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AMD Llano APU Review - Slow CPU, Fast GPU

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the welcome-to-the-doldrums dept.

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."

143 of 184 comments (clear)

  1. Slower than an i3... by LordLimecat · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.

    1. Re:Slower than an i3... by h4rr4r · · Score: 1

      That is AMDs plan with this unit. Same relative cost and performance as the i3 but much better GPU.

    2. Re:Slower than an i3... by rbrausse · · Score: 1

      how do the graphics in the llano stack up against the i3's graphics?

      this is not only answered in TFS but even in TFT :)

      and arguable your question is kind of senseless as Intels i3 is not a CPU/GPU combination but "only" a processor, though if you use your i3 with Intel on-board graphics the AMD will run circles around it.

    3. Re:Slower than an i3... by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 2

      IIRC, the contemporary i3s are Sandy Bridge parts(or older) and that intel's on-die graphics options come in a few tiers, depending on the tier of the CPU they are integrated with.

      So, if, in fact, the Llano's graphics are "2-4x better than the best Sandy Bridge has to offer" they should crush the i3's IGP like a bug, and be a better gaming part generally unless a given game is atypically CPU bound.

      I suspect that AMD will have themselves a cheapskate(and/or space constrained) hit, since their part would appear to be a natural winner for any system that wants to do GPU-bound stuff without an additional 80+ dollars worth of add on board; but if you were planning on an add-on GPU anyway, the i3, or better, would start to look pretty good unless the motherboards are substantially more expensive.

    4. Re:Slower than an i3... by butalearner · · Score: 4, Informative

      I did a little digging for those wondering: it does run Linux, but only with the proprietary Catalyst driver at the moment. Might be interesting once the open source driver catches up (assuming AMD shares the required info).

    5. Re:Slower than an i3... by LordLimecat · · Score: 3, Informative

      One of the SandyBridge selling points was "our integrated graphics no longer suck, and are now semi-decent". And calling the Llano a CPU/GPU combo while not doing the same for Intel is kind of pointless; both have integrated graphics, and both have it as a selling point. Since the prices are comparable, "one gives me good graphics and the other sucks" isnt a hard choice to make.

    6. Re:Slower than an i3... by rbrausse · · Score: 1

      Intels i3 is not a CPU/GPU combination but "only" a processor

      argh, call me stupid; like you I read only half of TFS and ignored the Sandy-Bridge-sentence :/

    7. Re:Slower than an i3... by LordLimecat · · Score: 1

      Ah, but if you get a discrete ATI card, it looks like the integrated graphics teams up with it in some kind of bizarre Crossfire setup, so the AMD processor would be even better than the i3. Good luck setting up dual-rendering between intel integrated and an nVidia or ATI card.

    8. Re:Slower than an i3... by wagnerrp · · Score: 2

      No. The i3 and i5 lines integrate the graphics core on the same package as the CPU. The only thing the board provides are video transmitters. Intel has not produced a chipset with graphics since the G45 and Core 2 line.

    9. Re:Slower than an i3... by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 1

      That does help to seal the fate of the lower-end i3s as the budget CPU of choice only for the must_have_intel brigade(I'm guessing that a lot of corporate typing boxes will be sold therewith...); and it certainly won't help Nvidia's chances of selling lower-end expansion boards to AMD users. However, at the higher end, I suspect that, while nice, the asymmetric Crossfire won't matter much: in the battle between two ~$50-80 expansion boards, having a bit of help from the most competent integrated graphics yet will tip the balance. In the battle between two ~$250-500 expansion boards, the assistance of the onboard shaders will be worth maybe a one-model bump worth of performance. Since you simply cannot buy a Llano part with a faster than 2.9GHz quad CPU; but you can buy incrementally better GPU performance right up until you bump into the limits of two of the highest end presently available, anybody who wants more CPU power than that will simply have to go with an iSomething and buy one tier higher on the discrete GPU side.

    10. Re:Slower than an i3... by obarthelemy · · Score: 1

      globally, twice as fast. extremely memory constrained though, so shell out at least for 1600MHz DDR3, 1833 is best.

      --
      The Cloud - because you don't care if your apps and data are up in the air.
    11. Re:Slower than an i3... by baka_toroi · · Score: 1

      Also the i7 (socket 1155)

    12. Re:Slower than an i3... by AmiMoJo · · Score: 1

      I don't think the benchmarks were very helpful because for most people the performance of this chip should be excellent. I have a dual core hyperthreaded Atom based server which is very responsive and usable, but going by raw CPU performance benchmarks sucks. For desktop use you don't need that much CPU power, and in fact simply having more cores is a better bet as it improves responsiveness massively.

      AMD are expecting the GPU to do a lot of the heavy processing like video decoding, we just need more software to take advantage of it. My understanding is that the architecture of these APUs makes it easier to get the GPU working on stuff, e.g. by not having to transfer it to the segmented GPU RAM area.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    13. Re:Slower than an i3... by royallthefourth · · Score: 2

      The open source driver won't catch up; the open source drivers have never even come near to the closed drivers in 3D performance. They're for people who want to always use the latest kernel without worrying about incompatibility.

    14. Re:Slower than an i3... by LordLimecat · · Score: 2

      Ive always heard people talk about how faster cards need a faster CPU, and that if you do a 2.2ghz 2core AMD you will end up bottlenecking your high-end 6990 card, but Ive never really seen it quantified or explained; surely the CPU isnt processing data that the GPU spits out onto the DVI port; and we are well past the days of needing the CPU to intervene on RAM and HDD requests; a lot of the point of AGP and PCIe (IIRC) is that they do not require CPU intervention to access memory-- they have a direct link to the controller.

      What Im getting at is, why WOULDNT the 2.9ghz Llano be sufficient for your Llano+ 2x HD6990 combo?

    15. Re:Slower than an i3... by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 1

      It depends on what you are using it for: As you say, the GPU does not directly lean on the CPU to any significant extent; but most people buying fancy GPUs(with the specific exception of people using them for entirely GPU-based compute tasks), are buying them to run applications that eat both considerable CPU time and considerable GPU time. If somebody is buying some serious GPU power, this usually means that they are running something, or cranking up their game's settings, or whatever it happens to be, in a way that will also place considerable demands on the CPU.

      CPUs don't directly bottleneck GPUs; but for mixed CPU/GPU tasks(like pretty much any gaming, CAD, etc. application) there is often some degree of correlation between the power of the GPU needed for a given visual quality level, or model mesh complexity, or what have you and the amount of CPU power needed. So, if somebody finds themselves with a GPU that can handle 1920x1080, super-high-quality, with high detail models; but finds that CPU load spikes to 100% and they get half the framerate expected, they speak of being "CPU bottlenecked".

      The same is true, if less commonly whined about, in the reverse situation. If you fire up a game on somebody's badly-specced business box, the screaming CPU will just sit there, yawning politely, and making snarky comments about whether you are getting frames per second or seconds per frame. Aside from the modest demands of running the driver, the lousy GPU isn't literally bottlenecking the CPU; but the application performance you can expect to achieve is being bottlenecked by the GPU.

    16. Re:Slower than an i3... by goarilla · · Score: 1

      Drivers use/need the cpu to do some processing before it gets send to the gfx cards.

    17. Re:Slower than an i3... by goarilla · · Score: 1

      Another thing to realise is that originally the first GPU (geforce) was called a graphics card with T&L ( transform and lightning engine).
      They offloaded the last 2 steps (step 5 and 6) of the rendering process to the gpu, while shaders could provide the opportunity to do a lot more of the offloading
      eg: all 6 steps, it's highly unlikely that all the cpu rendering responsibilities are now gpu only.

    18. Re:Slower than an i3... by slashmydots · · Score: 1

      To answer your question, the processing power isn't very close but the graphics get around double the framerate on average in a game at 1024x768. But that's around 40 FPS compares to 20 FPS on average. If you go any bigger on resolution, it fails. It got almost double the score on benchmark numbers in 3Dmark as well. So yeah, it supports DX11 unlike intel but it's not going to be pretty. So that brings it into what other reviewers have called the "barely playable" area as far as modern gaming goes. I think anyone buying it would be playing flash and java games though but what I really want to know is how it does at HD on netflix, hulu, and youtube and whether or not it can play blu-ray decently because that would be the only thing making it worth it. Other than that it's some sort of obscure low power, low heat gaming build chip or something I've never heard of anyone wanting to build. If the price comes down, it could make a really nice netflix/blu-ray media box for your TV though that can also play basic games.

    19. Re:Slower than an i3... by hedwards · · Score: 2

      I'm watching the development of Open CL fairly closely, because it's probably going to end up making or breaking Llano in the long run.

    20. Re:Slower than an i3... by Billly+Gates · · Score: 1

      "their part would appear to be a natural winner for any system that wants to do GPU-bound stuff without an additional 80+ dollars worth of add on board"

      That is not an option if you are buying a Windows 8 tablet next year or a netbook. This chip would take care of that as over half of new sales are notebook based now. If my desktop died I would consider a Llamo as a cheap way to run World of warcraft on a cheap laptop.

      IE 9/Chrome 12 and Flash 10.3 will fly on this thing with hardware acceleration. Windows 8 metro will be fluid as well. It would really suck on a comparative Intel Atom as the tiles would become choppy fast when trying to pull a widget over a 1080 p HD video playing to send it to an applet for example.

      --
      http://saveie6.com/
    21. Re:Slower than an i3... by TheTyrannyOfForcedRe · · Score: 2

      Since the prices are comparable, "one gives me good graphics and the other sucks" isnt a hard choice to make.

      You left out part of the equation. The choice is more like:

      i3-2100 - Fast CPU / Mediocre GPU

      Llano - Slow CPU / Good GPU

      For most non-gamers the choice will be the i3. For light gamers, HTPC, and notebooks the choice will be Llano. For more serious gamers the choice is obviously the i3 since the Llano CPU is too slow and the Llano onboard GPU isn't anywhere near good enough. These people will use higher end discrete graphics cards. I chose i3 for my gaming box for exactly that reason.

      --
      "Liechtenstein is the world's largest producer of sausage casings, potassium storage units, and false teeth."
    22. Re:Slower than an i3... by DurendalMac · · Score: 2

      The Llano is about as fast as a Radeon 5550. Good for an integrated GPU, but lousy in the grand scheme of things. A $60 5570 handily outruns it.

    23. Re:Slower than an i3... by LordLimecat · · Score: 1

      When I play games, I generally always see the CPU spiked to 100%-- even doing something like WoW several years ago on a core2 duo. Changing graphics cards definately upped my FPS, but CPU tends to stay pegged.

      My understanding is that no matter what game it is (generally), its going to peg the CPU and GPU as hard as it can to get as much physics and rendering done as it can, and whatever it cant get done it just skips.

      As for the business scenario you mentioned, my understanding is that the CPU will take over to some extent when the GPU is insufficient-- though it does a rather poor job of rendering. Possibly Im wrong and thats only for integrated graphics scenarios.

    24. Re:Slower than an i3... by Kjella · · Score: 3, Informative

      Performance is one thing, it's not close in features or stability either. The 5850 was released in September 2009, I still can't get HDMI audio, there's no video acceleration, OpenGL is at 2.1 (card supports OpenGL 4.1) and last I checked it was rather easy to hang it. I'm not blaming the guys who work on it because they're few and working as hard as they can, but they're no match for the 100+ developer Catalyst team. It didn't help that in the long years where both ATI and nVidia were closed source the graphics stack really didn't get much love. But the info is there now, all it really needs is the manpower.

      --
      Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
    25. Re:Slower than an i3... by UserChrisCanter4 · · Score: 2

      For most non-gamers the choice will be the i3. For light gamers, HTPC, and notebooks the choice will be Llano. For more serious gamers the choice is obviously the i3 since the Llano CPU is too slow and the Llano onboard GPU isn't anywhere near good enough. These people will use higher end discrete graphics cards. I chose i3 for my gaming box for exactly that reason.

      Just a nitpick here, but Sandy Bridge supports full h.264 hardware decoding up to 1080p, 3D TV support, and Bitstreaming of HD Audio formats. I can decode 1080p blu-ray video using the Sandy Bridge GPU and not spike over 10% CPU usage. That's in addition to the fact that there's a desktop-targeted 35W model available that is perfectly suited for noise- and power-sensitive HTPC accplications.

      Unless HTPC also needs to include playing modern 3D games at 1080p (which it can, for some), the i3 is probably a better choice given the similar prices, the GPU that's way more than sufficient for hardware decoding, the (possible) lower power consumption, and the beefier CPU that can future proof your computer for new codecs that may not have hardware decode support right from the beginning.

    26. Re:Slower than an i3... by Kjella · · Score: 1

      Since the prices are comparable, "one gives me good graphics and the other sucks" isnt a hard choice to make.

      The reason people have moaned about Intel's abysmal integrated performance is that it's been the low bar of the market, all those computers that weren't built to game and didn't have a discrete graphics card. Because it turns out a lot of people got a used computer from work or borrowed their dad's work machine or whatnot to game, using the integrated graphics. With the Sandy Bridge graphics Intel raised that low bar quite a bit. Even if you buy a business machine you get that graphics performance for "free" whether you like it or not. That's good for developers who can now rely on you having at least a little bit of GPU power, but it doesn't mean you buy integrated graphics for the graphics.

      If you want a lot of CPU power and a lot of GPU power, the APU is the wrong solution. It then puts the two most power hungry chips in your computer on the same die. It is much, much easier to cool 2x100W chips than 1x200W chip so you'll go with discrete cards on the high end. And if you don't want the graphics, you don't want it to add too much to cost. Maybe this hits a market, but the market could just easily split and say either I'm happy with the Intel and it's a better CPU or I'm a gamer and would rather have a flexible discrete card than one inflexible combo. Unless there's some real tangible cost or performance benefits to the APU over equivalent CPU+dGPU.

       

      --
      Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
    27. Re:Slower than an i3... by Hognoxious · · Score: 1

      call me stupid; like you I read only half of TFS

      Very stupid - you aren't supposed to read any of it.

      --
      Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
    28. Re:Slower than an i3... by Luckyo · · Score: 1

      It's worth noting that WoW is a VERY bad example here - that game is a massive exception to the rules, and is bottlenecked on CPU rather then GPU on any system with reasonably modern graphics card.

    29. Re:Slower than an i3... by Agripa · · Score: 1

      If it's anything like the 880G chipset option, only certain cards will work with Hybrid CrossFireX. I'm not sure why this is the case. My 880G has a 4250 onboard but only pairs with a 5450 for Hybrid CrossFireX. My 5770 cannot utilize Hybrid CrossFireX

      I found the same problem with my 790GX. The highest performance card which would operate in Crossfire mode with the chipset GPU was too small to be worth buying and lacked the ports that I wanted anyway. Having the integrated graphics is still handy though for driving another monitor or two.

      Even without GPU differences between generations, if there is too much difference in performance Crossfire or SLI will not work. The cost of the setup will exceed the gain from the lower performance GPU. It would be better to use the lower performance GPU for physics calculations if possible.

    30. Re:Slower than an i3... by rbrausse · · Score: 1

      <strike>you</strike>I must be new here

    31. Re:Slower than an i3... by mobby_6kl · · Score: 1

      WOW is a bad example, apparently (see the other reply), but it might help to think about in terms of how games are usually programmed. I am by no means a game programmer or even a professional programmer of any kind, so maybe somebody will correct me.

      Basically, to render one frame, the game runs through what is usually called the "game loop", which contains all the code that has to be executed to result in a new frame. This typically includes basic stuff like checking the user's input, but also the important and CPU-intensive things like the AI or physics, and of course actually drawing the graphics. Finally, there's also a chunk of code that does the graphics. You can't just start with the next frame until you finish the current one, as for example the new position of a falling box would depend on its position and acceleration now, which in turn had to be calculated based on the previous data, etc.

      So now it's probably starting to become clear that because the graphics rendering is only a part of the whole loop, no matter how fast it is, the lowest frame time will be set by the CPU (or the vice versa). Imagine that you have the ultimate badass GPU that can render anything in 0ms, but the processor is just average and takes 30ms to calculate physics and run the AI. So in the end, despite the super-fast graphics card, you're still only going to get at most ~33 FPS.

    32. Re:Slower than an i3... by BitZtream · · Score: 1

      While it may not exist yet, with those 400 shader processes available, I'm pretty confident you could decode h.264 in a shader pretty easily. All it'd take is someone bothering to write the shader to do it, which has already been done actually.

      The problem with Sandy Bridge in this case is actually 'it has built in h.264 decoding'. Okay, so those aren't really problems, lets face it, the codecs built in to it are the ones people are going to use anyway, so for the sake of discussion, lets assume we're speaking about raw tech specs rather than perfectly sufficient for current uses ...

      A better GPU allows you to shift to new encoding/decoding methods.

      More flexibility is good, hard coded instructions for specific ways of doing things today are useful, but not as useful as something just as fast that can be reconfigured via software for other things in the future.

      GPUs started out with fixed pipelines, good at handling that fixed pipeline, then the realization came along that making that pipeline more flexible would provide WAY must usefulness for very little cost ... and along came the rise of OpenGL 3, DirectX 9, and most importantly, shaders.

      On chip decoders for h.264 is great, but not as good as a reprogrammable processor capable of doing the same thing at the same cost (power usage/time to complete).

      I'll take either one, but I'd prefer the second.

      --
      Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
    33. Re:Slower than an i3... by BitZtream · · Score: 1

      Imagine that you have the ultimate badass GPU that can render anything in 0ms, but the processor is just average and takes 30ms to calculate physics and run the AI. So in the end, despite the super-fast graphics card, you're still only going to get at most ~33 FPS.

      Sounds like you need to move the physics and AI code into a shader!

      --
      Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
    34. Re:Slower than an i3... by BitZtream · · Score: 1

      It is possible to render a complex static scene entirely on the card with a single command now. Even some simply non-static values can be handled as well.

      Mind you, for anything other than a 'see, I told you I could render the scene entirely on the card', the CPU is doing a bunch of work ... but it is possible to render a decent scene on the GPU entirely, once you've loaded all the data to the GPU. Its really actually gotten to the point using shaders and sneaking in data to the shaders via textures that you can do everything on the card. GPUs just suck at many things, branching for instance just destroys a shaders performance to the point that if you're branching in the shader, you're probably making it worse than letting the CPU do it, even on a high end GPU.

      So ... it can be done, but from a practical perspective, you are correct, it doesn't happen entirely on the GPU.

      --
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    35. Re:Slower than an i3... by iainl · · Score: 1

      5570-class graphics in a laptop add an AWFUL lot more than $60 to the price, however. It's there the difference will be made; I'm not too fussed at needing discrete graphics in a tower case.

      --
      "I Know You Are But What Am I?"
    36. Re:Slower than an i3... by iainl · · Score: 1

      Games involve an awful lot more than spitting a bunch of polys at the GPU, though; if calculating where all that geometry needs to be takes too long the GPU has nothing to do.

      --
      "I Know You Are But What Am I?"
  2. Re:Who buys AMD? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Nice how the marketing worked on you.

  3. Slow? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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!"

    1. Re:Slow? by cshake · · Score: 3, Informative

      I know this article is about the desktop APUs, but as I've been running the C-50 Ontario on my netbook (Acer AO522-BZ897) for a few months now, I think I can share some real-world experience.

      Overall: It's a dual-core netbook, and still gets 6 hours battery life if I'm writing code with the brightness down, a little less if I'm listening to music. It may be slower on the individual cores than a competitive Atom, but if your program is threaded it's great. I'm very happy with the performance. It replaced a Powerbook G4 (I know, different class altogether, but still), and in terms of % CPU used for common tasks it's far and away better. No more mp3/m4a decoder taking 10+% CPU for decent bitrate songs.
      Real-world Performance: I can say that any downside I've seen is entirely due to bad software - I hear that in windows I could watch 720p on it, but right now with x64 linux and the beta multi-threaded flash player in the latest firefox or chromium I can't watch youtube videos at more than 480 before it starts to drop frames. Not a big deal for me though. Once the video drivers caught up with the chipset I can say that compositing and desktop effects work flawlessly, no lag whatsoever. I don't play games on it, being a netbook, except for the occasional flash thing (which sometimes lag, but again that's the flash plugin).
      Hooking it up to a 1080p TV over HDMI and running at native resolution, playing standard definition (624x352) XviD files zoomed to fullscreen works flawlessly in VLC. 720p x264 almost works - it saturates a single core and drops a frame here and there, and will really hang if you try to bring up a semi-transparent control bar over the video, but again if the codec were multithreaded it would be perfectly fine. I suspect that VLC on linux isn't taking full advantage of the GPU here either, considering I'm running the open source radeon drivers and not the official binary. For those of you running with officially supported closed-source software, i.e. official drivers or windows, I suspect it might even play 1080p without a problem.
      Let's remember that this APU is in the same power class as an Atom, and it's a netbook - impressive performance in my mind.

      As my only direct comparison points are the G4 powerbook that it replaced and my Phenom X4 9950 desktop, it's (gasp) right in the middle, but comparing a netbook to a desktop built for CAD and gaming is stupid, and so is comparing it to something 5 years older.

      My only gripe is that you can't set how much RAM the GPU side takes, so no matter what size stick I've got in there the system sees the total minus 256M. The upside is that you only need a total of one stick of RAM, but the downside is that when it comes with a 1GB stick, suddenly you're trying to run a windows 7 system (out of the box) with ~750MB, and that's asking for trouble. As I swapped out the HD and RAM before ever turning it on the first time and installed linux fresh, I can't say I've seen the slowdown, but it could be there.

    2. Re:Slow? by Vegemeister · · Score: 1

      If you're interested in smooth h.264 playback, i recommend downloading the most recent mplayer svn snapshot from here (they recently added multithreading), compiling with -march=native, and pointing smplayer at the resulting binary. I used this method to get functional 1520x1080 playback on a 2100 MHz core2 duo.

  4. Re:Perfect for Bitcoin mining! by Afforess · · Score: 1

    I take it you live in your mom's basement, because Bitcoin mining is never profitable (anymore) due to elecricity costs. I calculated it out a few months back, at least in Michigan, leaving a 500 watt computer on 24/7 for 30 days costs ~$35. Expect that to rise over time.

    --
    If our elected representatives no longer represent us, do we still live in a Democracy?
  5. For those who haven't seen it a thousand times, by Samantha+Wright · · Score: 1

    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!
    1. Re:For those who haven't seen it a thousand times, by ArcherB · · Score: 1

      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.

      Exactly. I'll bet it will be called a "Tablet".

      Actually, I envision the day when all phones will have a compatible interface that will allow for keyboards, mice and monitors to be hooked up to them. You take your "phone" to work, plug it in, do work. Pull it out, browse the web on your way home and plug it into your dock at home where you play games or whatever it is you do with your current PC at home. You go and visit your buddy and want to show him some new whiz-bang-app you have, you plug your phone into his dock and use your pc/phone as you did at home and work.

      When ARM processors become comparable to the current x86's we use in our PC's, the above scenario is not at all implausible. The Motorola Atrix is an example of this in action, but it is too slow and expensive to be practical. Once the ARM is fast enough and if phone manufacturers can agree on a dock standard and third parties get involved in making the docks, your phone will push your PC out of you home and office. And like you said, cell phone hardware is more or less disposable.

      --
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    2. Re:For those who haven't seen it a thousand times, by Samantha+Wright · · Score: 1

      I've always voted for that future, too. I think it would be a nice future. Although see the comment below; it mentions wireless. Wireless is good. Also see this concept thing, which amounted, sadly/predictably, to nothing.

      --
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  6. Tom's Hardware... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    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.

  7. Not slow CPU, laggy software by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    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.

  8. Not quite slow by Eravnrekaree · · Score: 2

    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.

    1. Re:Not quite slow by m50d · · Score: 1

      My netbook uses an AMD Geode. It's great - runs a "normal" windows XP and plays ten-year-old games perfectly. It's a 7", so not quite handheld yet, but not a million miles away from something like the original gameboy.

      --
      I am trolling
    2. Re:Not quite slow by LWATCDR · · Score: 2

      For most people CPU power is a none issue. Truth is that most office PC and home PCs are very over powered for what they are doing. Honestly most users would be see the biggest improvement in performance if they put their money into more RAM and faster storage as well as a half decent GPU over a faster CPU.
      The APU idea really has so much merit that it just isn't funny. If AMD can get this pushed out and if more software starts to take advantage of the GPU you will see a big benefit. This isn't all that different from when Intel came out with MMX and AMD came out with 3Dnow extensions for the CPU. At the time they where not used very often bot when they where the difference in performance was huge. Now we have SSE in the CPUs and most software uses it. Throw in the extra real cores on the APU vs the i3 and as the article pointed out for programs that supported threading the AMD APU tended to beat the more expensive I3. In graphics performance it was two to four times the speed.
      What we have is a CPU that will do very well when running programs that are multi-threaded and can use the GPU units well. Folding at home would be a good one.
      I would have loved to see some browser benchmarks using IE9 and Chrome as well since they are using GPU acceleration. This APU is could be marking a really big potential change in how programmers write code. When I started a few decades ago 64k was a lot of memory. Even when we got to 32bit CPUs and a few megabytes of memory we would avoid floating point math as much as possible. Until the Pentium line you still had to deal with many computers that didn't have support for hardware FPUs. Floating point was slow and we worked hard to not have to use it. Now we have thing like SSE and floating point is nothing. In fact it is as fast or faster then using integers. Today every programmer should be thinking of multiprocessing and how to use the GPU to solve problems besides graphics. This is just the first of the line and frankly I find it very interesting.
      And NO. We do not not want X86 on our mobile devices. Software on mobile is very different than software on the desktop binary compatibility is pretty much useless. In the mobile space we are now seeing the shift to multicore already and the integration of the GPU is already standard. SOCs like the Tegra 2, OMAP4, Apple A5, Snapdragon, and the next generation Hummingbird are all multicore and all have a GPU. Plus the X86 has a long way to go to match the low power and heat that ARM offers. If anything I would say the X86 needs to start being concerned that it will be pushed from the market from below just as the PDP-11 and VAX where. Multi-core mobile SOCs will be common in 6 months if not less and they are progressing at a very fast rate. Intel my have completely missed that boat.

      --
      See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
    3. Re:Not quite slow by daid303 · · Score: 1

      Comparing power usage of an x86 to an ARM is just laughable:
      http://netbooked.net/blog/arm-vs-atom-size-vs-power-vs-performance/

    4. Re:Not quite slow by 0123456 · · Score: 2

      Slower than an i3, yes. But...it's waay faster than the fastest Atoms

      And costs waay more and uses waay more power. Atoms are mostly being used for cheap, low power systems, and this chip fails on both counts.

    5. Re:Not quite slow by Khyber · · Score: 1

      Comparing ARM to EMULATED x86 (which is what that is today) is just as laughable.

      WHOOPS. Might wanna throw your link away, quickly.

      --
      Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
    6. Re:Not quite slow by Plainswind · · Score: 1

      Why do so many nerds extrapolate the limits of their hardware requirements onto others? Trust me, general use of computers is far more diverse in hardware requirements than most nerds want to believe. Take for example all hobby artists(Photo, video, music), or like my mother, doing patterns for sewing, stitching etc. My brother uses his computer to help him with his hobby of working on old boats, including doing CAD. Both need beefier hardware than I do when I code. I can just put a compile on when I go and do some household chores etc, while they need beefy hardware to actively work with their tasks. Gaming is far more widespread now than it was 12 years ago, and contrary to the popular meme here on Slashdot, it's not just flash-games. My mother loves the Settlers games, my sister loves Sims. My dad is a fan of Trainz, which requires rather massive hardware, and it's not just about RAM and storage... He's building a scenario based on where he grew up, and how he remembered it. And he's no computer nerd either. Yet he needs more hardware than I do.

    7. Re:Not quite slow by TheTyrannyOfForcedRe · · Score: 1

      Slower than an i3, yes. But...it's waay faster than the fastest Atoms

      And costs waay more and uses waay more power. Atoms are mostly being used for cheap, low power systems, and this chip fails on both counts.

      Exactly! The Llano chip alone is $130. For $100 you can get both an Atom CPU and motherboard.

      --
      "Liechtenstein is the world's largest producer of sausage casings, potassium storage units, and false teeth."
    8. Re:Not quite slow by 0123456 · · Score: 1

      For $100 you can get both an Atom CPU and motherboard.

      I don't know about current prices, but back in 2008 I paid about $100 for my dual-core Atom motherboard, CPU and 2GB of RAM.

    9. Re:Not quite slow by the+linux+geek · · Score: 1

      Microcode is not "emulation." The Atom actually executes almost all x86 instructions directly; only a few complex instructions are broken into uops, and usually only two. Even something like the Nehalem probably executes well over half of the x86 instructions directly, without breaking them up. The "omgz modern x86 processors are emulating!!!!!!111!!" line is a myth - most high-end processors for well over a decade are microcoded for certain complex instructions, it's a normal part of making a high-performance CPU, and it doesn't involve any significant drain on performance.

    10. Re:Not quite slow by m50d · · Score: 1

      Sure. But my x86 is more useful than an ARM and gets perfectly decent battery life. With both battery technology and low-power x86es improving all the time, a handheld x86 can't be far off.

      --
      I am trolling
  9. Re:Perfect for Bitcoin mining! by theantipop · · Score: 1

    What kind of computer are you running that draws 500W from the wall?

  10. Re:Perfect for Bitcoin mining! by Afforess · · Score: 1

    Any computer that mines bitcoins all day will be using a full load.

    --
    If our elected representatives no longer represent us, do we still live in a Democracy?
  11. Re:Who buys AMD? by hedwards · · Score: 2, Informative

    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.

  12. Faulty Testing Methodology by TPoise · · Score: 2

    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.

  13. Pretty well sounds like by Sycraft-fu · · Score: 1

    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.

    1. Re:Pretty well sounds like by obarthelemy · · Score: 1

      Intel pre-emptively released an i3 with their top-of-the-line HD3000 graphics GPU a short while ago, so the i3 is on a par with the best Intel can offer, iGPU-wise. 2105 I think.

      --
      The Cloud - because you don't care if your apps and data are up in the air.
    2. Re:Pretty well sounds like by Sycraft-fu · · Score: 1

      Even so, the benchmarks show it well ahead of an HD3000. The chip has got some reasonable graphics. Equal to or in most cases better than a $50 card. That's not bad.

    3. Re:Pretty well sounds like by Rockoon · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Bulldozers wont have on-die graphics like these Llano (Bobcat) CPU's until mid to late 2012 at the earliest.

      What should be noted and what isnt well understood is that these "APU's" coming out from AMD are all Bobcat chips. Bobcat is a design directly targeting Intel's Atom market. The review here is for the King of the Bobcat's, the high powered variant weighing in at 100W peek built on the 32nm processes. The low power bobcats only have 80 stream processors (5.9W, 9W, and 18W variants) instead of the 400 stream processors (100W) that this thing has at are on the 40nm process.

      All the Bobcat modules have only 2 ALU's and 2 FPU's, and only a 1-channel memory controller, so it is no surprise that it has trouble competing with the i3's. What is surprising is that never-the-less, its competing with the i3's.

      --
      "His name was James Damore."
    4. Re:Pretty well sounds like by shizzle · · Score: 1

      Bulldozers wont have on-die graphics like these Llano (Bobcat) CPU's until mid to late 2012 at the earliest.

      True.

      What should be noted and what isnt well understood is that these "APU's" coming out from AMD are all Bobcat chips.

      Not true. The E-series and C-series parts released in January (Ontario/Zacate) are Bobcat chips, built on TSMC 40nm process. The big deal with Llano (A-series) is that it's not Bobcat, it's an enhanced Phenom-derived core, built on GlobalFoundries new 32nm process. There is no such thing as a 32nm Bobcat at this point in time.

    5. Re:Pretty well sounds like by shizzle · · Score: 1

      Bulldozers wont have on-die graphics like these Llano (Bobcat) CPU's until mid to late 2012 at the earliest.

      True.

      Responded too quickly... the "Bulldozers wont have on-die graphics [...] until [...] 2012" is true (this is the Trinity part, and was demo'd a couple of weeks ago, but it was announced that it won't be ready for production until 2012, I don't remember what was said about when in 2012). The "Llano (Bobcat) CPU's" part is not true, Llano is most definitely not Bobcat.

    6. Re:Pretty well sounds like by 0123456 · · Score: 1

      The review here is for the King of the Bobcat's, the high powered variant weighing in at 100W peek built on the 32nm processes.
      All the Bobcat modules have only 2 ALU's and 2 FPU's, and only a 1-channel memory controller, so it is no surprise that it has trouble competing with the i3's. What is surprising is that never-the-less, its competing with the i3's.

      It has twice as many cores and from the numbers you give here uses about 3x as much power. I'm not too surprised that you can compete with a cheaper chip in that case.

    7. Re:Pretty well sounds like by MyCookie · · Score: 1

      Uh, what? This is based off the old K10.5 core. No Bobcat here. All those APUs are known as E-XXX and C-XX.

    8. Re:Pretty well sounds like by obarthelemy · · Score: 1

      Agreed

      --
      The Cloud - because you don't care if your apps and data are up in the air.
    9. Re:Pretty well sounds like by Rockoon · · Score: 1

      Zambezi will not have a GPU on die. The GPU wont appear on a Bulldozer until Trinity.

      --
      "His name was James Damore."
  14. Re:Who buys AMD? by durrr · · Score: 2

    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.

  15. Re:Who buys AMD? by ByOhTek · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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).
  16. Re:Perfect for Bitcoin mining! by wagnerrp · · Score: 1

    One with a one or more big graphics cards.

  17. Re:Who buys AMD? by Tx · · Score: 1

    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.
  18. Re:Overclocking by Shatrat · · Score: 1

    Nobody really overclocks low-end hardware like this, but if you did at least you'd only need a single waterblock or heatsink.

    You'd get much more bang for your buck spending the money you would have spent on cooling and spending it on a faster CPU+Discrete Graphics combo.
    The only reason to overclock one of these would be shits and/or giggles.

    --
    09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
  19. Llano by NinjaPablo · · Score: 1

    Can the llano be tapped for green?

    --
    SmashTech - No smashing of tech involved
  20. Re:Who buys AMD? by Tx · · Score: 1

    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.
  21. A6 reviews, anyone? by jensend · · Score: 1

    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?

    1. Re:A6 reviews, anyone? by obarthelemy · · Score: 1

      The 65W versions are not out yet, haven't even seen a single test anywhere, and I've been looking.

      FYI, I couldn't wait and built a mini-ITX rig with Asus' E-350 board, and I'm fairly happy with it: dual screen, SD video on one, office stuff on the other, no real slowdowns, very quiet, no games later than 4+ years old though. The challenge was finding a nice vesa-mountable mini-itx case. Logicsupply.com has plenty (M-350 or T3410 caught my eye, bought both for funsies), or the elementQ is OK if you want a shoe box, I took that for a second small NAS/HTPC. My passive E-360 runs at 60C, so even Llano 65W will need some cooling for sure. The M-350 accepts up to 3 4cm fans, with the $4 extra fan support.

      --
      The Cloud - because you don't care if your apps and data are up in the air.
    2. Re:A6 reviews, anyone? by Billly+Gates · · Score: 1

      Here you go.

      I saw another benchmark compare it the Atom as it is the closest in price range for these. As you can tell it is not the fastest chip by any means nor does it have the best GPU as a dedicated gaming box. However, look at the benchmarks for the price you get? Not so bad for older games. An Intel Atom with Nvidia ION can't even run half of these games.

      The bandwidth limitations will be further removed in future versions of Llano later this year as it will have its own memory controller that will not have the latency delay of waiting for the CPU one or somethign weird like that. The fact that the GPU is integrated gets rid of some of the latency and as you can see does quite well for like dirt cheap.

      --
      http://saveie6.com/
    3. Re:A6 reviews, anyone? by TheTyrannyOfForcedRe · · Score: 1

      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?

      If you don't game you'd be better off with an i3. Foxconn has a nice 1155 ITX board for $70. It's on newegg.

      --
      "Liechtenstein is the world's largest producer of sausage casings, potassium storage units, and false teeth."
    4. Re:A6 reviews, anyone? by 0123456 · · Score: 1

      An Intel Atom with Nvidia ION can't even run half of these games.

      And the entire Ion system will probably use about a quarter as much power as this CPU/GPU combo. My Ion Xbmc box with a cheap SSD and 4GB of RAM takes about 25W from the wall when playing HD video.

      I honestly don't understand why people are comparing this chip to the Atom when it's in a totally different market; people buying Atoms are not going to replace them with a 100W CPU. The lower power versions may be more competitive, but they'll also be far less powerful.

    5. Re:A6 reviews, anyone? by Narishma · · Score: 1

      It makes no sense to compare this to an Atom, they are nowhere near the same market segment. If you want to compare Atoms to something, it's closest competitors are the AMD C-50 or the VIA Nano.

      --
      Mada mada dane.
  22. A quad-core @ 2.9Ghz isn't slow! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.

    1. Re:A quad-core @ 2.9Ghz isn't slow! by hedwards · · Score: 1

      Indeed, I've got a dual core Zacate clocked at 1.6ghz, and I'm not having any performance problems, even when I unplug and start working cordless. Sure it can get hot and the battery life sucks when I turn it all the way up, but the entire laptop maxes out at about 25 watts.

      In fact, the next time my folks are in need of a new computer, I'll probably recommend that they go with whatever equivalent is available at that time. Apart from gamers and people that regularly engage in computationally stressful tasks, most folks don't need any more power.

    2. Re:A quad-core @ 2.9Ghz isn't slow! by TheTyrannyOfForcedRe · · Score: 1

      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.

      FREQUENCY ALONE MEANS NOTHING. You have completely missed IPC (instructions per clock). You must take frequency and IPC into account when judging performance. The Llano has worse IPC than Phenom II.

      --
      "Liechtenstein is the world's largest producer of sausage casings, potassium storage units, and false teeth."
    3. Re:A quad-core @ 2.9Ghz isn't slow! by the+linux+geek · · Score: 1

      Actually, AMD has claimed that Llano's IPC is about 6% better than previous K10-derived cores.

    4. Re:A quad-core @ 2.9Ghz isn't slow! by goarilla · · Score: 1

      I'm wondering when did IPC started to mean instructions per clock instead of interprocess communication ?

  23. Re:Perfect for Bitcoin mining! by dingen · · Score: 1

    How is paying $35/month for electricity not profitable? With two 5870's running 24/7, you can easily make a few hundred dollars a month, even with the current difficulty and exchange rate.

    --
    Pretty good is actually pretty bad.
  24. Re:Who buys AMD? by marcosdumay · · Score: 1

    Yeah, who would want some bang for their buck? Such idiots...

    --
    Rethinking email
  25. Re:Perfect for Bitcoin mining! by marcosdumay · · Score: 2

    My best computers to peak under 300W. And they aren't old or slow (but they aren't the fastest ones availabe either, just near them).

    I'd understand if you have 2 or more GPUs...

    --
    Rethinking email
  26. Re:"only" 2.9GHz? by TPoise · · Score: 2

    If you read TFA, you would have seen that the MHz may have been numerically higher but the performance was slower than the Phenom II Quad-Core. And yes, the Core i3 (Sandy Bridge version) has hardware virtualization assist. http://ark.intel.com/VTList.aspx #deniedfud

  27. Re:Who buys AMD? by Sloppy · · Score: 1

    My server currently runs on an AMD. For one, it was the lowest energy using quad core I could find (45W).

    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.

    --
    As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
  28. Re:Perfect for Bitcoin mining! by Nursie · · Score: 1

    Well, unless the currency undergoes something of a collapse (a glut of btc on the market is very possible).

  29. Re:Perfect for Bitcoin mining! by Hal_Porter · · Score: 1

    Another great victory for basement dwellers!

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Bitcoin_crash_2011-06-19.png

    --
    echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
  30. Re:Perfect for Bitcoin mining! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    I have a core i7 920 with a Nvidia GTX 560 GPU, 2 monitors, a 2.1 sound system, 3 hard drives and 1 external. All those are plugged into my UPS and I've never drawn more than about 350 watts of power under full load.

  31. Re:Perfect for Bitcoin mining! by N0Man74 · · Score: 1

    Right, because some types of applications that are heavily hardware dependent are on-topic than others. It's fine to talk about servers, and benchmarks, gaming, video encoding, and other topics that might have some relevance to hardware performance, but not bitcoins!

    Seriously, I don't use bitcoins, don't care about them, but yet some of the overreactions regarding them and the outcries of, "Stop talking about bitcoin on slashdot" is more annoying than the mentions of bitcoin themselves. Since when is application performance on specific hardware not relevant to hardware discussions?

  32. Re:Perfect for Bitcoin mining! by medv4380 · · Score: 1
    Two 5870 running at full will be 350~400 Watts Each.

    Add in the motherboard and other basics you're talking 1000 Watts constantly.

    It ends up being closer to 70-80 a month.

    Plus the cards become worthless because you're running them so hot they are probably going to die and not be resellable ether.

  33. Re:Who buys AMD? by dc29A · · Score: 1

    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.

  34. Re:"only" 2.9GHz? by Luke+Wilson · · Score: 1

    See here

  35. Re:Perfect for Bitcoin mining! by Toonol · · Score: 1

    It's much cheaper to simply buy bitcoins from other people than it is to mine them. Assuming the currency doesn't self-destruct soon, market forces will surely correct that price inequality... either by lowering the value of bitcoins back down to the creation cost, or by people abandoning creating them until a time that hardware speed brings the cost down to their value.

  36. Re:Who buys AMD? by goarilla · · Score: 1

    Kinda depends on your expected server workload, no ?

  37. Windows 8 will fly on this by Billly+Gates · · Score: 1

    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/
    1. Re:Windows 8 will fly on this by TPoise · · Score: 1
      Wow, AMD fanboys out in full force today. This is about your 12th post with the same thing. If all people do is run Office and play Angry Birds, then they don't need a Radeon 5000-series GPU, a budget Core i3 would do just fine, plus it has superior CPU performance. So aren't you arguing against what you were paid to do here?

      If people had all the CPU power they needed, they would all still be on Pentium4's. I would venture out to say that anybody who reads Slashdot on a daily basis is probably a power user, who needs more than budget CPU. So basically for a couple dollars more, they can get a Core i3 Sandy Bridge with superior CPU performance and an onboard GPU that is "good enough" to make Windows8 fly as you say.

      And again, I like Llano, but it's just a little too slow for the tasks that *I* need. Plus its a little too late to the market with its older PhenomII core. Bulldozer will be here shortly and that should give Intel a run for its money.

    2. Re:Windows 8 will fly on this by epine · · Score: 1

      If people had all the CPU power they needed, they would all still be on Pentium4's.

      One of the noisiest and least power efficient CPUs to ever make it to mass market. Enron *loved* those CPUs. As the guy said, "Burn, baby, burn!"

      CPU requirements for most applications have not increased all that fast in the meantime, except the ones recoded from C++ into JavaScript, or the heavy-duty applications (math, engineering, visualization, adenoidal frittering).

      Software developers optimize their software relative to some percentile performance point among their anticipated user base. Performance inflation is to some degree self-fulfilling prophecy.

      Just about everyone I know who writes I with angel wings (*I*) feels the need for a overclock-unlocked extreme edition. It hasn't been invented yet and you need it already. OK, we get it. Now let's return to robust statistics such as the median and the mode.

      Llano is confusing the hell out of people because it spans incompatible boxes. The product line will make a lot more sense when it gets an additional memory channel at the high end.

  38. Re:Perfect for Bitcoin mining! by ewhenn · · Score: 5, Informative

    Two 5870 running at full will be 350~400 Watts Each.

    Add in the motherboard and other basics you're talking 1000 Watts constantly.

    Nice job pulling those numbers out of your ass.

    Here's the real power consumption of a 5870 right off of AMD's spec sheets: http://www.amd.com/us/products/desktop/graphics/ati-radeon-hd-5000/hd-5870/Pages/ati-radeon-hd-5870-overview.aspx#2

    I'll pull the relevent part out for you: Maximum board power: 188 Watts

    Assuming people who bitcoin mine use at least a decent power supply that is 80% efficient PSU at given load (realistically most decent ones are 82%+ in optimal load range), you're going to be pulling 235 watts from the wall per card, max.

    235 watts is way less than 350-400 watts, by a long shot.

    The rest of the system isn't going to be pulling huge amounts of power, since nobody who is mining bitcoin for real cash does it on a CPU, they do it on GPUs, and the amount of power a motherboard, RAM, disk drive, CPU use while they aren't really working is pretty low, usually in the 30-60 watt range, depending on your CPU, but nowhere near 200 watts of draw

  39. Re:Who buys AMD? by 0123456 · · Score: 1

    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.

  40. Re:"only" 2.9GHz? by Billly+Gates · · Score: 1

    These processors are for tablets and netbooks running Windows 8 or browsing the web with the GPU taking part of the load. This is the first value oriented chip with decent graphics for people who want to play World of Warcraft and have a decent computing experience on youtube for like $499 or even $399. Most users run Office and browse the web and play Angry Birds. Flash 10.3, Firefox 4, and IE 9 or higher will run very well with Direct2D on these.

    Before these systems costs more like $899 because of the added cost of a video card. I have a Phenom II 6 core, but it is under clocked at only 2.6 ghz. It is pretty snappy and I know it is not the fastest. But this is fine and much needed in the new age of graphics AJAX galore in UI design and video for entry level devices.

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  41. Re:Who buys AMD? by Sloppy · · Score: 1

    And since I'll be doing mostly programming, running virtual machines and just normal PC use (browsing, videos, etc ...)

    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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  42. Re:Who buys AMD? by spire3661 · · Score: 1

    ok pop quiz hotshot. What is the cost difference per annum between a 45w processor and a Q6600 @ 105W. Im genuinely curious.

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  43. Re:Who buys AMD? by PC+and+Sony+Fanboy · · Score: 1

    ok pop quiz hotshot.

    ok pop quiz hotshot, on a scale of 1 to infinity, how cool does this phrase make you in 1990?

  44. Re:Who buys AMD? by DurendalMac · · Score: 1

    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.

  45. Re:Who buys AMD? by spire3661 · · Score: 1

    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.

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  46. Re:"only" 2.9GHz? by 0123456 · · Score: 1

    These processors are for tablets and netbooks running Windows 8 or browsing the web with the GPU taking part of the load.

    I'll be impressed the day I see someone using a tablet with a 100W CPU.

  47. Re:Who buys AMD? by dc29A · · Score: 1

    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!

  48. Re:"only" 2.9GHz? by Chirs · · Score: 1

    The new i3 has VT-x, but not VT-d (which also rules out SR-IOV). For that you need a new i7.

  49. Fission not Fusion by DrPeper · · Score: 1

    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?

  50. Re:Perfect for Bitcoin mining! by Abreu · · Score: 1

    Who cares about the bitcoin scam? I want to know if this is good for building a xbmc nettop!

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  51. Re:Perfect for Bitcoin mining! by scumdamn · · Score: 1

    I just want to say thanks. I'm the web guy who owns GPUs at AMD and you just linked to one of my pages on Slashdot. That's frigging awesome.

  52. Re:Who buys AMD? by PC+and+Sony+Fanboy · · Score: 1

    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.

  53. Re:Who buys AMD? by Narishma · · Score: 1

    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.

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  54. Power Consumption by pavon · · Score: 1

    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.

  55. Re:Who buys AMD? by MrNemesis · · Score: 1

    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".

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  56. uh... by jensend · · Score: 1

    That review, like all the others I've seen, only covered the A8-3850. Totally irrelevant to what I was asking.

  57. Re:Who buys AMD? by goarilla · · Score: 1

    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.

  58. Re:"only" 2.9GHz? by the+linux+geek · · Score: 1

    No, actually, they aren't. These are AMD's new-generation processors for laptops and desktops, and their power characteristics are totally unsuited for the netbook/tablet market.

  59. Re:Who buys AMD? by Cornelius+the+Great · · Score: 1

    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.

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  60. Re:Perfect for Bitcoin mining! by Nite_Hawk · · Score: 2

    I don't necessarily have an opinion regarding your discussion, but I wanted to point out that power draw specs can be incorrect, especially now that everyone is trying to be green. We have a large cluster here that we ended up having to install extra power for because the machine would shut down during HPL runs. The vendor (and this is not a small vendor) told us that for HPL, you have to spec power for 130% utilization instead of 100%. Now HPL is pretty intense, but it's something to keep in mind.

  61. Re:Who buys AMD? by Luckyo · · Score: 1

    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

  62. Re:Who buys AMD? by Luckyo · · Score: 1

    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".

  63. Re:Perfect for Bitcoin mining! by pla · · Score: 1

    Also, there's been massive btc deflation recently.

    If by "massive" you mean "trading at about $2 (12%) less than before MtGox got pwnd", then sure.

    Other than that, hey, my PC currently makes me $20-$30 a day for about $0.90 worth of electricity. Yeah, definitely not worth it. I fully encourage all SlashDotters to run screaming from BitCoin. Nothing to see here, move along. ;)

  64. Re:Who buys AMD? by Cute+Fuzzy+Bunny · · Score: 1

    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.

  65. Re:Perfect for Bitcoin mining! by mobby_6kl · · Score: 1

    That's certainly possible, but there's real-world data available all over the internet, like here, for example. The short version: the whole system with a 5870 uses 290 Watts under full load, and two of them use 460, meaning that the second card added "just" 170 Watts.

  66. Re:Who buys AMD? by makomk · · Score: 1

    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.

  67. Re:Who buys AMD? by yoshi_mon · · Score: 1

    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.

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  68. Re:Who buys AMD? by Luckyo · · Score: 1

    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.

  69. Re:Perfect for Bitcoin mining! by kupojsin · · Score: 1

    I've actually been using my recently purchased HP dm1z to mine bitcoins if anyone is interested in results. This contains the older Zacate processor (dual core 1.6Ghz and HD6310). Using a gpu miner I get about 10.4 Mhash/s. It's definitely respectable enough to do some pool mining. This is under Win7 64bit, linux might yield higher results.

  70. Re:Who buys AMD? by yoshi_mon · · Score: 1

    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?

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  71. Re:Perfect for Bitcoin mining! by BitZtream · · Score: 1

    According to what? How did you measure it?

    Seems like 350 watts from the wall at 100% efficiency would still be too little to meet the requirements of that system, making it impossible for you to run on that in the real world once you take into the massive losses in the power supply and on board voltage regulators.

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  72. Re:Perfect for Bitcoin mining! by BitZtream · · Score: 1

    That is assuming you can find someone to give you something other than the finger when you try to sell them bitcoins ... which have already been show trivial to counter fit both in theory and in practice ... hence why we're having this discussion about them in the first place.

    Sure, you might be able to make a profit at it, but you're more likely to make a profit using a Nigerian Prince with financial funneling SPAM kit and sending a few hundred thousands spams via someones botnet, seems kinda silly to consider either one of them worth the effort of doing.

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  73. Re:Who buys AMD? by Luckyo · · Score: 1

    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.