaming, but put off by the cost and complexity of getting discrete GPUs. If AMD can sell them a cheap integrated solution, it may be a win.
Just have to see in the long run.
I think the whole point of APUs are to not be high end expensive battleship-system components.
You see, the $230 device you suggest to buy instead have no integrated graphics, and thus you'll want to add $100 or more for a matching decent pice or GPU(or you can be a retard and enjoy integrated shit-tier graphics along with your high end CPU.
Or you simply settle for a lower-mid tier system and buy the Llano device from the above article and end up with a $200 cheaper system.
You're a funny dwunk.
Now drink some water, go to bed, and sleep it off.
If you don't need that kind of performance, then that extra $100 is wasted.
My server currently runs on an AMD. For one, it was the lowest energy using quad core I could find (45W). For two, at the time, it was cheaper than most Intel quad cores. And used less power than all but their lowest end dual cores.
Then again, my gaming rig is an i7 and my notebook is a Core2 Duo.
So, to answer your question: when it is the right tool for the job.
Self proclaimed typo king, and inventor of the bear destroying coffee table (patent not pending).
The Intel Sandy Bridge parts (which I assume the GP is referring to) do have integrated graphics, but as the article says, the point here is that the Llano graphics outperformed the Sandy Bridge integrated graphics by 2-4x. Enough to make the difference between entry-level 3D gaming and no 3D gaming.
Oh no... it's the future.
Can the llano be tapped for green?
SmashTech - No smashing of tech involved
To be clear, the Sandy Bridge chipset has integrated graphics, not the CPU, but you can't have one without the other is the point.
Oh no... it's the future.
I'll be building a mini-itx system this summer, and I find the cheaper (and possibly cooler) versions of Llano more interesting. Since the GPU side of the chip is rather bandwidth-limited, I wonder whether the lower-clocked and/or lower shader count (320 instead of 400) versions of the chip might perform almost as well as the highest-end chip all the sites I've seen have tested. Anybody seen reviews of any of the rest of the lineup?
It's just not. Maybe it's "slow" compared to the newest chip, but, if you want to pull that crap, the newest chips are "slow" compared to a new Cray.
If you're doing things on a regular basis that are CPU-intensive, then, sure, you need speed. But 99% of applications aren't even going to stress a quad core @ 3ghz.
Yeah, who would want some bang for their buck? Such idiots...
Rethinking email
That's faster than the Phenom II I'm using now, and still costs less even with a GPU built in. And unlike the equivalent Intel part I know I'll get basics like hardware virtualisation without having to read the 0.5-micron-high fine print.
FWIW I did the same thing. Athlon II 610e: part of 2010's awesomest series of server CPUs. But let's not kid ourselves: if you were building a server from scratch today (not late 2010), you wouldn't use Sandy Bridge? I sure as hell would.
I can see some niches where this Llano stuff fits, though. Not sure if any of these are on my upcoming computer menu, but I've got one particular box where if it suddenly vaporized, I might replace it with Llano. Might.
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To be clear, the Sandy Bridge chipset has integrated graphics, not the CPU, but you can't have one without the other is the point.
No. GPU is on the CPU, like Llano.
But let's not kid ourselves: if you were building a server from scratch today (not late 2010), you wouldn't use Sandy Bridge?
Just finished building my linux server/workstation. I needed cores and cheap. Picked up a Phenom II X6 1090T for about 160$, motherboard for 100$ (supports Bulldozer, has lot of SATA ports), 8 GB RAM for about 80$, rest of pieces I had them. 340$ total. For that, I can barely get a 2500K with some shitty motherboard. The 2600K is about 320$. And since I'll be doing mostly programming, running virtual machines and just normal PC use (browsing, videos, etc ...) I need as many physical cores as possible (even if IPC is low) vs less cores and more IPC. Also, this build allows me to upgrade processor later on with an 8 core bulldozer if I ever need it.
PS: My dual core gaming rig is getting a 2500K + Asus Maximus Gene IV upgrade. As others said it: Best tool for the job.
Kinda depends on your expected server workload, no ?
Hardware accelerated browsing for both IE 10 and flash 10.3 it will make up for the mediorcre CPU unlike the atom CPU netbooks. This is perfect for an entry level CPU for someone who just browses the web, plays Angry Birds, and runs Office (about 80% of users). This thing can run full 1080p HD video at 30 FPS easily with Flash 10.3 or higher.
However, you are running Ubuntu 10.10 with flash 10.0 with Firefox 3.6 you wont see any benefit because the tasks are not unloaded off to the CPU. Hopefully this will be fixed in future releases with better flash and more modern web browsers.
But if the Metro interface with all its color and eye candy is the new norm this moderately priced chip will due wonders offloading its GPU even if the benchmarks do not show it right away. The user experience will be better.
World of warcraft can finally run on a cheap integrated video now. :-)
http://saveie6.com/
Kinda depends on your expected server workload, no ?
Sandy Bridge is faster, has lower peak power consumption for a given performance level and lower idle power consumption. I can't really see any expected workload where AMD is a better choice unless you plan to have lots of CPUs in your system.
Your server doesn't smell like a server. ;-) But fair enough; my Sandy-Bridge-now-always-beats-AMD-on-servers position is pretty prejudiced to certain workloads. YMMV and all that.
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ok pop quiz hotshot. What is the cost difference per annum between a 45w processor and a Q6600 @ 105W. Im genuinely curious.
Good-bye
ok pop quiz hotshot.
ok pop quiz hotshot, on a scale of 1 to infinity, how cool does this phrase make you in 1990?
Look at the prices on Llano boards. A bit over $100. Considering you can get an 1155 board for $100, the Llano winds up being a tad more expensive. Then you can drop a $60 5570 into the i3 and beat the Llano on every front for perhaps $40 over the cost of the Llano CPU + board.
Llano definitely has a future in laptops, but in desktops? There isn't much reason to go with it, I'm afraid.
Too soon? We use cultural references all the time. Please explain when an appropriate time to use that would be. At least then you would be providing something useful to the conversation besides your idiotic rantings.
Good-bye
Forgot to mention that it houses about 1 TB (mdam RAID6) of music, videos and pictures that are streamed to my HTPC, smartphone and laptop. It runs a few services like iTunes, SSH, Privoxy and Apache in separate VMs. While it's not a pure server it does do a lot of server stuff. I should call it Servstation!
Ok I *may* not have understood exactly everything from the article, however it appears to me that this is really boron/carbon/beryllium fission not not fusion. Anyone else pick up on that? Or do I have it wrong?
We use cultural references all the time.
There is a difference between using them, and shoe-horning them in where they don't add to the conversation in an attempt to make yourself look cool. As for adding to the conversation: pot, meet kettle.
No, the GPU is integrated with the CPU in Sandy Bridge. In fact, you could even say they are better integrated than in Llano since in Sandy Bridge they share the same L3 cache.
Mada mada dane.
The problem is that these chips are not competitive with the Atom when it comes to power consumption. They are about on par with SandyBridge i3's in that regard, which is why everyone is comparing their performance against the i3s. There is no chance they will replace the Atom in netbooks (especially after Atom moves to 32nm later this year), but they will be good for low end laptops.
90% of users who don't do video encoding or demand to play the latest games at the highest resolution available would be much better served by buying the AMD system and spending that spare $100 on a 60GB SSD to use as a boot drive. For most workloads, that'll make the system feel five times "faster".
Moderation Total: -1 Troll, +3 Goat
That review, like all the others I've seen, only covered the A8-3850. Totally irrelevant to what I was asking.
For some homebrew home server stuff eg: think a NAS you could easily do with ULV systems or even
atoms, via nano's or the amd neo.
And i really doubt that a 45 W tdp amd would consume more power than a sandy bridge.
i have a synology NAS with a powerpc iirc at 1.0 ghz and it uses 50-60W.
I would argue that sharing cache between CPU and GPU is not necessarily ideal. Also, keep in mind that GPUs and CPUs use memory very differently; CPUs prefer low latency, GPUs prefer raw bandwidth- this is why Llano's graphics performance is very sensitive to the clockspeed of the memory you're using.
Sigs are for losers
Is it pronounce "yano" like a dago, or "shclano" like a sheepshagger?
Interestingly ars technica agrees with you, but clearly states that that is also GPU's weakest link on llano.
http://arstechnica.com/business/news/2011/06/another-look-at-amds-llano.ars
My biggest reason not to go with AMD is build quality of CPU/motherboard and system drivers quality. I've had several AMD systems, back to first time AMD raped intel on CPU front with it's first slot A athlon and two others after that.
General issues with everything from driver quality to random breakages was clearly in favor on intel systems every time. On the other hand, AMD usually beat intel on bang/cost ratio by at least 10%, usually more. But honestly, I value time spent troubleshooting random stuff, and with modern CPU/mobo prices, if AMD system sets me back more then a couple of hours more troubleshooting over its lifetime then intel system, which it most certainly will, it's just not worth it.
And that's why people who are actually experienced with managing both platforms tend to pick intel even though AMD is usually better bang for a buck. And mind you, I'm not anti-AMD - my current GFX card is hd4870 even though I went with E8400 for my current rig, which is a wonderful card if not for utterly lame driver issues. Hence, my next system on order is intel/nvidia. I just can't be arsed to spend hours figuring out why certain settings on drivers break certain games, or why certain games display really weird shit until certain settings are changed, just like why I can't be arsed to figure out why many AMD's tools don't work in mixed intel cpu + amd gpu systems instead giving me random errors. Well, not anymore. Too tired of it.
Intel really should just start marketing itself to enthusiasts with a slogan "because time you spend troubleshooting matters".
In the spirit of actually reading the benchmarks, the gpu performance was typically closer to 1.5-1.75x, occasionally 2-3x, and didnt appear to ever approach 4x. On the other hand, the sandybridge part transcoded video almost 3x faster than the llano part.
Oh, and of course AMD support ECC on pretty much all their CPUs and chipsets, unlike with Intel where you need to pay out for really expensive server-class hardware. I think that's probably part of the reason HP Microservers use AMD chips.
Intel really should just start marketing itself to enthusiasts with a slogan "because time you spend troubleshooting matters".
They could but honestly I mean aside from rabid Intel fanboyism I have never seen this claim made before. (I dismiss everything anyone says Intel/AMD/Ford/Chevy/whatever once I detect rabid fanboysim.)
Maybe you have been on the wrong side of a weird statistical blip but for large managed situations where games are not an issue I've never had issues with AMD mobos being harder to work with than Intel. If anything both of them have their own set of quirks that can be anything from just that quirky to downright Office Space want to take the whole lot of them out to a field with a bat maddening.
Really, I know what I'm doing...Ohhhh, look at the shiny buttons!
I'm fairly certain that this was common knowledge among enthusiasts. Of course, many enthusiasts spend a lot of time maintaining their rig anyway, and are much more interested in epeen value then real performance (I would know, I used to be like that at least a little bit).
ATI/AMD video card driver hell is mostly common knowledge as well, hell they don't even bother moderating their own forums from posts of people complaining about it anymore. And many hardware reviewers tend to note this as well. Thing is, ATI still rapes nvidia in actual game performance and has done so for a while, and it's a lot easier to sell cards with "10% more speed for same money" then "works reliably, doesn't show weird shit and has no AA problems on games". Hell, that's why I picked hd4870 to replace my old nvidia card (which was on AMD CPU), the sheer promise of power + the fact that core duo was better then anything AMD offered at that time. And honestly, after seeing the difference in mobo (driver) quality I would never go back - it's amazing how much you learn to value your time when you don't have to spend it for a couple of years.
If you want a bang for a buck and don't mind some extra troubleshooting and occasional weird quirk, AMD/ATI(AMD) is definitely way to do. It's going to be quite a bit cheaper at same speeds (or faster at same cost). But if troubleshooting matters, intel/nvidia is definitely better.
I'm fairly certain that this was common knowledge among enthusiasts.
You cite a lot of ATI stuff and yes, indeed that ATI drivers have had issues for a long time is indeed common knowledge. But that is all you seem to cite. And further your OP talked about large installs where games would not be an issue. So bringing up discrete GPUs to back up your point about AMD mobos vs Intel mobos kinda sends up a red flag to me. In that you might be kinda an Intel fanboy (even thou you say you are not) who will just hate on AMD for anything.
To repeat what I've said before. In large installs where the systems are almost always using onboard video these days there is no real difference between AMD or Intel to get the basics working: video, sound, and network. Further the larger issue is the mobo make and what chipset it is using. If a Intel CPU working with a NVidia chipset is harder to work with than a AMD CPU working with an NVidia chipset does that really reflect back on either Intel or AMD? Or back on NVidia?
Really, I know what I'm doing...Ohhhh, look at the shiny buttons!
What many have not noticed is that AMD has had Fusion delayed, mostly due to the lack of a 32nm process. Try making an APU on 45nm, and you will find a very large and hot chip, so AMD had to wait on it. Now, the CPU core that is used here is still based on the old-school AMD K10.5 design that has caused AMD to lag way behind Intel when it comes to CPU performance, and that is why you see the "poor" CPU performance. Keep in mind that most end-users are satisfied with the performance of an Athlon 2 dual-core running at 2.8GHz these days, so the "slow" CPU performance here may not really bother end users.
Bulldozer is going to be the next AMD CPU core design, and if it is a solid performer, then it should be MUCH more interesting when that new core design gets used in an APU. In the same way that Intel has it's tick-tock for process technology followed by core design improvements, AMD may be looking at a tick-tock-tick for CPU design-APU-GPU where we will see the APU improving in cycles, CPU design to GPU design and new APUs that get improvements along the way.
Firefox and IE 9 make use of GPU acceleration, so for web browsing, Llano may already blow the doors off the i3 in terms of performance.
Yes, it might be slower than i3-2X00 in single threaded workloads, but once the program / bench utilizes all cores at close 100% the AMD quad is better and gives more throughput.
For a multitasking environment the quad is definitely better.
But I'm specifically not talking about "large installs where games would not be an issue" with no discreet video card. I'm talking about enthusiast machines.