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AMD Unveils Elite A-Series APUs With Enhanced Performance, Improved Efficiency
MojoKid writes "AMD has just announced a new family of Elite A-Series APUs for mobile applications, based on the architecture codenamed 'Richland.' These new APUs build upon last year's 'Trinity' architecture, by improving graphics and compute performance, enhancing power efficiency through the implementation of a new 'Hybrid Boost' mode which leverages on-die thermal sensors, and offering AMD-optimized applications meant to improve the user experience. AMD is unveiling a new visual identity as well, with updated logos and clearer language, in a bid to enhance the brand. At the top of the product stack now is the AMD A10-5750M, a 35 Watt, 3.5GHz quad-core processor with integrated Radeon HD 8650G graphics, 4MB of L2 cache and a DDR3-1866 capable memory interface. The low-end is comprised of dual-cores with Radeon HD 8400G series GPUs and a DDR3-1600 memory interface."
That qualifies as one of those inventions that make you wonder why it had to be invented... The utility is quite obvious.
seriously show me numbers
also 9.6W for decoding MPEG is pretty horrendous but this is because I'm guessing they have to power the whole of the GPU rather than a simple specialised unit
where is the benchmark ?
regards
John Jones
Only in single-threaded tasks. You get into multi-threaded and AMD begins to win outright.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
I bought an amd for my recent file server build. 120$ for chip + mobo (and integrated graphics, who needs a video card?). 35 watt tdp, and most of it's time is spent idling away.
I could have gone Intel - don't get me wrong, but a decent motherboard with all the features of the AMD I bought runs closer to 150 by itself.
Karnal
We buy lots of them for our HPC cluster. We can get four 16-core CPUs in a 1U box. Each core is slower than an Intel core, but the price performance ratio is higher by a factor of two. Of course this only helps if your jobs are very paralyzable or you have lots of users (both of which apply to us).
The problem is that Intel only has a marginal advantage, and AMDs chipsets is more than strong enough on the top of that. If AMDs chipsets where underpowered, sure your advice would be sane. Also as others point out, it only applies to single threads.
Video cards - all the rage in the '90s. Modern GPU's are used by gamers, 3D vfx artists, anyone doing serious image / video processing and on servers they're fairly useful too!
You're weird.
In a cybernetic fit of rage she pissed off to another age...
Because AMD unlike Intel (nawadays) makes next gen chips available for previous gen motherboards. So total cost of ownership is substantially lower with AMD than Intel. I got 3x performance boost on a several year old system this way. Because their motherboards are cheaper and use normal RAM (RDRAM debacle, anyone?). Because Intel has tried and failed to screw the enthusiast consumer for decades (except for that celeron 300 -> 450 thing, that rocked). Because their multithreaded performance is better, because their 8 core chips are cheaper, and some of us run an operating system and compute jobs that take full advantage of multiple cores. Because some of us _like_ AMD, and their continued existence means lower CPU prices for everyone.
Maybe that's why.
andy
Likewise for our database clusters. We use open-source software (MongoDB, Redis, Riak) so hardware cost matters - if you use Oracle or something like that, software costs dominate. If you want large 4-socket servers, AMD offers much better value than Intel. And if you want lots of small 1S servers, AMD wins again, because the E3 Xeons only support 32GB RAM.
I built my AMD PC ages ago, you insensitive clod! An intel motherboard with the same feature set cost literally twice as much, so that was a big help deciding. And the availability of much more powerful CPUs in the same socket cemented the deal. I spent $100 each on MB and CPU. Some time later I spent another $100 and got a CPU with twice as many cores at the same clock rate without having to change anything, just dropped it in.
Also, quad core? Only four cores? I mean, I started out with three, but today that would be silly.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
A server needs no graphics, it should not have no video connector. For local connections, use the serial or ILOM connector.
Why does anyone buy AMD chips anymore? Their top of the line quad core barely keeps up against the mid range i5 chips.
So are you saying that no one buys mid range i5 chips anymore?
Performance/$ is king.
http://25.media.tumblr.com/89598a218da9fecb96f0a9f9b575c3b1/tumblr_mfp8971y771qclwico1_400.jpg
Tomorrow is another day...
[citation needed]
Factor of two? Please... I know Intel has a premium, and i don't doubt their is some bang for the buck on the AMD side as you mention, but factor of two is a bit of a ridiculous statement.
You've never run a video transcode or compiled anything, have you?
I transcode Fraps recordings and upload them to Youtube, transcode bluray video for my Nexus 7, my MythTV backend often has transcode and commflag jobs queued that could run in parallel with no performance loss if it had more cores. 7-Zip will happily multithread compression tasks across dozens of cores. None of that is particularly exotic.
When you say "real world shit" you're talking about games, right? Be aware that there are things other than World of Warcraft that will tax a CPU, and they aren't imaginary or hypothetical.
AMD don't have anything that can compete with Intel's top end on single thread performance, but for the mid-range and lower end parts of the desktop market their products are quite competitive. Building a basic computer for a relative, or an office PC that's never going to do anything more intensive than run Word and play Youtube videos? AMD's APUs offer quite a lot of power for not a lot of money. Not everyone has a use for an i7-3970X.
Vast majority of the games do not even tax dual cores all that heavily, and quad cores are a massive overkill for all but a small handful of games. The optimizations a la BF3 are just unnecessary because most games have processes that just don't run well in parallel. And even BF3 doesn't scale all that well as cores increase past 4. Yours is a fringe case where you perform exactly one task on the fly that actually scales on more then a couple of CPU cores efficiently (video encoding). So his claim of "real world shit" stands. Vastly overwhelming majority of software that exists and will exist in near future does NOT scale well with core numbers. Of these the most popular exceptions are graphics renderers and video renderers that are typically optimized scale with GPU cores rather then CPU cores.
On the other hand with AMD getting both PS4 and next XBOX as platforms that feature their APUs, this may change in a few years. But for now, essentially everyone but a small handful will enjoy far more performance on a CPU that has a few powerful cores then a CPU that has many weak ones.
you should be glad people buy amd chips anymore, its the only true competition for Intel.
I buy AMD because well...fuck Intel.
In all honesty the performance different is negligible anymore, but ive had my quad core amd for awhile, its sturdy, it does what i need and i can overclock it....I have never been disappointed in a AMD cpu, intel however...i had a few shitty ones from them. I wont buy ATI however, i hate those video cards.
so just be thankful that the market is what it is, if intel had a monopoly you would be paying alot more for a shittier cpu.
their top of the line 8350 struggles against the 3570k depending on what application you're doing.
+1 too all that. I just built a new AMD PC w/ FX 8350 and 32 GB of RAM. Very nice. I don't mind showing AMD a little love. None of these big corps are perfect. I'd like that AMD is around to threaten Intel so they can get away with a little bit less.
This x1000.
In 2010 I bought an AMD Phenom II X2 550 Black Edition and a motherboard I could afford. I ran it as a quad core (unlocked cores) at 3.3ghz until that motherboard died. The only one I could get in a pinch did not have a southbridge that would unlock my other cores. I still ran it at 3.4ghz without issue.
Fast forward to 2013 and I just bought a new motherboard with DDR3 ram (8gb of it, double the 4 I had before) and unlocked my cores again. Its like a new computer.
I took the old mobo and ram and bought a cheap AMD processor for $55 (Athlon II X2 3.4ghz, VERY servicable!) and gave that to my son who was still on a P4 3.2ghz. We're both happy. AMD is cost effective for those of us who aren't made of money and still want decent computers. I love them for it.
Nobodies Prefect
Tidbits for Techs Technology Blog
Not really, when I bought my last laptop a couple years ago, my laptop was about 40% of the cost of the lowest priced Intel alternative, and that was for a business laptop, not cheap Acer crap. What's more it smoked my mother's school provided laptop with similar specs, but an Atom processor costing twice what my laptop cost.
http://ark.intel.com/ is very helpful in this regard.
Good-bye
Because why would you support their dishonesty when they pull shenanigans like intentionally crippling run-time performance of their code when run on non Intel hardware??
http://www.agner.org/optimize/blog/read.php?i=49#49
And of course they put the disclaimer as a "gif" so text engines won't find it.
http://software.intel.com/en-us/articles/optimization-notice/#opt-en
When Intel learns to respect their customers then I'll respect and support them.
Their top of the line quad core barely keeps up against the mid range i5 chips.
For the cost of that mid-range i5, you can get an FX-8350 that will completely spank the fuck out of it.
Now stop being an irrational intel fanboy that ignores price.
"His name was James Damore."
Wikipedia is this way -> http://wikipedia.org/
paralyzable
Capable of halting the processor?
I can say that for me, when running several server processes in the background for development, I get more for the dollar out of AMD... If I were building a gaming rig, I would probably lean towards a newer Core i5.
Michael J. Ryan - tracker1.info
Ditto, just upped to an FX 8350 w/ 32GB ram... runs plenty fast with some services, and Virtual Machines running...
Michael J. Ryan - tracker1.info
Video transcoding, while not representative of the average computing task, is still definitely "real world shit" and much moreso than simply incrementing counters.
So, 4 cores at 2.5-3.5GHz, 384 shaders, and dual-channel DDR3-1866 RAM at 35W.
If AMD were to double everything they'd have a really nice 70W desktop chip. Not sure what the die size is for Richland, so a doubled chip might not be cost-effective - though the PS4 APU has 8 cores and 1152 shaders, so it's at least possible.
The 3570k is not mid range, it's high end. The only substantial difference between it and the top i7 chip is hyperthreading and that isn't always useful. In some workloads, it's actually a hindrance. The types of workloads that favour hyperthreading are generally where the AMD chips are competitive with the i7 anyway.
Because their way cheaper. Especially for mid-range and even mid-high range. The price difference is also more noticable in less developed countries.
In my case, Intel does offers better CPUs than my current AMD one, but they're all out of my budget.
so just be thankful that the market is what it is, if intel had a monopoly you would be paying alot more for a shittier cpu.
But Intel CPUs are cheaper today than they were when AMDs were objectively better in the Pentium-4 space heater era.
AMD isn't their major competitor, ARM is.
The vast majority of software that exists won't max out an AMD E-350 netbook chip. Put things in perspective here: we're talking about the minority of software that will actually tax a system.
A lot of programs are single threaded or do almost all of their work in a single thread, and don't really benefit from more cores. Other programs scale almost linearly with number of cores. I was only making the point that software that takes advantage of many cores isn't as rare as the great grandparent seems to think. AMD's multi-threading advantage with its 8 core chips isn't just something that AMD fanboys babble about, there's real benefits in real software that people actually use.
I can testify that this is simply bullshit (as in a bold-faced lie). I have E-450 notebook sitting 2 meters away from me as of typing this, and CPU is so weak, I routinely observe it max itself out doing many mundane everyday tasks. Even browsing the web has noticeable hiccups on page loads that I do not see on this core i5 desktop where openhardwaremonitor shows both cores spike to and sit at 100% usage for a while as page is processed.
I had similar issues with anything from libreoffice calc to even software installers and updaters max out CPU for a while on that laptop. I almost never see my desktop i5 maxed out. This is very noticeable because OS responsiveness remains on i5 doing the same things like updates, the software installations I run on both are very similar.
That said I have no complaints about the notebook itself, it cost me 350 EUR about a year ago and the main reason I bought it was to be able to play games like LoL and SC2 on the go from the battery for several hours. It does that well with both games. Most intel-based notebooks either can't match the battery life or can't match the GPU performance or both.
But CPU is definitely the weak part of the package.
This isn't a troll, it's a joke...
I'm not sure which to blame - I've no known easy way to figure it out - but when I turn off WCG with BOINC (full-time at 100%) and I play Civ V under Crossover XI on a 64-bit Linux using a AMD 1090 I can see all cores being used. Loads range from ~30% to max. I like to see that I'm getting my money's worth out of those cores.
I've been glad to have run a Phenom quad, a Phenom II quad, and now the hexa-core off the same mobo because it saved me money.
... this association has always made me laugh.
Well, that's the thing.
If you're in the 4 socket space (40 cores intel IIRC, 64 cores AMD), then you're probably in the market for something pretty parallelizable. Which means of course that AMD doesn't reallt have the disadvantage.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
"I can testify that this is simply bullshit (as in a bold-faced lie)."
No. It was rhetoric. The grand parent picked the E-450 as an example. While it was admittedly a poor example, he/she did not mean for you to take this as a literal description of the E-450's prowess.
The point, which you missed, was that you don't need either a Core i5 or an AMD Bulldozer to surf the web and write documents. This point is true regardless of the poor choice of example. For the vast majority of software out there a $60 cpu will do just fine (think modern Pentium or high-end Celeron).
Or does the processor really come with a full-blown jet engine?
Nae king! Nae laird! Nae yurrupiean pressedent! We willna be fooled again!
Yes but I only gave him a tiny crumb.
In a cybernetic fit of rage she pissed off to another age...
35 watts? Really? I have an AMD APU in my HTPC and it pulls 130W. They managed to drop it by over 100?
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
Agreed. Example: when I build a rootfs using OpenEmbedded, parallelism is absolutely essential, because it builds thousands of packages. And to let it build in parallel efficiently, you need all these cores (of course), plus fast I/O so it does not become a bottleneck, and lots of RAM to avoid using swap and have a large disk cache. So, for a build server, I'd go with 4 to 8 cores, 16 GB RAM (you can get that for 100 bucks these days), a 7200RPM hard disk for package downloads and archives, and an SSD for the OS and the build work & staging directories.
This sig does not contain any SCO code.
In Crysis 3, the AMDs look good:
http://www.pcgameshardware.de/Crysis-3-PC-235317/Tests/Crysis-3-Test-CPU-Benchmark-1056578/
Only the really expensive Core i7-3960x (800 Euros or more on my side of the Atlantic) beats the FX-8350. And with a TDP of 130W, it is similar to the FX in heating your PC.
Other games are already moving towards being designed for more parallel processing. For instance X:Rebirth by Egosoft, currently in development. The CEO said in an interview that a quad core is recommended, they will have at least three main threads and several smaller ones.
So the days of well scaling games may be closer than you think.
C - the footgun of programming languages
a intel i3 second-gen feels about 10 times faster then a amd e-350. no more amd for me thank you very much.
If Intel is better performing, why didn't you go with one of their packages for the on-the-go gaming? Surely the Intel graphics part could have kept up? Or is the overall performance of the APU under the situations that you use it for most often the AMD is better. I see flash max out a single core processor on just about any system I see it run on. Java does the same thing.
Have you considered adblock and flashblock?
Watch for Penguins, they eat Apples and throw rocks at Windows.
I believe that what you just found could be referred to as "the point" of his comment.
Watch for Penguins, they eat Apples and throw rocks at Windows.
Oh yeah, seeing a "centrino" sticker and looking it up on the ARK would REALLY help identify the chip without booting the laptop.
VMWare, Citrix, and Microsoft would like a word with you.
You miss the bigger picture. What do you suppose youtube runs on? You think theyre using physical servers?
How many threads do you suppose the physical boxes behind the youtube clusters are running?
The vast majority of game servers and basically every bit of internet infrastructure run by a company with more than 100 employees is virtualized, and those that arent can still use the extra horsepower. Whether or not apache is running as a VM, Im sure it can use more cores.
You fail to realize that end users and their processor usage is pretty tiny compared with the server-side that you never see.
Now I have to remember /another/ goddamn acronym?
We are eternal, all this pain is an illusion.
Only if you're doing it right.
+1 Disagree
Fail. The Intel i3770K is faster at X264 encoding than the 8 core AMD processor. My point stands.
You seem to think AMD's 8 core processors best Intel's 4 core processors in video transcoding - they don't.
Why? AMD can't touch Sandy Bridge E5's. I'm not against multiple cores, I'm pointing out that AMD goes with multiple _weak_ cores.
I can vouch for this. My HTPC has no problems playing 1080p video in WMC or XBMC, boots in 10secs, launches other progs super quick - all with a dual core Celeron G630. It would be a fine mid-range gaming rig too if I added a discrete video card.
They did suggest NAHASAPEEMAPETILON first, but it didn't quite fly with the market testing.
Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.
Have you considered reading what you're replying to before going into knee-jerk "oh my god, he criticised the company I love" rant after reading the first sentence? I clearly stated in the third paragraph as to why I did not get intel for that notebook.
P.S. E-450 chokes even on slashdot WITH "no ads" option ticked. Looking at >10 second pageloads as a norm on longer posts on firefox. Both cores going at 100% during load. Desktop first gen i5 load times are barely noticeable and are mostly about network - CPU isn't anywhere near maxed at any point during loading.
In a way, it's funny and sad at the same time. Parent told a clear lie praising his favourite company's product and got upmodded to 3, I debunked it as I happened to own a factory overclocked version of CPU he used in his example and reality of my experiences with it is exact opposite of his claims and got downmodded to zero for doing so. Fanboyism at its finest. I suppose it's fitting that others followed the example.
I care about as much about server performance when on my home machine as server admin cares about home machine performance when configuring his newest blade rack to do whatever it is they will be doing. Why should it be any different? We were talking about home machine use here, are you perhaps posting in the wrong thread?
The grand parent (you) picked E-350, which is the same hardware as E-450 but runs on lower clock speed. You then proceeded to tell open lies about CPU performance. I debunked them as I happen to actually own the overclocked version of the CPU you used in your example, and my experiences with the system over the last year show all if your bullshit as being just that - bullshit.
E-450 is a great choice if you want to play games on battery for a while, because it has a great integrated GPU. For energy it consumes, it's probably the best on the market. That's why I bought it.
But CPU on the die is complete and utter trash. And the main reason why I bought it knowing this is because games I play are not CPU intensive. I was expecting it to lag on installers and even web browsing (though honestly not as much as it ended up lagging the machine). Overall I'm pretty satisfied with the machine regardless. But to try to sell any of the CPUs of the series based on the CPU is complete and utter bullshit - because CPU is utter trash. If things like interface response times, fluid web browsing, background updaters that don't cause interface lag and so on are a must, AMD's low power APUs are simply off the table. Because their CPU part of the package is so weak, it will cause all of the above.
The bullshit about bulldozers has no place here either. E-450 is a dual core with no multi-threading or pseudo "one core is two cores" thing that bulldozer architecture has. It's an exceptionally weak CPU that is accompanied by an exceptionally powerful integrated GPU, which is what sells the package. To try to pretend that CPU is something other then utterly abysmal is to lie.
But that's the point why people like myself buy the low end APUs. Discreet video card means it won't run for long off battery while actually running games. APUs like E-450 enjoy long battery life while actually running games.
Also, E-450 cannot decode realtime 1080p h264 high profile video on CPU without a lot of dropped frames. Not enough computing power. It can usually handle 720p unless it's Hi10P in software, in which case it may lag depending on video content (CPU will be taxed from about 80% and up with decoding thread).
Obviously these problems don't exist when using the hardware decoding path, where GPU could probably decode 4k h.264 High profile video on the fly with properly optimized decoder. But when going with CPU intensive software path, you're SOL.
The problem is that the E-450 wasn't really made to compete with the i5. It was made to compete with the Atom. That's like saying your i5 chokes faster than my Phenom II 1100T. It's true, but it's not really a fair comparison, since they are for different segments. My ex-wife's Atom based netbook would choke on the web too. Her new one based on the AMD APUs does much better. My wife's 3870 APU runs great. Runs every game she's wanted to play at a respectable framerate, and that was just the first-gen APU. I'm thinking about building a couple of media centers with this new generation, and upgrading her system with this new run of APU's because I'm impressed with them.
The point I was trying to make is that they serve different purposes, and are targeted at different groups. Or maybe overlapping groups, but still for different tasks.
And as for slashdot, I get several second page loads on large threads on my i7 macbook pro. They use a ton of JavaScript, and it makes me pine for the fjords of home.
Watch for Penguins, they eat Apples and throw rocks at Windows.
I can also testify that my mothers first gen atom chokes on web, but to a much lesser degree (about half less or so). I do not have experience with newer ones, but that atom was one generation before E-450 and of a lower clock rate.
Finally, you may wish to re-read the thread. There were people claiming that:
1. Modern CPUs are fast enough for all mundane everyday software to work smoothly even on slowest ones.
2. E-350 has a good CPU.
Both claims are false, which is what I was addressing. It would seriously suck if someone bought a brazos-based CPU after reading threads like these and getting an assumption that these two claims are true. I know I get a lot of information on "what kind of a chip I should get" from personal experience threads on techie forums like these.
I also happen to completely agree with you that these are made for two completely different segments of the market. It should be pretty obvious from my first post, as I specifically point out that the only reason I bought an E-450 based lappy was because they have a great integrated GPU that allows me to play select games for a long time off battery. Brazos-based laptops are, or at least were in a league of their own in that category, and as far as I know the only intel-based notebooks that could claim similar battery life and performance cost about three times more and are generally much bulkier (as in they get something like nvidia ION and bigger battery to ensure that they can get extra battery life when ION is actually loaded to 100%).