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The Brazos Performance Preview: AMD E-350 Benchmarkedby Anand Lal Shimpi on 11/16/2010 12:01 AM EST
207 Comments
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legoman666 - Tuesday, November 16, 2010 - linkare missing. Reply
Anand Lal Shimpi - Tuesday, November 16, 2010 - linkPower consumption was listed at the end of the first page. The systems used throughout the rest of the article were based on desktop hardware, so it didn't make sense to compare to those numbers (the Brazos numbers include the test platform's LCD display). We'll have to wait for final notebook hardware to do real comparisons to competing notebook platforms. But at 25 - 30W for the entire system (including display) under load, Brazos is definitely in the right league.
Take care,
Anand Reply
Sc4freak - Tuesday, November 16, 2010 - linkStill seems to be missing something from page 3:
"When it comes to power consumption however, the E-350 can't be touched. I measured max system power consumption at "
And then it just cuts off. Reply
Anand Lal Shimpi - Tuesday, November 16, 2010 - linker, oops...fixed :)
Take care,
Anand Reply
jensend - Tuesday, November 16, 2010 - linkHm. From the third page:
"the rest of the desktop platforms here consume much more than that at idle (much less under load)."
Unless the desktop platforms really suck much more than 25W idling and much less than 25 under load, this isn't exactly fixed.
I find it odd that you're even troubling to compare this to systems which suck tons more juice and not even throwing up a power consumption chart. I mean, we could certainly find that Brazos performance is rather limited compared to a Gulftown with 3xSLI GF 580s, but that's not going to tell us a lot about what makes a better laptop. If you did a performance vs. power draw scatter chart or something that'd be a lot more interesting.
Sure, it's a little bit apples-to-oranges since you've chosen to compare it to desktop systems. But maybe that should make you reconsider what you're comparing it to (don't you have a good number of laptops around?) rather than leaving power consumption data out of the picture. Reply
quiksilvr - Tuesday, November 16, 2010 - linkSoprano'd Reply
sinigami - Wednesday, November 17, 2010 - linkuh, since there were so many missing parts to the article, maybe you are missing some charts on page 4 or something? because i only see three, and against the Clarkdale, the zacate wins only the first one, ties on the second one, and loses on the third. With only one win, that page's headline should NOT say it's faster than Clarkdale!
you could say that the Clarkdale IGP wins or ties the zacate on two out of three gaming benchmarks, and declare it faster.
sheesh, is that some biasedness, or just wishful thinking? Reply
wiak - Tuesday, November 16, 2010 - linkis it even suposed to be competive with E4400 anyway?, isnt the whole point of it to be power efficient, faster, use less power and totally own atom in graphics/video department?
Danube is amd's mainstream competition to E4400, Core 2, Core i3, i5 etc
Brazos is amd's low power competition to atom Reply
wiak - Tuesday, November 16, 2010 - linkcorrection: E2200 but E4400 aint that far away :P Reply
Dark_Archonis - Tuesday, November 16, 2010 - link... Except it does not use less power than an Atom platform. It uses more power than an Atom platform. Also as the benchmarks show, performance-wise it's barely faster than an Atom D510 in some situations. Reply
Jamahl - Tuesday, November 16, 2010 - linkErr no.
It will easily outlast atom and beats it in everything. Reply
HelToupee - Tuesday, November 16, 2010 - linkYour graphs show that it eats less power at idle, but when it's actually doing something, Atom burns less. Of course, we're looking at engineering sample quality hardware from AMD, and fully built, tuned systems from Atom. AMD should be able to get those power figures to come down quite a bit. Reply
Shadowmaster625 - Tuesday, November 16, 2010 - linkThe atom burns less because it doesnt do anything. There is no way to get better power consumption than atom unless you clock the E-350 at 800MHz and hold it there. I suspect that even at that speed, the single core performance would make the system feel faster than the atom, or at least not any slower. Reply
Concillian - Tuesday, November 16, 2010 - linkThe CPU uses more than an Atom CPU, but the Atom is less integrated and needs more support from the chipset.
Arguably idle power is more important than full load power for many applications ideal for the Atom. The only load scenario that really matters much is watching a movie. IN a netbook, idle state is more important. In an integrated system like a kiosk, idle is more important, and Brazos clearly leads in idle.
The power consumption of the entire system at load is not far off from an Atom system at full load. A D525 atom + ION is using more power, but performing worse in all aspects. At this point it comes down to cost as to whether it can compete with an Atom, as it's clear from this article that it doesn't compete well with the "real" CPUs. It has to compete with Atom, because there's no way for it to compete with even CULV Arrandales. Reply
Dark_Archonis - Tuesday, November 16, 2010 - linkSo this is the sort of performance that the FASTEST Bobcat product offers? Can't say I'm surprised. In many situations it's barely faster than an Atom D510. I think in some cases an Atom D525 would be faster.
Yes, the Brazos E-350 does very well in some games. However, it also does VERY poorly in other games. Compared to AMD's hype, those are terrible performance results for Dragon Age, Starcraft 2, and Civilization 5. Civ 5 and SC2 are both very popular games, so it's not a good sign that Brazos struggles so badly in those games.
I totally agree with the Final Words section and what you say there Anand. So really, the only situations where Brazos makes sense is GPU-dependent applications/games.
A Celeron E absolutely SMOKES Brazos in terms of performance in most situations.
Yes I would say this product is competitive with Intel's offerings, but it is not class-leading. At 18W TDP for a Brazos platform, that is more power intensive than an Atom platform, and almost as power intensive as a Celeron platform. Intel's i3 products also carry 18W TDP ratings.
I agree that the success of Brazos will heavily depend on which OEMs pick up this product, and also how they integrate it.
Once Intel integrates their new Sandy Bridge-level IGP into their low-end products next year, Brazos will look even less appealing. Reply
wiak - Tuesday, November 16, 2010 - linkthats why amd has LIano up it sleeves Reply
Dark_Archonis - Tuesday, November 16, 2010 - linkLlano will compete with Sandy Bridge though. Do you really think Llano has a chance? It will have a dated Stars CPU combined with a decent Radeon GPU. Yes the GPU might be better than Sandy Bridge's IGP, but by how much?
We already know that Llano will lose to Sandy Bridge in CPU performance. It might beat it in GPU performance, but we'll have to see how much of a gap it will be. Also most applications and games are still CPU-dependent. AMD is making a big gamble by having Brazos and Llano be so GPU-dependent. Reply
smookyolo - Tuesday, November 16, 2010 - linkIt'll probably beat SB in power consumption, though... D: -quakes in boots- Reply
wiak - Tuesday, November 16, 2010 - linkas far as rumors go, LIano has 400 or 480 shader gpu, aka a HD 5670 discrete, in anandtech preview of sandy bridge, its is just as fast as a 80 shader HD 5450
add a phenom II based arcitecture then you have a pretty competent mobile gaming system in a mainstream laptop without discrete graphics and way better battery life than with a discrete graphics card
and there is nextgen bulldozer fusion and bobcat fusion still coming
btw, do people even need a high performace CPU in a laptop anyway?, i got a laptop here with Athlon II M320 2ghz with a onboard HD 4250 IGP that decodes blu-ray flawlessly in hardware, plays youtube flash h264 video in hardware, fast enught to work with scanned pictures, digitalcamera pictures etc
and i usely use a quad core gaming rig with a Radeon HD 5870, 4GB memory Reply
Khato - Tuesday, November 16, 2010 - linkAs far as rumors go, Llano has at best a 128 bit, DDR3 1600 memory interface, which would give it 25.6GB/s of memory bandwidth available, aka a radeon 5550 with DDR3. Of course it has to share that bandwidth with the CPU, so actually it'll be far less than that. Not to mention, how many manufacturers would actually give it full speed memory?
Anyway, I really do quite appreciate the inclusion of the 5450 numbers in this review. It makes it far easier to determine whether the GPU portion is shader or memory bandwidth starved... Though it'd be even better if numbers for an underclocked 5450 were included as well, especially three variations of underclocked (core only, memory only, and then both equal to the 'brazos' tested.) I expect that those numbers would confirm that performance is pretty much memory bandwidth limited. In which case the step from single channel DDR3 1066 at ~8.5GB/s to dual channel DDR3 1600 at ~25.6GB/s would allow for roughly triple the graphics performance.
Oh, and ya know that the Sandybridge preview really isn't at all indicative of actual performance, right? aka, it stands a good chance of matching a memory bandwidth-bound Llano. Reply
flyck - Tuesday, November 16, 2010 - linkdon't forget to look to different sites also...
Totally different picture... power consumption for system is on a whole other level for those systems, advantage to zacate. Reply
duploxxx - Tuesday, November 16, 2010 - linkwhere are going to stop making a total fool out of yourself on every intel - amd based review?
Anandtech totally lack any decent compare with ULV based solution where the real competition is. yes the atom d525 will be on par performance wise cpu but not gpu unless you combine it with ion2 and yet you will have between 30-60% more powerconsumption, not to mention total platform cost. for initial release E-350 is fine, they just need some higher performing parts which can arrive real soon when the platform matures.
TDP has nothing to say here even a D510 consumes more then the E-350 and that is rated at 13W....
graphics is bad? it is at least playable on this kind of level now - netbooks, something intel can't and most games are even faster then current intel. only on some cpu limited you see brazos going down against i series which is btw a 35W part and higher clock cpu+gpu... wait until you see some ULV compares how low they are.....
Intel SB will hurt there budget/ASP big time if they need to compete against zacate, by that time you will also see higher rated zacate. Reply
Dark_Archonis - Tuesday, November 16, 2010 - linkFact is Brazos still struggles with certain games that require high CPU power.
I really don't see the point of this product. The GPU is better than Atom products yes, but it's not good enough for a lot of popular games. People will still be disappointed if they buy a Brazos netbook or laptop only to discover it struggles to play a lot of popular games.
Intel is aiming Atom at really small devices like smartphones. Currently, Brazos power consumption is too high for something like smartphones. So is Atom, but Intel will greatly improve that with upcoming SoC Atom products.
As for people who want a netbook but don't need gaming, current products on the market are already "good enough".
Sure maybe Brazos might fit for those that want to watch HD videos on a netbook, but that is a small niche market. Reply
SandmanWN - Tuesday, November 16, 2010 - linkSeems like a bunch of bad assumptions that don't take into account that there will most likely be different CPU speeds for this processor that address your very issues. Its just a review sample. It could indicate the low end of the line or middle or upper. We just don't know yet.
Given AMD's years of release history. They start low and work their way up the speed spectrum. Reply
Dark_Archonis - Tuesday, November 16, 2010 - linkWe "don't know"?
Are you for real?
The E-350 is AMD's top end Brazos product. Anand has stated this, and so have several other sites. You really think AMD will offer a Brazos platform at launch with higher performance than the E-350?
All the other Brazos products will perform worse than the E-350 at launch, not better, since this is the top-end Brazos that was tested. Reply
NullSubroutine - Tuesday, November 16, 2010 - linkWho buys a net-book to specifically game? While you can play certain games, at low quality, the purpose of this Fusion system is to have a low power system that can still do what the majority of people BUY netbooks for...internet, email, youtube, etc. All of this is achieved with better performance than the Atom.
I normally look forward to Anand's reviews as he usually does some of the best, but this article was very disappointing. Testing the system against the higher performing, higher power consumption chips is one thing, its always good to have a reference point. But to compare and base a conclusion against what is not its market or competition point? Utterly disingenuous. Reply
Dark_Archonis - Tuesday, November 16, 2010 - linkAtom is already "good enough" for internet, email, and youtube. Unless you watch HD videos on a netbook of course. I've used netbooks with Atom for regular tasks like email, internet and the performance is good enough for those tasks.
But then, I would have to question why even bother watching HD videos on a netbook? That is almost as pointless as gaming on a netbook. Reply
Griswold - Monday, November 22, 2010 - linkAtom is junk for any HD content, everyone knows that. You cant even hook it up to a higher res screen or TV due to lack of ports under the intel regime. Its a whole different story with Brazos. VGA, DVI, HDMI, DisplayPort - all possible.
So, while this puppy can actually playback HD material, you can even use it to play it back on your TV if you wish. Thats just one of the things that puts it in another league than the Atom platform.
Next would be the possibility of light GPGPU applications. YYes, AMD had that in mind too when they called it Accelerated Processing Unit.
But since you seem to be the authority on what everybody could ever want to do with their netbook, all this is irrelevant.
Get the hell out of here, fanboy. Reply
Anand Lal Shimpi - Tuesday, November 16, 2010 - linkUpdated with Arrandale ULV results :)
Take care,
Anand Reply
Griswold - Monday, November 22, 2010 - linkSo many words, so little sense. You should have spared us this load of horseshit. Reply
IMPL0DE - Tuesday, November 16, 2010 - link...underwhelming. I was hopeful to see more performance out of this one. Let this not be the sign of the things to come. I still have faith in Bulldozer. Reply
Dark_Archonis - Tuesday, November 16, 2010 - linkIf Bulldozer underwhelms or disappoints, AMD might be finished. I don't see how AMD could continue to be in business if two of their major new products are both underwhelming.
For AMD's sake, Bulldozer needs to extremely competitive, at the very minimum. Reply
wiak - Tuesday, November 16, 2010 - linkAMD Radeon is one line you should not underestimate ;) Reply
GeorgeH - Tuesday, November 16, 2010 - linkBulldozer is only a piece of the puzzle. AMD's killer chip is the one that seamlessly combines what will (hopefully) be a Bulldozer core's awesome integer performance with the floating point performance of a GPU, all with competitive mobile power consumption and a process node that will allow them to make a decent profit while competing with Intel on price. Reply
Kevin G - Tuesday, November 16, 2010 - linkThat will come in 2012 with the successor to Llano.
The thing that AMD needs to be worried about is getting Llano out in a time frame to be competitive. It has seemingly been pushed into the middle of 2011 instead of the early 2011. Reply
Dark_Archonis - Tuesday, November 16, 2010 - linkGreat, we've been hearing that for years. First we heard that AMD's "killer product" was going to be a combination of a CPU and GPU, except they got beat by Intel on that front.
Now, AMD's "killer" product apparently will be a Bulldozer CPU combined with a good GPU.
It seems that AMD's "killer" product is a continually changing target, and is something that may never arrive.
What if the competition is much stronger by the time AMD releases a Bulldozer Fusion product? What will the "killer" product for AMD be then I wonder? Reply
Oxford Guy - Tuesday, November 16, 2010 - linkWell, years back, AMD was generally crushing Intel with its crappy NetBurst line. That may never happen again, but it was fun while it lasted. The problem for AMD is that Intel has to really screw up for it to have a chance, given Intel's leverage. An absurd design like Prescott is unlikely to come again. Reply
Dark_Archonis - Tuesday, November 16, 2010 - linkThat's really the point. Even if Bulldozer is very impressive, for AMD to make financial or market share gains, Intel has to stumble. By all accounts, Sandy Bridge will be a very strong product.
As I say, Intel stumbling on the scale of the P4 Netburst fiasco is unlikely to happen again. Intel is very well known in the industry for learning from their mistakes. Reply
GeorgeH - Tuesday, November 16, 2010 - linkAMD hasn't been beaten to anything yet. CPU/GPU hybrids aren't about slapping a classical IGP together with a CPU. CPU/GPU hybrids are about combining the compute performance of a CPU with that of a GPU into a single flexible unit.
Intel is moving towards that target with good CPUs and substandard GPUs. AMD is moving towards that target with substandard CPUs and good GPUs. If/when/where they meet is the point where AMD has the potential to deliver an awesome product.
Sandy Bridge, Llano, and the like are only the first few baby steps towards the goal, and it's silly to claim a "moving target" just because those steps aren't as large or as relatively impressive as we might like. Reply
Dark_Archonis - Tuesday, November 16, 2010 - linkAMD should have never had so much hype behind Fusion in the first place then, as the product that you describe won't be on the market for several years. Reply
GeorgeH - Tuesday, November 16, 2010 - linkYep, they should have definitely said something like "Here's a reasonably adequate product in its niche. Please buy it. Or not. There's lots of good stuff out there." ;)
At any rate, Fusion is like Centrino - broad market speak for a concept, not any specific product. Trinity (the first Bulldozer+GPU) will be a 'Fusion' product just as much as Ontario, Zacate, and Llano are. Reply
wickedgtr - Tuesday, November 16, 2010 - link"When it comes to power consumption however, the E-350 can't be touched. I measured max system power consumption at " ???
Page three, between the double graphs for x264 Reply
Aone - Tuesday, November 16, 2010 - linkSilly to compare E350 with Atom. You should have done C50/C30 comparison with Atom. Reply
Anand Lal Shimpi - Tuesday, November 16, 2010 - linkUnfortunately all we had access to was the E-350. As soon as there are C-x0 platforms available we'll review em :)
Take care,
Anand Reply
KaarlisK - Tuesday, November 16, 2010 - linkCouldn't you have tried to cap the E-350 at 1GHz using Windows' power management settings? Or was Cool'n'Quiet disabled? Reply
wongpitu - Tuesday, November 16, 2010 - linkwell, I guess it's still early to make a judgement in this product, and I should wait for the final version. But still, when I see it it's no different from atom on cpu power. when my expectation is this brazo at least 50% faster than atom, and this will upper the competition.
Maybe I will more interest if the fusion is make a good boost on most of application. Reply
NST - Tuesday, November 16, 2010 - linkAnand,
in this preview you 're putting E-350 against desktop processors (some of them really old), a dual core Atom and an ''i3-350M''.None of the above is in the same market AMD is targeting with this chip, which is the ultraportable market (11''-13'' screen).D510 has a lower TDP (13W) and i3-530M a much higher one (35W).As you stated, ''This is effectively AMD's answer to Intel's CULV platform, but with better graphics performance''.Please compare E-350 with the i7/i5-XXXUM line of processors,so we can really evaluate the performance of this APU.
NST Reply
Anand Lal Shimpi - Tuesday, November 16, 2010 - linkAsk and you shall receive. I just updated the gaming benchmarks with results from a simulated Core i3 330-UM, will be adding the general performance benchmarks as well :)
Take care,
Anand Reply
Roland00Address - Tuesday, November 16, 2010 - linkAnd while I am grateful for the update I was wondering if you could also test a
1) Celeron Dual Core SU2300 or Pentium Dual Core SU4100 which are based off the Penryn CULV and go for about 450 to 700 online.
2) Pentium U5400 aka the I3 Derivative with features turned off such as Multithreading since this is the closest priced Arrandale ULV you are going to find that competes with Zacate. Moste U5400 systems go for 580 to 700 online.
Thank You Reply
8steve8 - Tuesday, November 16, 2010 - linkAMD E-350 gets destroyed by core i3/i5 ULV cpus at the same wattage (18W for CPU/GPU).
and sandy bridge will make this much worse for AMD in a matter of months.
gpu performance is really not a concern for the type of products these processors are intended for. intel core i5 ULV IGP is good enough for video/flash-games etc.
this seems like a total waste. Reply
duploxxx - Tuesday, November 16, 2010 - linkTDP doesn't mean real world power consumption, I think you should look at a few other reviews first who did a better compare.... Zacate even owns atom 525 big time with ION and even better then single core atom.... what TDP again? :)
http://hothardware.com/Reviews/AMD-Zacate-E350-Pro... Reply
NST - Tuesday, November 16, 2010 - linkNo, it isn't.E-350 has the same number of cores as I7-680UM(top of the line Intel CULV Processor that is supposedly available but nowhere to be found), higher frequency, better IGP and it comes at a far cheaper price.
Also, Sandy Bridge, at its launch, won't bring new CULV chips, because the current line has been out for less than 6 months.So, no more competition for this segment. Reply
8steve8 - Tuesday, November 16, 2010 - linkNST im not sure what your point is, yes the E350 has the same number of cores and the same TDP as all core i3/i5/i7 ULV parts, I'm not sure about price but they can be found in a variety of laptops, from the lenovo u160,u260,u460s, .... well almost every mfgr has a shipping laptop with a core iX ulv part (sans apple).
laptops with these parts have been purchasable since june, and the e350 is only benchmarkable via an engineering platform... so its not exactly that close to market... even if it was.. seems like it can't compete vs core ix ulv. on anything other than price.
maybe if its super-cheap, it'll sell in a few netbooks vs atom. Reply
NST - Tuesday, November 16, 2010 - link1. E-350 has much better power consumption.
2. E-350 has better GPU performance.
3. Intel CULVs are based on a better architecture however, E-350 has a higher frequency, which is crucial for 720p gaming.
As a gamer, what I see here is the potential for ultraportable notebooks with gaming performance close to this of Alienware M11x and never before seen battery life at the cost of an Atom-based netbook.
I do not question Intel's current supremacy in every segment but I think that next year Intel will face some strong competition from AMD.And that's good for us customers. Reply
mino - Tuesday, November 16, 2010 - linkAnd you forgot the most important point - Brazos is playing in a completely different price bracket.
The Atom price bracket. Reply
Dark_Archonis - Tuesday, November 16, 2010 - linkBrazos is aiming at the $300-500 market. Guess what, there are some Celeron systems that fall in that price bracket as well. Reply
8steve8 - Tuesday, November 16, 2010 - link1. does it have much better power consumption? the tdp's are the same, ive yet to see ulv arrandale vs e350, total system power consumption.
2. yes, it has better gpu performance
3. the e350 has higher non-turbo frequencies than ulv arrandales, but why do you think that's crucial for 720p gaming... by that logic the 3.6Ghz pentium 4 is better suited for gaming than a 3Ghz sandy bridge cpu... which is false. Reply
NST - Wednesday, November 17, 2010 - link1.All you got to do is check the review of a laptop featuring an Arrandale ULV chip and then compare the power consumption.There plenty out there.Plus AMD stated that E-350's idle power consumption would be even lower in the final product.
3. 720p gaming--->More CPU dependant
1080p, 1600p etc--->More GPU dependant
Generally about gaming, in higher resolutions, GPU becomes more and more important than the CPU.What I meant was that in a game that utilizes 2 cores E-350 will have an edge due to the higher frequency.And yes, if you find a game that utilizes only one CPU core (probably an old one) the Pentium will probably manage to hold his own against Sandy Bridge. Reply
Khato - Wednesday, November 17, 2010 - link1. How about the ~10W consumption of the Alienware M11x R2 while running the Anandtech Internet battery life test? That's a i7-640UM that'll ramp up to 2.27GHz when it's needed.
With respect to other power consumption figures... It's mildly annoying how other sites are typically comparing desktop/'nettop' systems to the 'brazos' demo platform. After all, take a look at the power consumption of any actual notebook/netbook implementation of the same processors and suddenly the power consumption numbers of the 'brazos' demo platform is simply in line/above the competition rather than far below it...
If interested in other power numbers, the Anandtech "Intel Core 2 CULV Roundup" published earlier this year has some good figures for both atom and CULV. For example, the Asus 1005PE with the single-core atom N450 at 1.66GHz consuming a massive 9.5 watts under 100% CPU load. So theoretically an N550 with its 3 watt higher TDP would get up to all of 12.5 watts... Of course more interesting is the fact that the 1.3GHz CULV notebooks in that review are at all of 19 watts under 100% CPU load - so comparable power consumption, despite being faster and on a 45nm process tech instead of 40nm (though the Intel 45nm is roughly equal to TSMC 40nm, if not better.) Reply
mino - Tuesday, November 16, 2010 - linkDo you see those ULV chips selling for Atom prices as Zacate and Ontario are ?
You are comparing an enduro to a moped while complaining the latter is slower.
Hell it is. IT IS SUPPOSED TO BE.
The fact that Zacate is actually considered an alternative to ULV series at 1/3 the cost is a HUGE success on itself. Reply
duploxxx - Tuesday, November 16, 2010 - linkWhen you mention this:
In most of our benchmarks the performance advantage over Atom isn't huge, yet using Brazos is much better than using an Atom based machine. It all boils down to one thing: single threaded performance. Atom can make up for its deficiencies by executing a lot of threads in parallel, but when you're bound by the performance of a single thread the E-350 shines. The E-350 is 65% faster than the Atom D510 in the single threaded Cinebench R10 test. It's this performance advantage that makes the E-350 feel so much quicker than Atom.
and you only post mainly multithreaded apps which are fooled by the HT people off course get a different idea about the final product..... Atom is slow for booting and loading apps, perhaps a real world timing once the final silicon is there and compare the actual timing will give the brazos credit what it needs, afterall its 40nm vs 32nm and first silicon vs 2e revision.
so in the end not that bad, but AMd needs at least a 1.8-2.0GHZ brazos to compete in the 400-500$ range, that should be easy to get, they don't need more gpu power.
btw where is the stated 25W brazos amd has up its sleeves for the ultra low end desktop platform. THey can easily use it for notebooks. Reply
duploxxx - Tuesday, November 16, 2010 - linksorry anandtech, really big fan of your site, always the first site i will read, but this round other sites have done a much better job then your review. Again even your conclusion is totally off then others who are comparing the right platforms against each other....
pcperspective really shows platforms, power consumption and guess what the results are :)
http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid=1039&type... Reply
Khato - Tuesday, November 16, 2010 - linkEh, I wouldn't say other sites have done a better job, rather they just present different information. Given the fact that I was primarily interested in GPU performance aspects, the Anandtech review is far more useful far as I'm concerned.
That said, the direct comparison against a celeron SU2300 ION platform is indeed interesting. A core 2 duo based celeron at 1.2GHz bests the 1.6GHz 'brazos' in CPU performance on all but the MP3 encode benchmark, which could just as easily be due to differences in the SSD used as the CPU. Sure the power numbers are impressive, but that's quite to be expected on a demo system - it'll be interesting to see how much that goes up on actual retail systems. aka, how stripped down and tweaked was the demo system in order to get idle power that low. It's basically equal to the SU2300 + ION on dynamic power according to those numbers. Reply
duploxxx - Tuesday, November 16, 2010 - linkthey all had the same amount of ram and all had ssd in that review, so it is really comaprable, where this review showed lots of different setups. Reply
Anand Lal Shimpi - Tuesday, November 16, 2010 - linkMy goal was to compare to the type of CPUs you'd find in other $400 - $500 notebooks, mainly ~2.2GHz 1MB L2 Conroe/Merom based CPUs and 2.26GHz Arrandale based chips - both of which you'll see in the review.
I agree we needed to include some ULV results, so this morning I added data from a simulated i3-330UM (1.2GHz) across the board :)
Take care,
Anand Reply
khimera2000 - Tuesday, November 16, 2010 - linkintresting... I have to say that I got more out of this review then i did with anand since it uses the profile i would consider buying. I would not consider getting one of these chips for a notebook so the comparison against notebook chips are kinda lost to me.
I was intrestead to see how much performance VS how much batterylife this new platform has since i already have a powerful desktop, a comprable notebook I dont need to know how fast a notebook is if its not hitting close to the 8 hour battary mark.
If i where to get one of these it would be for long flights and train rides, it would be for the children in my family, and it would be for the older people who are not as tech enabled. as it stands the questoins i had in mind where not easily answerd by anantech's review. Reply
piroroadkill - Tuesday, November 16, 2010 - linkYou've created Atom like performance with a slightly better GPU, way, way too late in the game.
I thought the Dual core 1GHz and single core 1.2GHz would be more competitive with Atom 1.6, but looking at these results, those are in with no hope at all.
This is poor. Reply
flyck - Tuesday, November 16, 2010 - linkread the reviews..... performance is better in multithreaded applications than Atom525 with HT and single threaded is 60% faster....
gpu is better than ion which atom needs.
powerdraw on idle is LOWER than single core Atom and equal for cpu intensive tasks but higher in games. Reply
mino - Tuesday, November 16, 2010 - linkGames which Atom cannot play in the first place.
Not without Ion which makes the battery life goes boom anyway ...
Those GPU's are eating electrons like crazy when doing its job. Sneaky beasts, aren't they ? :D Reply
Khato - Wednesday, November 17, 2010 - linkReally? It's power draw on idle is under the 7 watts measured on Anandtech for the single-core atom N450 Asus 1005PE? Maybe it's power consumption under load is lower than the 9.5 watts for that system?
Yeah, power consumption figures vary wildly from system to system, especially when comparing netbook/notebook type designs to nettop/desktop. It's rather clear that the brazos test platform is a netbook/notebook type design and hence has no business being compared to nettop/desktop designs on power consumption. Reply
flyck - Wednesday, November 17, 2010 - linki withhold my comment on that until we see the ontario product competing with a single core atom... which will be a 9W single core 1.2Ghz and not zacate. Reply
ltcommanderdata - Tuesday, November 16, 2010 - linkSo based on these results, despite a bit of excitement of AMD showing Apple computers on their recent press slides, it doesn't seem like Fusion is Apple's ideal CPU/GPU solution. Brazos has neither the CPU or GPU power to replace the current CULV Core 2 Duo + 320M solution in the 11.6" MacBook Air. For 13.3" MacBook, MacBook Air, and MacBook Pro, Llano looks to have the GPU power, but not the CPU power to go against Sandy Bridge, but the bigger problem is timing since it looks like volume shipments won't be until H2 2011 which will be close to Ivy Bridge. As such, Apple's best solution for their 11.6" and 13.3" models seems to be to stick with Intel processors for best CPU performance and figure out how to fit a discrete GPU, which could be an AMD one if they can get an acceptable hybrid switching implementation.
For the rest of Apple's lineup, they'd probably stick with Sandy Bridge over Bulldozer since Sandy Bridge looks to have the stronger AVX implementation which should be useful for their multimedia and content development applications. Reply
flyck - Tuesday, November 16, 2010 - linkDidn't you look at the power consumption at all?
Brazos system consumer 9watt idle, the SU 20W and atom single core 15W
the SU is always 10W higher than Brazos. Only the Atom can be lower with some loads (altough in gaming the atom is not fast enough) Reply
JarredWalton - Tuesday, November 16, 2010 - linkIdle power consumption on CULV 11.6" is down around 9W for the entire platform, and for 10" Atom it's about 6W. Then along comes Apple's MacBook Air and their idle power consumption is apparently in the realm of 5W. Yes, that's FIVE watts for CULV, based on the Air 11 review (http://www.anandtech.com/show/3991/apples-2010-mac... That's a 35Wh battery lasting basically seven hours for light web browsing. Damn!
I hope Microsoft can do something with Windows 8 to finally get C-state use to improve. Right now, it's like Windows 7 (which is better than Vista and XP in my testing) still goes around waking up devices and applications. "Hey hey hey! Excel! Yes, I'm talking to you! I haven't seen you request any resources for a while and you look idle, but I'm just making sure. Do you need the CPU? I just woke him up to help out. No? Are you sure? Okay... go back to sleep CPU and Excel. I'll be back in a few milliseconds to see if you've changed your mind! Oh, hey! Word... how ya doin'!? ...." Reply
softdrinkviking - Tuesday, November 16, 2010 - linkIs this level of performance even relevant in the notebook form factor?
It doesn't do anything I wont be able to do on the next years smart phones.
Sure, bobcat will do it all faster, but I'll have to lug around a notebook! Reply
haukionkannel - Tuesday, November 16, 2010 - linkWell, actually this is guite good. It seems not eat too much power. It can be used to read web pages like, atom. You can even use word prosessor on it. And when you play, it seems to beat atom.
It is not mean to be gaming prosessor. It is very low end mainstream CPUGPU that has reasonable graphic power, and it can delivere just that.
If you want gaming laptop, you have to go to i3 or i5 and from 350 (5650) to 460 (5870). They are in very different league.
I would be nice to see for example a "gaming" tablet made around this product! Reply
beginner99 - Tuesday, November 16, 2010 - linkI really don't get the benefit of this gpu. Does anyone really play starcraft 2 or an FPS on a netbook? No, at least not with these results. IMHO this gpu thing is overrated for netbooks. It should play media files including 1080p (for attaching the netbook to the TV) and also be able to play flash video flawlessly and render flash-heavy web-pages. All of it not really needing a gpu but mainly the video decode engine. Browsing mainly needs (single-threaded) cpu power.
And then think it's funny you say the platform felt snappy when it has a crucial ssd and most atom systems ship with a crappy 5400 rpm drive at best. probably 99.9% of the good experience was due to the ssd. I must say pretty smart move from AMDs side.
So an ideal netbook has a semi-decent ssd (even JMicron based ones will be good enough), good single-threaded performance ( I mean video encoding on netbooks is very important,,..NOT) and a video decode engine for the common stuff including software (driver, apps) supporting it. Reply
Calabros - Tuesday, November 16, 2010 - linkSteve should buy this company.. its the only solution :-) Reply
ET - Tuesday, November 16, 2010 - linkI do like that different sites use different benchmarks, and it's a good way to get a better overall picture, so even though some other sites have benchmarks that I find more interesting I have no problem with that.
Even looking at other reviews, the Brazos looks disappointing from a consumer point of view. It loses in performance to Intel CULV CPU's and isn't much better than available Atoms. It even lost to an Atom D525 + Ion2 in some cases. Extrapolating to the 9W variants suggests that performance will be pretty low.
That said, from an OEM point of view it should be a good replacement for some Intel platforms, because while it doesn't break new ground it should replace the Atom+Ion combination with something smaller and cheaper, and the lower power versions will likely still compete with the Atom while providing better graphics.
Still from my POV I'm pretty disappointed. I had really hoped for something that's game changing. Reply
duploxxx - Tuesday, November 16, 2010 - linkperhaps read that review again...
in some cases it loses and most it wins to a 525 yes which has 2 cores 4 threads and a 1,8ghz, and yes some gpu are better because of the ion2 but it also requires 60% idle power and 30% less load power, say again where it fails? for only being released few months after on first revision...
it makes the competition harder so better for us. Reply
ET - Tuesday, November 16, 2010 - linkI'm not saying it's a bad product, and as I said it should draw the OEM's. What it doesn't do is change the kind of products available. It's not significantly faster, doesn't really allow gaming, it's just another entry point that's not bad. It will power yet another bunch of low cost notebooks that can only be used for everyday tasks. At the netbook side it may be a little more convincing, since it saves the need for an extra chip for video, and benchmarks showed a significantly higher javascript speed compared to an Atom, which matters. But still, there's no wow factor about it.
As a consumer I will certainly prefer an AMD netbook with this chip to an Atom based one, it's just that I was hoping for more. From my point of view, the advantage of such a netbook over Atom+Ion:
- Lower price
- Perhaps smoother everyday use (hinted at by the javascript benchmark)
- No artificial hardware limits, far as I know, so I expect to see a "netbook" with 4GB of RAM (or at least upgradeable to that)
- If I'd want to try Direct3D development on it (which I did in the past on similar strength hardware), I'll have the full DX11 feature set, even if at very low speed. Reply
flyck - Tuesday, November 16, 2010 - linkit IS significantly faster. What the benchmarks do not show is single threaded applications. Single threaded is dead slow on Atom. e.g. starting an application/user interfaces all single threaded will feel slugish on Atom and not on Ontario.
1Ghz Bobcat equals around 1.6GHz Atom cpu in single threaded applications how is that disappointing for a smaller cpu? Reply
ET - Tuesday, November 16, 2010 - link> 1Ghz Bobcat equals around 1.6GHz Atom cpu in single threaded applications how is that disappointing for a smaller cpu?
Because as a consumer I don't care at all whether the CPU is smaller. I care about performance (and I do care to an extent about characteristics like power consumption and heat, but that's a lesser factor). Being given another CPU which performs like an Atom is disappointing. I didn't want another Atom. I was hoping that AMD for once will be able to take the performance crown, and by a significant margin, and I'm disappointed that it couldn't. Reply
AMDJunkie - Tuesday, November 16, 2010 - linkAlso, it should play Crysis. And be $100 cheaper. And use sub-1W power. You know what, knock another $100 off that price. Why isn't it free?
Sometimes, I think the big corporations are just holding back, trying to squeeze a buck out of us enthusiasts. There's no difficulty at all making a chip that does everything at this price range, they just don't want to. :( Reply
flibbertigibbet - Tuesday, November 16, 2010 - linkI am very disappointed by Anand's choice of systems to benchmark Zacate against. He himself says it is intended to compete in the ultra-portable, high end netbook, nettop, and low end notebook space. That being the case, I think some of the following systems would have made for a better comparison:
- Atom N550 (with and without Ion2)
- AMD Nile (K325/K625 + Radeon 4250)
- Intel 2009 CULV (Celeron SU2300/Pentium SU4100 + Intel G45/ Nvidia Ion)
- Intel 2010 ULV Arrandale + Intel HD
I'm happy he included the VIA Nano DC. I hope OEM's come up with sleek, portable machines matched with high-capacity batteries to match Zacate. Can't wait to see more detailed power consumption and battery numbers. Reply
Anand Lal Shimpi - Tuesday, November 16, 2010 - linkI focused mainly on making sure we had low end notebook coverage ($400 - $500 notebooks will have a ~2.2GHz Pentium DC or Core i3), however I've been running i3-330UM numbers this morning and just updated the gaming performance charts with them - refresh to see the new comparison :)
Take care,
Anand Reply
trivik12 - Tuesday, November 16, 2010 - linkit would be interesting to compare bobcat with oaktrail platform. That supposedly has very good idle power consumption(supposedly in ARM league) and better load power consumption compared to current solutions.
I am sure intel will release CULV based on Sandy Bridge if there is big enough competition from bobcat. 18V CULV with SB core will make it interesting for sure.
Anyway I am glad to see bobcat destroying atom as intel had little intention of making Atom a decent chip. Hopefully this will make intel do something different with oaktrail and medfield. Reply
antaholics - Tuesday, November 16, 2010 - linkI hope nobody asked this yet, but I noticed that the i3/i5 ULVs were not benchmarked to compare. They're at a slightly higher price bracket ($500-700+), but not something consumers wouldn't consider if they're in the market for a high-end netbook.
Thanks! Reply
antaholics - Tuesday, November 16, 2010 - linkand they have similar battery life/TDP as Brazos and Atom, unlike the pentium DC and i3 tested Reply
SandmanWN - Tuesday, November 16, 2010 - linkWhen you buy anything your first metric is money. You don't just arbitrarily decide to consider a higher price bracket. You wouldn't even consider this if you where looking at the 500-700+ price range. Reply
krumme - Tuesday, November 16, 2010 - linkFor the first time in history we have a dirt cheap product to produce, that manages to just handle all the basic task and gaming on the modern windows platform. Its an entry to windows and multimedia for 3B on this earth that can not afford an i3.
And then this idiotic review giving all the wrong impressions to the casual reader. How sad. Reply
Dark_Archonis - Tuesday, November 16, 2010 - linkAn entry for the billions that don't have a computer? Give me a break.
Most people in the world that currently don't have a computer due to financial reasons wouldn't be able to afford a $300-500 netbook/notebook anyways!
Even a $100 computer would be difficult for a lot of these people to afford. Reply
Kim Leo - Tuesday, November 16, 2010 - linkThis comes as a very very small chip, have you ever seen the Ion GPU? It's not exactly small. This will finally make it possible to build better netbooks at either a cheaper price, or the same price. Or just a long lasting work notebook, which is what I'm hoping for.
People who says this is not impressive live in a dream world, where every netbook has a high clocked Atom with Ion, which somehow magically consumes less power than this 18W beauty.
This is probably the first product that has gotten me interested in what Apple has planned with it's OS where it uses the GPU for certain tasks, AMD demonstrated that this APU can do a lot more than just being a good netbook CPU, I hope we this getting used to it's full potential. Reply
redisnidma - Tuesday, November 16, 2010 - linkZacate is smaller than Atom, it's out-of-order architecture makes it a better overall performer than Atom and in some cases AMD's own nile platform, it has better GPU that rivals current offerings from both AMD's IGP and intel's and it has a lower TDP. I really don't see any reason not to like this little chip. Better performance than Atom, acceptable performance vs Intel's ULV offerings and superb GPU vs everything else. Reply
AMDJunkie - Tuesday, November 16, 2010 - linkBobcat is officially a disappointment. $500 machines that can't run Crysis? AMD is dead. :*( Reply
SandmanWN - Tuesday, November 16, 2010 - linkAs any enthusiast knows, there isn't any $500 notebook that can run Crysis, so there cannot be disappointment in something that doesn't exist. Reply
Dark_Archonis - Tuesday, November 16, 2010 - linkDidn't AMD hype claim that Bobcat would be "good enough" for gaming? Clearly, it isn't. Reply
silverblue - Tuesday, November 16, 2010 - linkDefine "gaming". AMD clearly have an idea of what they want these products to run - who says it has to include the latest cutting-edge titles? Reply
Dark_Archonis - Tuesday, November 16, 2010 - linkWho says? AMD themselves. Their hype for Bobcat implies you can run modern games on it with ease. Reply
silverblue - Wednesday, November 17, 2010 - linkThrow me a link. I doubt it says anything about running Crysis in Enthusiast settings, for a start. Reply
mino - Tuesday, November 16, 2010 - linkWhy else would anyone spend 90% of the space boasting about multithreaded benchmarks that are COMPLETELY meaningless for the target markets?
Anand, it is a sad fact that you are not humble enough to do a proper review of the low end stuff anymore.
Leave the space to people who are not so pampered by having the top-end stuff to play with for over a decade.
Stick to the luxury stuff where your mind is. Your time as a "mortal" reviewer is over.
You are far too out-of-touch to not get manipulated by PR lads without realizing it. As far as low-end and mainstream parts go, that is. Reply
Anand Lal Shimpi - Tuesday, November 16, 2010 - linkThese days it's actually very difficult to find workloads that don't at least stress 2 cores, even installing Modern Warfare 2 on the Brazos system ate up 61% of the 2 cores. That's why the Cinebench test is so handy because it does give us an idea of single threaded performance as well.
Single threaded performance does matter quite a bit to how fast the system feels. Application launch time and how quickly windows pop up is greatly based on this, which is why I pointed it out in our single threaded performance results.
I tried to show single threaded performance, multithreaded performance in both high and low IPC workloads as well as a lot of gaming performance data to present as complete of a picture of Brazos' performance as possible.
If I've failed in doing so by your standards I do apologize. I wanted to run a lot more but with time constraints on how long I had access to the platform I had to limit what I could run.
Take care,
Anand Reply
mino - Tuesday, November 16, 2010 - linkI am pretty sure you have a very good understanding of Zacate's performance.
Where I see the problem that your articles have, over the years, come to be written from an upper class POW.
As if subconsciously disregarding the pricing part.
Then when a part comes out that is _designed_ to be cheap first and anything else second you make an article sound as the part was a piece of crap by definition.
While i certainly hope it was not the idea, it is how it came out ...
People are subjective by definition and our lives DO affect our expressions however much we would like it to stay otherwise. Reply
mino - Tuesday, November 16, 2010 - linkOne just needs to contrast the tone of this article with the Atom one. While Atom was being heavily praised for delivering acceptable performance for a low price an power.
link: http://www.anandtech.com/show/2537
Nevermind that Silverthorne, while itself good, represented very much a crappy and imbalanced platform. (Outside the non-existent MID market.)
Compared to that Brazos, while almost shouting out "Atom done right" gets a stamp of "undewhelming" ... Reply
Anand Lal Shimpi - Tuesday, November 16, 2010 - linkI appreciate the feedback. It's not my intention to discredit value as a piece of the equation, in fact pricing is always a major component of anything we discuss here.
I believe we need to look at Atom in context. Two years ago Atom's level of performance might've been a decent balance of perf/power, especially given the price of good systems at the time. Today that is no longer true. Outside of smartphones, the overwhelming response tends to be that Atom based netbooks running Windows 7 aren't exactly fast enough.
The E-350 is clearly faster than Atom. My worry is that the E-350 won't be the chip aimed at Atom. In a $299 netbook the E-350 would easily trump anything else out there. But if we're talking about $500, then you start getting into Pentium DC and Core i3 territory.
While video encoding, 3D rendering and file compression/archive recovery aren't the only things you'd do with such a system, these are good tests of CPU performance which is the unknown we were looking to answer in this article. The tests told us three things:
1) The E-350 is faster than a dual-core Atom by varying amounts depending on the type of workload (the tests also highlighted the limits of Bobcat's front end in high IPC workloads).
2) The E-350 does achieve AMD's design target of 90% of the performance of a K8, and
3) The E-350 does suffer the same fate as Atom does when it comes to CPU performance. You can get a faster CPU in a similarly priced system, although you will likely give up form factor and/or battery life.
The E-350 is easily better than Atom, but when it comes to the Pentium/i3 comparison you have to make the tradeoff between CPU performance or GPU performance. I simply tried to present enough data to allow users to understand that tradeoff.
Take care,
Anand Reply
mino - Tuesday, November 16, 2010 - linkJust try more care when publicly judging stuff by your personal expectations.
Very few people will get the subtle praise in the background which a mere recognition of Zacate competing with mainstream platforms represents.
Thanks for the reply and keep up the good work,
Cheers! Reply
mino - Tuesday, November 16, 2010 - linkIt now came to me that what was really called for is a three-progned look at Brazos:
1) as a netbook/ultra-thin solution
2) as a HTPC solution
3) as an ultra cheap alternative to mainstream parts
IMO it shines in all those roles but for a VERY different reasons:
1) solves GPU bottleneck that plagues this market since inception
2) provides Atom-class power with CULV-class connectivity and performance
3) is the cheapest kid on the block while providing _acceptable_ performance across the board (outside workstation tasks)
Maybe a topic for a follow-up analytic article ? :) Reply
JarredWalton - Tuesday, November 16, 2010 - linkI would LOVE to have a netbook/ultraportable laptop to test right now using Brazos, but that's not what AMD is ready to show just yet. They're showing early hardware that needs the big OEMs to put it all into a compelling package. Unfortunately, I think they're going to fall short as well. Do you want an alternative to ION netbooks? This will definitely work, and even come out ahead. But ION, frankly, isn't good. Yes, it can play multimedia content a lot better than just Atom (or Atom with CrystalHD), but then so can ULV stuff.
And the big problem is that you can get ION netbooks for $500, and ULV starting at $600. (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N8... So if AMD were to say that Brazos is going to target the $300 to $350 netbook world, I'd be ecstatic. When they say it's going after the $500 laptop world, I'm a lot less impressed. Intel already has CULV laptops that cost under $500; add in a G 310M (which is still too slow for most recent games) and you'd have something faster than Brazos in pretty much every way. It's just nothing special.
Is it a bad design? No. Is it an awesome design? Equally, no. It's an okay design that will fill a niche--a niche that already has plenty of options, unfortunately. Reply
mino - Wednesday, November 17, 2010 - linkWell, Jared, I was hoping there is a chance for AT to recover.
After this reply of yours, I am pretty sure you have lost the ability to see the forest behind the trees.
I will still not call you paid, but you are REALLY pushing for that.
Never mind, just no more hope left. Reply
silverblue - Thursday, November 18, 2010 - linkJarred didn't write the preview. He's entitled to his own opinion. Reply
mino - Tuesday, November 16, 2010 - linkTroll spoken. Beware. Reply
redisnidma - Tuesday, November 16, 2010 - linkAfter reading this preview, I am starting to believe the rumors floating around in the web about Anand's bias to intel. Shame on him if it's true. Reply
Anand Lal Shimpi - Tuesday, November 16, 2010 - linkI don't believe that's true :) Is there anything in the article that you believe incorrectly stated the performance of the E-350 vs. its price (2.2GHz Pentium DC/i3-350) and power competitors (Atom)?
Take care,
Anand Reply
mino - Tuesday, November 16, 2010 - linkProblem is not the numbers themselves.
It is the focus of the article to workstation/gaming market along with an unfortunate selection of benchmarks.
For the uninitiated without a gift of reading between the lines, the whole article comes out saying "Oh, another over-hyped CPU crap from AMD barely matching a 2yrs old Intel Atom. Lets move on to discuss some important SB rumors". Reply
khimera2000 - Tuesday, November 16, 2010 - linkI am starting to get that feeling to unfortionately. Ive read this sight for a long time although i only this year started posting it does look like the language used is getting more and more lop sided, Although i still enjoy reading the sight im just not getting what I use to get out of there reviews.
Then again I can be byast because of the AMD 6xxx reviews... which did feel vary vary bias, and was blasted not for the reviewing and conclusion but the choice of componants for testing. at least thats how i see it. Reply
Dark_Archonis - Tuesday, November 16, 2010 - linkAre you serious? The gaming market was compared because well, you know, AMD HYPED Bobcat for gaming!
This is ridiculous. AMD hyped gaming performance and GPU performance for Brazos, and therefore gaming benchmarks are perfectly applicable in this situation.
If AMD talks the talk, they need to walk the walk. AMD should have never hyped the GPU performance or gaming performance of Brazos in the first place, given that Brazos struggles in a variety of gaming situations. Reply
mino - Tuesday, November 16, 2010 - linkNo, AMD did not "HYPE" Bobcat for gaming.
It said that Zacate is a game changer that provides discrete-class performance to the APU market.
That market is currently represented by a really mediocre Atom APU's that can not even launch the games, not to mention playing them.
It actually went out of its way NOT to hype Ontario by excluding it from its Fusion branding. Reply
Dark_Archonis - Tuesday, November 16, 2010 - linkZacate is not a game-changer, because it does NOT provide "discrete class" GPU performance.
Bobcat was hyped through the hyping of Zacate. Reply
silverblue - Wednesday, November 17, 2010 - linkBut it obviously DOES provide discrete-class GPU performance. Low end, yes, but it still fulfills its purpose. And for far less power than the low-end discrete cards will use. Reply
Dark_Archonis - Tuesday, November 16, 2010 - linkI am starting to believe the rumors of more and more AMD PR people infiltrating tech websites are true ... Reply
silverblue - Wednesday, November 17, 2010 - linkOh this is priceless. First we have all the anti-AMD accusations being spouted, and then YOU come in with the anti-Intel ones! Reply
rashire - Tuesday, November 16, 2010 - linkThis article has me very interested for the potential as a HTPC. I've been looking for a compact (low draw) HTPC solution, I was looking at Atom + Ion combo, but I'm curious how this would preform comparatively. Mostly I'm interested in whether either system has enough power to playing x264 HD video (at a decently high bit rate) while also running par2 without any stutter in playback. (something my current socket 939 HTPC doesn't manage)
Would definitely love more coverage on release for HTPC performance. Reply
Brentnall - Tuesday, November 16, 2010 - linkYes THIS!! +1
Also recently been looking into a low power HTPC / File Server setup and the only reason I haven't gone for Atom + Ion yet is because AMD had some new stuff up their sleeves. Got to admit from reading other reviews, it looks pretty damn good compared to the atom, especially the power consumption... just hope the pricing is good too.
Couldn't care less about netbooks and laptops at the moment... more HTPC info please =D
Any ideas when we will start seeing some mobo's based on these chips? Reply
nitrousoxide - Tuesday, November 16, 2010 - linkCurrent drivers can't give convincing performance boost on x264 HD Video decoding, but AMD will surely give better solutions by the time it ships its APUs. I remembered that when Anand tested the HD5450, it is clearly pointed out that 80 shaders don't have enough computing power to handle Vector Adaptive Deinterlacing, which is a important feature for a HTPC card. Given that HD6310 is slower than HD5450, it isn't a perfect HTPC solution either. Reply
nitrousoxide - Tuesday, November 16, 2010 - linkAnyway it could be competitive, though not PERFECT :) Reply
mino - Tuesday, November 16, 2010 - linkThere will be Zacate boards with x16 PCIe slots for exactly those not willing to wait for Llano or not needing more CPU power. Reply
Dark_Archonis - Tuesday, November 16, 2010 - linkZacate boards with x16 PCIe? What's the point? That's like offering SLI boards for Celeron processors. Reply
silverblue - Wednesday, November 17, 2010 - linkAnd there are i3s and i5s out there with on-die GPUs that have access to an x16 slot. By your logic, what's the point?
If you come back and say you were referring to Celerons, please bear in mind there are probably people out there running SLi/Crossfire setups with an Athlon II at the heart. Bang for buck. Reply
Shadowmaster625 - Tuesday, November 16, 2010 - linkIntel CULV processors are ungodly expensive. I dont see how the E-250 will be in the same price class. I did a price check on Core i3-330UM notebooks and they are ALL over $550. It is disingenuous to claim that those intel notebooks will be competing with the notebooks that will carry this tiny little chip. Reply
JarredWalton - Tuesday, November 16, 2010 - linkCULV is actually the brand for Core 2 ULV products, whereas ULV parts generally refer to the newer Core 2010 ULV stuff. ULV is certainly expensive, but not because it has to be... rather because Intel can charge that much and people will pay it. Even worse is that you can get nearly the same battery life with regular i3 processors (i.e. ASUS UL80Jt only gets about 30-45 minutes more battery life than the U30Jc). But if you look at CULV, which is where Brazos really competes, there's plenty of stuff selling around the $500 mark (search for Pentium Su4100 laptops). Reply
Jamahl - Tuesday, November 16, 2010 - linkAnand it's the way you write things, and the rather strange way you benchmark at what appears to be random.
You've used the pentium dual core at 2.2ghz, making it known that Zacate is no match for it. Now you've added the i3 330um maybe you could mention it's also no match for the pentium dual core?
I think we all realise that the Zacate system is going to thump both in power consumption as well.
And for heavens sake, why benchmark two of the most strongly cpu-intensive games again. This just makes the intel graphics look better, falsely. Go on and find another 2 games that show them up as good as Dragon Age and SC2 does. Reply
mino - Tuesday, November 16, 2010 - linkEven better. benchamrk something that is actually PLAYABLE on these machines !
Original Far Cry, CnC Generals, HL2 anyone ? Reply
mino - Tuesday, November 16, 2010 - linkAh, sorry, almost forgot that Intel drivers can't handle such a demanding title as 2002 CnC Generals ... :) Reply
Dark_Archonis - Tuesday, November 16, 2010 - linkSo benchmarking those games would be admitting that Zacate cannot handle modern games. Reply
mino - Tuesday, November 16, 2010 - linkNo it would be REAL WORLD testing.
Not all GPU's are made equal as well as not all game are made equal.
That is why I actually care less about Clarkdale giving me 15FPS slideshow in Starcraft if it cannot even launch 6yrs old DX8 CnC.
That CnC it actually has the HW power to handle but the drivers can't cope with.
Even 5450 can't play Crysis? So what? Does it mean the card is worthless? Reply
AnandThenMan - Tuesday, November 16, 2010 - linkI think we all know why certain games and CPU benches were chosen. This site is becoming more and more transparent all the time. Reply
jamyryals - Tuesday, November 16, 2010 - linkSeriously guys? Didn't we go through this last week?
They are benchmarks, the numbers don't lie. I guess he could segregate the numbers again so it doesn't offend some of you. More information is not a bad thing.
The article is simply finding where the chip fits in the existing price/performance landscape. If the reality of the numbers doesn't line up with your expectations, don't shoot the messenger. I for one, think it's a neat looking product that has potential to keep improving going forward. The way some people have such an emotional response to this is baffling. Reply
nitrousoxide - Tuesday, November 16, 2010 - linkWell that's not completely true given previous tests on AMD's high-end CPUs. On Anand version even an Core i5 owned the Phenom II X6 1090T but from many non-media tests done by ordinary users, the 1090T can even outperform an i7 both in games and benchmark softwares, and its power consumption is lower than i7 instead of the skyscraper power bar in Anand version. Those results are making me suspect whether the test on Zactate is convincing enough. No offense, Anand. Reply
nitrousoxide - Tuesday, November 16, 2010 - linkI mean...I'm not questioning your test because this is only a PREVIEW. Just some dissatisfaction with tests on other AMD CPUs :) Reply
Dark_Archonis - Tuesday, November 16, 2010 - linkIt's not so baffling when you begin to understand certain people are paid to post such "emotional" posts. Reply
mino - Tuesday, November 16, 2010 - linkYeah, as well as some fail to see the forest for the treas. Reply
Anand Lal Shimpi - Tuesday, November 16, 2010 - linkThe focus here is obviously Zacate, which is why the text that accompanies graphs is centered around comparisons with reference to Zacate.
As far as the gaming benchmarks go. I tried to put together a varied list of titles to show performance across a spectrum of game types. Starcraft 2 was the largest non-FPS game release this year, it of course had to be included. DAO simply provided another datapoint for an RPG showing how CPU limits can appear even in 3D games.
I don't think anyone is arguing that Intel's HD Graphics are faster (note the title on the desktop IGP comparison page). But I do believe it's important to show both sides of the coin.
Once final hardware is out we'll definitely spend more time with the platform and run through an even wider range of games and benchmarks. This merely serves as a preview until then.
Take care,
Anand Reply
mino - Tuesday, November 16, 2010 - link"Once final hardware is out we'll definitely spend more time with the platform and run through an even wider range of games and benchmarks. This merely serves as a preview until then."
That is expected and waited for! :D
Just think about splitting at least the conclusion as I have mentioned above. ;) Reply
Dark_Archonis - Tuesday, November 16, 2010 - linkI find it more strange that you're criticizing the gaming benchmark selections. Consumers don't talk about "this game is very CPU intensive" when they typically buy games.
The average Joe does not care how CPU intensive Starcraft 2 or Civilization 5 is. They just want to play it.
These are both popular games, so their inclusion in the benchmarks is perfectly acceptable.
Crysis is quite CPU intensive. Are you going to criticize Crysis as well for being CPU intensive?
I guess any games that show Zacate as a poor performer should not be used according to you right? Reply
Jamahl - Tuesday, November 16, 2010 - linkI have no issue with Starcraft 2 being used.
I do have an issue with Starcraft 2, Civ 5 and Dragons Age being used however. These are supposed to be gaming benchmarks, yet the majority of them are far more cpu dependent.
This is not the norm in gaming, however it is the norm in Anands benchmarking.
You would be very hard pressed to find two games more cpu dependent than Starcraft 2 and Dragons Age. Reply
Dark_Archonis - Tuesday, November 16, 2010 - linkI will bet you anything that Diablo 3 will be very CPU intensive.
As I mentioned, Crysis is CPU intensive. What do you have to say regarding that?
While these are only a few games, these are very popular games.
What exactly do you mean that it is not "the norm"? Do you mean to say that most sites don't include Starcraft 2 or Dragon Age in benchmarks? I don't see why people would have issues with this. It illustrates a variety of games that stress different parts of a computer.
RPG and strategy games are typically quite CPU intensive. Also, they are rarely included in gaming benchmarks.
I for one applaud Anand for including them, as far too many sites lack these kinds of benchmarks. Reply
Jamahl - Wednesday, November 17, 2010 - linkCrysis is cpu AND gpu intensive. The point is most benchmarking suites would not have a MAJORITY of cpu intensive games. There's a reason why people actually spend a lot of money on gpu's.
Did you even read Anands preview? Let me help you understand as you're making a great job of failing to.
Page 2 - "Setting Performance Expectations"
You get a slower CPU than most existing mainstream platforms, but a much better GPU.
The expectations here are better CPU performance than Atom, but lower than Arrandale ULV. GPU performance should easily trump both.
Then what does he do? Well lets look at the gaming benchmarks shall we?
First of all, lets look at the comparison benchmarks.
So the 5450 was benched using a i5 661 and an i7 920 - And you wonder why Bobcat can't keep up? To see if it is actually close to discrete graphics performance, it should have been benched on a 1.5ghz athlon for a fair comparison.
1 in 3 of the desktop tests was Dragon age - a massively cpu bound game which hugely favours intel cpu's over AMD's...and he benched it in comparison to a 5450 with two fast intel cpu's. Not right however you look at it. MW2 is not particularly heavy on graphics either so basically the only true graphical test is Bioshock 2.
Next page
In the mobile gaming comparison, he's gone and added Starcraft 2 - TWICE.
Lets see what we got then -
MW 2 - 50/50 split cpu/gpu
Bioshock 2 - gpu
Dragon Age - cpu
Warcraft - 50/50 split
SC2 TWICE - (yes even the gpu test is more like cpu obviously looking at the results)
I'm not even gonna talk about using Civ 5. Civ 5 got a huge question mark over it's reliability in the fallout over the 6800 benchmarks, then he goes and uses it here?
So...yeah. ONE pure recognised gpu benchmark used in all of those tests compared to 3 or 4 cpu gaming benchmarks.
It's really very simple. benchmark 20 games at random and Bobcat will beat any intel integrated graphics by around 50% in 15 of them. Anand has managed to make it lose more often that not in the very, very few games that massively favour cpu's.
The fact is, he knows this or should. He said at the start what to expect, then went and benchmarked what he knew would happen. Reply
techworm - Tuesday, November 16, 2010 - linkall of us know anandtech is intel PR site so no complaint Reply
nitrousoxide - Tuesday, November 16, 2010 - linkWatch your words, unless you can give evidence that Anand is indeed an Intel PR. Reply
silverblue - Tuesday, November 16, 2010 - linkDo me a favour and step back before making judgements.
If Anand was biased towards Intel, why would AMD even entertain him with an offer to benchmark their newest CPU, let alone let him publish the results? He already said he was time constrained so you can't very well do everything. Moreover, he did mention that this was a "preview" - this isn't final silicon, it's an engineering sample, and that the final product should use less power.
You should be grateful that there's a preview at all.
It is a shame that the chip seems bandwidth starved, but I don't think AMD ever intended for it to be a triple-channel, SMT-enabled, out-of-order ULV solution - just think of the cost. As long as it does what you want of it, isn't that its point? Atom was "just enough" for browsing, basic media and light workloads, yet Brazos is at the very least an improvement in IPC, and substantially better if you take into account gaming, movies and so on. If Anand truly wanted to give it a bad name, he wouldn't have benched so many games AND highlighted where the chip's true strengths are. He also mentioned that most games should be GPU bound and thus will extol the virtues of the Brazos architecture - how very anti-AMD of him (!). Reply
Dark_Archonis - Tuesday, November 16, 2010 - linkAll of us know some Anandtech posters are AMD PR people, so no surprise here. Reply
silverblue - Wednesday, November 17, 2010 - linkYep, and I, for example, wouldn't be running a low-end Phenom II X3 setup if I was getting fees from AMD for hyping their products (which I clearly am not, anyway).
Do yourself a favour and stop spouting rubbish about conspiracies where none exist. Reply
nitrousoxide - Tuesday, November 16, 2010 - linkOK, so Anand said that no worries about CULV Sandy Bridge series because they are more expensive, power-hungrier and bigger chips which is not a good deal for OEM manufacturers. What about the new Atom CPUs then? Intel is going to upgrade them to 32nm, which is twice as faster as today's 45nm Atoms, or half the power consumption at the same performance. Though bobcat has more efficient OoO architecture, Intel can easily improve the performance of Atom by adding more cores or tune up the frequency given the superiority of 32nm.
AMD will definitely win this wave of competition, but its successor won't come until 2012. How will Fusion APUs compete with the future Atoms which will be defnitely faster then current models? Reply
silverblue - Tuesday, November 16, 2010 - linkYes but isn't Brazos 32nm at the very least? There's really no sense in throwing out a 3GHz dual core APU of this class because it would simply use too much power. Also, there's not much justification for any sort of Turbo clocking.
What MIGHT significantly improve performance would be a dual channel memory controller (especially in the case of the GPU) but I don't know what that would mean for the die size nor the power consumption.
Let's remind ourselves of a couple of things - AMD's two thread out-of-order architecture is still beating Intel's four thread in-order architecture at the same clock speed. Brazos also has Atom completely beaten in lesser threaded workloads. Considering the primary target of these platforms isn't supposed to be massive workloads, the AMD solution will still be more capable than Intel's... for now. Reply
silverblue - Tuesday, November 16, 2010 - linkApparently Brazos is 40nm. When they put it onto 32nm, I imagine that anything Intel does with Atom in terms of a die shrink won't be enough to put it back in front of Brazos. We'll see. Reply
mino - Tuesday, November 16, 2010 - linkNo 32nm SOI Bobcat APU will see the light of the day.
There will be a Zacate/Ontario successor in H1 2012 at 28nm bulk(GloFo).
2-4 Bobcat+ cores, ~120 SP's (mostly likely 2*64 SP's of a newer design) Reply
silverblue - Wednesday, November 17, 2010 - linkSo that's where 28nm came in. You must forgive me, I lost track on that one.
So yes, imagine the power drop from 40 to 28 even with a more powerful CPU. This one might even please Dark_Archonis. Might. Reply
mino - Wednesday, November 17, 2010 - linkMore like making him furious :D Reply
mino - Tuesday, November 16, 2010 - link"Worried about whether it can survive the next wave of attack by Intel"
The funny part is that AMD's 2011 product portfolio is as strong as it has not been for the past 15yrs.
It is AMD attacking this time around gals. Just think about it for a minute ... 1999 ... 2003 ... 2011 ... Reply
Lolimaster - Tuesday, November 16, 2010 - linkQ4 2011/Q1 2012 TSMC will deliver the next low power Fusion at 28nm.
Krishna & Wichita with 2 and 4 cores flavors (real ones).
Anandtech an Inteltech site? We all know that, just leave with it. Reply
jdonkey123 - Tuesday, November 16, 2010 - linkWhat are the primary processor-related factors for consumers buying a new mobile PC?
Battery Life, Price, Form Factor, & Performance (perceived)
When you look at these factors, it's pretty obvious that this platform fits into a large hole between high-end Atom based offerings and Intel's myriad ULV and non-ULV mobile parts.
While much of that is obvious from this excellent benchmarks article, what's missing a bit is a compilation of relative power consumption (and by extension, battery life.)
The most power-hungry Atom system that this is likely to compete against in mobile can be found in the Asus Eee PC 1015PN with a DC Atom N550 + NG-ion. CNet found load power of that system to be 20.66 watts. Compare that to the E-350's 25 watts that you found under similar load (assuming gaming wasn't CNet's test case.)
In that case, the power consumption is only modestly higher for what seems like at least an equivalent boost in performance and at $429 list, AMD's system looks pretty good!
I guess I see an upgraded slate of netbooks as the most likely home for this APU and I think that as long as the pricing is there, AMD is actually in a great position to displace a ton of the higher-end Atom parts.
Ref: http://reviews.cnet.com/laptops/asus-eee-pc-1015pn... Reply
Joe Supersales - Tuesday, November 16, 2010 - linkIf you want to test one please contact Joe Jao at www.jetwaycomputer.com, Tel: 510-857-0130 Ext# 128, thanks. Reply
gudodayn - Tuesday, November 16, 2010 - linkWith all the noises Intel and AMD makes, I am surprised at the little guy's performance figures, the VIA Nano DC.
I read the VIA Nano DC review and knew it took out Intel Atom D510 with ease but in the larger picture with desktop CPU numbers, I didn't expect it to do what it did!!!
I am excited about consumer products developed for the VIA Nano DC but unfortunately past experiences tell us all that in the market today, its all gobbled up by other bigger players!!! Reply
Iketh - Wednesday, November 17, 2010 - linkyou're forgetting Nano's power consumption...
this is everyone's argument proven in many of these posts, the article was written in the wrong light for Brazos... people looking at $500 notebooks either want near-desktop performance and dont care about 6 hour battery life, or they need a spreadsheet/web surfer with 6+ hours of battery... these are NOT competing markets
this is one instance where sticking to the price bracket does not work Reply
sprockkets - Tuesday, November 16, 2010 - linkWhat about the performace of this vs. the current Zotac Ion board with the Intel SU3200 dual core chip at 1.2ghz? Reply
Dark_Archonis - Tuesday, November 16, 2010 - linkIrrelevant comparison. Intel's "i" processors offer strong performance for those who want it. For those who can't afford the performance, lower CPUs are "good enough".
I'd love to hear why you think AMD settled for "good enough" in terms of Bobcat performance.
Atom will get smaller and less power hungry than Bobcat. i3 and above CPUs offer easily better performance than Bobcat. A Celeron E in many cases offer better-than-Bobcat CPU performance. Bobcat's GPU is not good enough for gaming or intensive multimedia tasks.
Bobcat ends up being stuck in no-mans land.
Clearly this discussion is about Bobcat. So tell me, what is the point of Bobcat compared to Atom? Sure it's faster than Atom, but it's still not fast enough to make a big impact in the market. Reply
Dark_Archonis - Tuesday, November 16, 2010 - linkYes they have a long way to go, but Intel's upcoming Atom SoC designs dramatically reduce power consumption. Cedar Trail and Oak Trail are supposed to be very power efficient Atom platforms.
So Zacate is mainly good for GPU-accelerated browsing? What about when Intel offers a strong-enough GPU integrated with Atom for hardware accelerated browsing? What then? Reply
Dark_Archonis - Tuesday, November 16, 2010 - linkBetter get your wings ready then. Cedar Trail and Oak Trail will offer far lower Atom platform power consumption than current Atom platforms. Don't believe me? You'll see when the products are released, don't take my word for it.
Really, "at the same price"? For the price that Zacate will go for, I'm pretty sure I would be able to get a Celeron E or Core 2 Duo-based Pentium for about the same price. Yes in some games they would perform worse due to the IGP in those products, but gaming on Zacate is a struggle anyways so it would be a moot point.
As for average everyday tasks, a Celeron E or Pentium would generally perform better than Bobcat.
You get what you pay for. Lower end products have lower end performance. This is a simple fact, no need to get politically correct.
Anyone who wants performance wouldn't be looking at this market anyways. Neither Atom nor Bobcat provide enough performance for enthusiast/performance users. Reply
Dark_Archonis - Tuesday, November 16, 2010 - linkNo, I don't "speculate much", do you?
Do you want me to post links to what Intel has said about the future of Atom, or should I let you look it up yourself?
Intel itself has talked about how Atom will get smaller and lower in power consumption while keeping the same performance or better. Reply
Iketh - Wednesday, November 17, 2010 - link"dark_archonis", just stop... you're making a complete fool of yourself
anand need's DT's post rating scheme please Reply
silverblue - Wednesday, November 17, 2010 - link"Intel itself has talked about how Atom will get smaller and lower in power consumption while keeping the same performance or better."
Of course they'll improve Atom's power draw... architectural tweaks plus new processes ensure that. Not improving Atom much, if at all, is rather mad. Reply
Dark_Archonis - Tuesday, November 16, 2010 - linkYup, Intel is definitely sitting idle with Sandy Bridge ... oh wait no they're not.
Sandy Bridge is the BIGGEST architectural change to Intel CPUs since the Pentium 4, and before that the Pentium Pro.
So being in a strong position, Intel in this case in not sitting idle at all. They are further strengthening their already strong position which will likely allow them to handle any new AMD competition without much issue. Reply
ninjakitty - Tuesday, November 16, 2010 - linkThese article posts are funny... I think everyone here either works for AMD or Intel. Nobody is so nerdy to defend or care about processors as much as all of you... It could also be NVidia people who just want to get AMD and Intel people mad at each other. Reply
ninjakitty - Tuesday, November 16, 2010 - linkAnand,
I am such a huge fan of you. Are you married? How come you never talk about you? Where are the pictures?
N/K Reply
Iketh - Wednesday, November 17, 2010 - linkLOL Reply
outsideloop - Wednesday, November 17, 2010 - linkGuys,
Look at the war, not the battle:
Who is biggest thorn in AMD's side today? NVidia, not Intel. AMD wants and needs to eliminate NVidia from the chipset/integrated graphics business. Brazos makes the ION platform irrelevant, and is in effect-kicking NVidia out of this market. Hell, AMD's goal right now is not to beat Intel, its to put NVidia out of business (sure, they can have their Tegra market). That will leave two competitors vying to deliver an ever expanding and increasing HD/3D rendered world to us. The Brazos is the first product with this goal in mind.
Sure, Intel still has higher performance processors. But, which way is the world technology/computer market going? Cheaper, better value, lower power, lower cost. Especially with the world economy struggling and the commoditization of everything we use and need.
The world needs it done cheaper and more efficiently. We can't afford the Intel platforms anymore. And why should we, when an AMD platform at half the price is good enough for most of the stuff we do? Yes, I have the 5850 Radeon for gaming but the rest of the platform is really becoming irrelevant. (I do realize best possible workstation performance is something some of us do need, hence you use a core I5/i7). BUT, for the vast majority of users in the world, why not just do AMD + SSD + Radeon 5XXX/6XXX, and not really notice the difference?
Intel has all those expensive fabs and legions of employees. They need to sell a $200 processor to cover the overhead and make their billions of profit. If we get to the point of a average $100 chipset/processor/GPU combination (Fusion) and below, then that powerful little GPU on the die will become more and more important to the attractiveness and utility of the technology platform in the future.
By 2012/2013, if AMD can produce a superior chipset/processor/GPU (Fusion) for $100, one that games in 3D at high rez, does the next levels of HD content, runs solitaire :) etc, basically doing the 3D job good enough to the Intel platform that will require a DISCREET GPU (which will be a RADEON incidentally) ,THEN it will be a serious problem for Intel.
The Brazos is NVidia poison. Zambezi and beyond are targeted towards taking serious desktop and mobile market share from Intel.
The strategy for AMD is to force Radeon technology on Intel.
Intel will be forced to:
1) Buy NVidia and incorporate their GPU technology into their processors (too late for this, plus they will burn like the sun), or
2) Use low to mid-range Radeon discreet GPUs on their platforms, or
3) Continue using their mediocre IGPs in their future processors (most likely), and watch the world choose the AMD platform at half the cost that delivers a superior graphical) HD/3D computing experience.
A fast, competent high-res 3D capable/gaming capable/HD capable desktop or laptop for $500. This is where AMD will eliminate NVidia and take billions in sales from Intel. But not until Fusion matures. Reply
Dark_Archonis - Wednesday, November 17, 2010 - linkAn AMD Fusion product by 2012/2013 that will cost $100 and be able to play 3D games at high resolutions? Those are some ambitious dreams you have there. Reply
silverblue - Wednesday, November 17, 2010 - linkTrinity might just miss that pricing mark, however it's certainly possible. Additionally, it all depends on what you mean by "high resolutions" - to some that's still 720p, to others 1080p.
If it can handle a smooth gaming experience at 1080p and provide good CPU performance for everything else with a single Bulldozer module, we have a winner... but $100 is cutting it close. Reply
sinigami - Thursday, November 18, 2010 - linkhey dark, did this review just say that zacate's graphics are better than the IGP in clarkdale?
how can it say that when there were only three benches run, and the zacate only won one?
currently, intel, with clarkdale, is tied with the 890GX for the fastest integrated graphics, right? Reply
Rayb - Wednesday, November 17, 2010 - linkWhat's to stop the OEMs from dropping the chipset/netbook prices accordingly if still is profitable, after all it's been a while since the Atom/ION was released. Let the customer decide what is their choice and the manufacturers compete for their money. The notion of what you think is best for you is good enough for everybody else. Have you thought that it might not go over so well with other people.
Do you really believe that this APU is going to drive Nvidia out of the market or really hurt Intel's profits? It seems to me AMD is a day late and a dollar short in this market segment.
It is a preview that hasn't been released yet and you're already talking two years from now, how good the next iteration is going to be, get real! Therefore, everything else will be static while your favorite company plays catch-up. Hahaha!!!
In short, in one whole swat you managed to drive Nvidia out, cut into Intel profits by billions and left with the only one logical choice, AMD! Huurray!!!
Ladies and Gentelman, this is FANBOYISM at it's best! With unreleased products no less.
This diatribe of yours can only be three things:
1) That koolaid must be something special.
2) Whatever your smoking must be really good stuff (why don't you share with the rest of us?)
3) How much are you getting paid to post your deranged illusions? (is it per word or whole post?).
Excuse me if I don't favor your POV! Reply
silverblue - Wednesday, November 17, 2010 - linkI admit it's rather one-sided, however there's an important point to be made - most graphics sales are integrated/low-end discrete. This is why Intel has the lion's share of the market. nVidia's fallen out of favour with Intel (and not because it did something wrong, either) and are soon to get a competitor in the ULV space which may just make purchasing ION a less clear cut decision.
nVidia won't sit still, and I doubt Intel will in terms of on-die graphics. There's nothing to suggest that nVidia couldn't come up with an Optimus solution for the Brazos platform (as ironic as that may sound, though do remember it's hardly a graphics monster) in order to have as many fingers in as many pies at once. nVidia have produced very good chipsets in the past for both AMD and Intel and this alone should factor in system builders' purchasing decisions, let alone OEMs.
nVidia aren't going to die, far from it. The better they're doing, the more Intel and especially AMD have to lower prices to keep competitive. Reply
nitrousoxide - Wednesday, November 17, 2010 - linknVidia working on Optimus in co-op with AMD? That sounds like AMD saying to Intel: hey, use my GPUs on Sandybridge! Reply
silverblue - Wednesday, November 17, 2010 - linkBy that I meant an nVidia chipset that employs a GPU switching mechanism should the x16 slot be populated. Reply
Rayb - Wednesday, November 17, 2010 - linkJust to make it clear, I understand the point you're making and the purpose of competition when a product is superior to a previous release. That's not the issue I'm debating, since the ION chipset is almost two years old and has managed to survive the ULV niche this long almost uncontested until now. I don't have any objections to Brazoz or Ontario if are proven even marginally better than other available alternatives.
I don't restrict myself to one specific brand when making a purchase based on my requirements at that point. What I object is being marginalized to only one choice as alluded in (long rant by outsideloop) the third post above my reply. Which by the way since it's offset left and not intended for you, this one is.
According to his wisdom, there is no room for anybody else but his favorite company in that fantasy world. Obviously having having fruit-loops for breakfast, lunch and dinner is detrimental to your health. Reply
nitrousoxide - Wednesday, November 17, 2010 - linkHey about the 3rd question, 50 cents for a short post, 70 cents for a medium length post and 1 buck for a long post, that's how much those people are paid in my country :) Reply
plonk420 - Wednesday, November 17, 2010 - linkwhen it comes to raw CPU power, Brazos seems BARELY faster than Atom... and i feared Atom wouldn't be able to decrypt BD+ realtime with AnyDVD HD. i'm tempted to go Nano for that reason (but i sooooo want Brazos's TDP (even 25-50% more) for the Nano's computing power... Reply
nitrousoxide - Wednesday, November 17, 2010 - linkThat's true in heavy multi-threaded work loads. Daily use featuring low-single-threaded work load is significantly faster than Atom. And it can at least play 1080p HD Video smoothly while an Atom struggles for 720p video playback. It is definitely faster than Atom, but how far it can go depends on its final price margin. If it is forced to encounter Sandybridge CULVs, it will definitely be wiped out. Reply
richough3 - Wednesday, November 17, 2010 - linkI currently have the Inspiron 1012 (Atom 450/GMA 3150) and the Inspiron 11z (SU4100 - 1.3 GHz/GMA4500MHD) and both have come close to what I've been looking for, but not quite.
The 1012, Atom laptop, had awesome battery life, but it sucked at flash playback, running my TV tuner, and running multiple apps.
I got an Alienware M11x prior to the 11z. The graphics were awesome for an 11.6" subnotebook and battery life was good when on the integrated video, but the weight and hinge issue was why I returned it and got the 11z.
The 11z is good on battery life and did all the things the Atom laptop couldn't but it sucked for anything but basic running around in 3D games like Warcraft.
I had also considered the Inspiron M101z with the AMD K325, 1.3 GHz dual core proc, but it ran hotter and had less of a battery life than the 11z.
The E-350 APU appears to be able to address the desire for an acceptable, casual 3D experience and still provide decent performance for the other applications, along with good battery life and to provide all that in a lightweight subnotebook. Sure, I could get better performance with a heavier laptop, but I want lightness and a small footprint and I have a desktop for any heavy gaming or CPU intensive applications I want to run. I don't need a power hungry beast to play Plant vs Zombies, Diablo II, or to farm for mats in WoW, I just want it decent enough so it's not a total slide show. Reply
iwodo - Wednesday, November 17, 2010 - linkThere should be a price / performance / watt graph.
Personally i am not too convinced this will succeed. Or this will solely complete where Atom is currently at, cheap and as apple correctly stated, useless Netbook area.
It is no where near even the low range Pentium E, or even Celeron.
The only area where Brazos or its derivative shines, is the cheapest computer possible.
However spending $40 - $50 you would get nearly double the performance. Reply
Aloonatic - Wednesday, November 17, 2010 - linkI don't understand.
DO you really think that Intel's product will be cheaper and improvements released more quickly without AMD as competition?
Mind boggled. Reply
svojoe - Wednesday, November 17, 2010 - linkI'm sure it was not easy to do a full suite of testing, But I would *really* like to see the Brazos pitted against the ATOM/ION or the CULV/ION Platforms. Despite atom's really slow performance for the same price ranges even today I am still amazed that my single core ATOM (hp mini 311) paired with ION is hard to beat in the 11.6" and below form factor for multimedia and gaming at a sub $400 price tag.
I know that I am a small niche in the market I want netbook/ultraportable form factors that are potent at gaming/multimedia that are also cheap. Can the Brazos answer in this category too or will the dual core ATOM/ION system's still rule when it gets down to raw cost and fps? Reply
Cloakstar - Wednesday, November 17, 2010 - linkThe chip may be memory bandwidth limited, but AMD was kind enough to demonstrate what now is best termed as a ~30% memory overclock at IDF. As long as the retail mobtherboards have even a few clock options, the raw TDP looks like it should provide a ton of headroom for the rest of the chip to clock up to consume that memory bandwidth.
Brazos TDP: 21W ... Load power: 6.5W
"The Brazos platform was configured with 4GB of DDR3-1066 memory. The IDF system had memory running at DDR3-1333, however AMD had to decrease clocks presumably to meet validation requirements for final silicon."
"The Radeon HD 6310 in the E-350 does very well, despite the memory bandwidth limitations." Reply
silverblue - Wednesday, November 17, 2010 - linkI put 2GB extra in my PC the other week and had to up a couple of the timings to make it work. I wonder how memory timings will affect the GPU's performance.
Without a full rundown on what the system had, we won't know if AMD could've put better RAM in there, for example. I doubt they'd be sandbagging. Reply
GeorgeH - Wednesday, November 17, 2010 - linkThey're only a good value option because Intel doesn't care to offer their superior products with similarly thin profit margins.
If Intel were to release a P4 for $0.50, it would be a fantastic value option for a lot of applications and users, but that doesn't change the fact that a P4 core is substandard when compared to a Nehalem core. Reply
GeorgeH - Wednesday, November 17, 2010 - linkI wouldn't call it a myth so much as slightly disingenuous. Painting with a broad brush, there are two types of compute tasks - those that are arithmetically intense and those that aren't. Typically those that aren't are integer/boolean, and the rest are float. GPUs are great with most arithmetically intense operations, so they get conflated with float problems while leaving CPUs for the rest.
It isn't completely precise to say CPUs are for integers and GPUs are for floats, as both can work with and excel at using either, but it's a good approximation when you start talking about real-world tasks a typical user will want to complete that take a significant amount of time to run. Reply
krazyderek - Wednesday, November 17, 2010 - linkby the looks of things, AMD has made a good cut in power usage, at the expense of looking CPU competitive.
Why don't they just release a E-460 with 3 bobcat cores at 1.6ghz, or 2 cores at 1.8ghz that will leave Atom in the dust and truly compete with i3 ?? looks like that would only take it up to ~27w which would be on par...
maybe it's just me, but when something new comes out, i don't care if just battery life has gone up, or any other one metric for that matter, i want to see better everything... battery life, graphics, and cpu, otherwise i just wait till the next generation when they've all been addressed. Reply
sinigami - Wednesday, November 17, 2010 - linkuh, am i missing some charts on page 4 or something? because i only see three, and the zacate wins only the first one, ties on the second one, and loses on the third. With only one win, the headline should NOT say it's faster!
you could say that the Clarkdale IGP wins or ties the zacate on two out of three gaming benchmarks, and declare it faster.
sheesh, is that some biasedness, or just wishful thinking? Reply
StormyParis - Thursday, November 18, 2010 - linkyou're testing games on this eminently non-gaming platform, but not video ? Reply
sinigami - Friday, November 19, 2010 - linknot just is it weird that they tested games, it's even weirder that they tested three games, and the headline said this platform was faster than intel's....
did anyone else even read to page 4? Reply
silverblue - Friday, November 19, 2010 - linkOne thing to point out is that the i5-661 has a 900MHz GPU, the i3-530 a 733MHz GPU and the 890GX a 700MHz GPU. This particular flavour of Brazos is a mere 500MHz. Also, Anand is right in that, if most games are GPU bound, Brazos is easily superior to most integrated solutions and definitely so at the same GPU clock speed. Reply
sinigami - Friday, November 19, 2010 - linksure, they run at different frequencies, and if you could turn up the clock speed of zacate's GPU, then it might be the champ. But as it stands now, in the real world, according to anand, there is NO zacate GPU that can run that fast. Regardless of wishful thinking, the best Zacate only won one test, out of three, against intel's GPU.
Can ANYONE (besides AMD's propaganda demo) show ANY more benchmarks where Zacate or Ontario or Brazos can beat Intel's Clarkdale integrated on-chip graphics? Reply
texasti89 - Sunday, November 21, 2010 - linkThe CPU performance of this product line is way below what i expected from AMD and the hype around it's architecture. Brad Burgess and his team should go back to the white board and refine their way of tackling the given performance/power constraints without sacrificing this huge CPU performance. Bobcat is OoO arch. even though it can handle 2 threads as opposed to 4 threads in Atom, it should give a marginal advantage. 18 w is still not a tight constraint to justify the poor performance I see in this overview.
I'm really disappointed. Many architectural details of this processor will be similar in the Bulldozer design. I hope the latter won't carry the same degree of failure.
I totally agree with some inputs here .. what's the point of having a discrete-class graphics perofmrance in a machine that barely faster than the crappy Atom-based counterparts?? Reply
sinigami - Monday, November 22, 2010 - link>>> "what's the point of having a discrete-class graphics performance in a machine that's barely faster than the crappy Atom-based counterparts??"
and of course AMD is hyping the graphics performance too: i keep hearing that it's faster than the integrated graphics on an Intel Core i5 661, yet there is no evidence of that.
do not fall for the propaganda: the GPU part is NOT stronger than the current integrated crap from Intel, or nVidia's ION, or even AMD's Radeon HD 4290 integrated graphics. Reply
texasti89 - Tuesday, November 23, 2010 - linkIMO, AMD has the full capacity to deliver the competitive GPU performance level they want. Their graphics division is doing extraordinary job, and I don't think intel will EVER be able to catch AMD in the graphics part.
What i'm really worried about, for the sake of our interests (the customers), is the terrible progress this company has made in the CPU development since 2005 compared to the giant chip. After the uter failure of Intel's Larrabee project, AMD now becomes the only entity in the world that has x86 license and the necessary technology to fuse high class GPUs and x86 processors into heterogeneous cores with overall performance never seen before. It's really sad to see how the outcome of "Fusion" starts out this way. I hope the upcoming products live up to the hype of this very promising project.
From marketing point of view, Brazo platform will take some attention only if it's "dirt cheap" .. I don't like this path AMD been taking last few years in the CPUs. Reply
Mishera - Friday, December 17, 2010 - linkAnand, I believe you forgot Amd's predecessor in this market in the neo and 750 combination. I think this is where Amd is positioning their Zadcate chips. Could you add this combination in you next benchmarks? Reply
phillipguy - Monday, April 25, 2011 - linkI know this is an older post but I was thinking of buying the Sony VAIO VPC-YB13KX/S 11.6-Inch Laptop.
From what I read I believe this AMD E-350 has better performance than my Atom 330 on my Asus Eee PC 1201N. (Correct me if I'm wrong)
My question is does the AMD E-350 have AMD-V support?
I ask because I will be running Ubuntu Linux as my operating system but I'll also like to run Mac OSX Server in a Virtual Machine (virtual box) however it requires hardware virtualization.
(Sorry if you mentioned this in your post however it's a really long and I understand about 20% of it all) LOL
THANK YOU!! Reply
zero13th - Tuesday, May 10, 2011 - linkyes, it support amd-v Reply