The Brazos Performance Preview: AMD E-350 Benchmarked
by Anand Lal Shimpi on November 16, 2010 12:01 AM ESTDesktop IGP Comparison: Faster than Clarkdale
I split the graphics comparison into two sections: desktop and mobile. For the desktop section I compared the E-350 to the latest Clarkdale chips, AMD's own 890GX and a discrete Radeon HD 5450 graphics card. While the Radeon HD 5450 has the same number of shader processors as the E-350 (80), they run faster and it has a dedicated 1.6GHz memory bus to feed it. The E-350 has to share memory bandwidth between the two Bobcat cores and the 80 SPs, severely limiting its performance potential.
The E-350 does extremely well compared to its desktop brethren. In our Modern Warfare 2 and BioShock tests its easily faster than the Core i3/i5 and in the case of BioShock 2 it's even faster than AMD's 890GX. Dragon Age Origins is another story however as the benchmark is primarily CPU limited, giving the desktop parts a huge advantage. In GPU bound scenarios, it's clear that our initial Zacate benchmarking was accurate: the E-350's Radeon HD 6310 is quicker than Intel's HD Graphics.
Compared to the Radeon HD 5450 the 6310 offers between 66 - 69% of its performance in our GPU bound tests. The performance reduction is entirely due to the 6310's limited memory bandwidth being shared with the dual Bobcat cores on-die.
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silverblue - Wednesday, November 17, 2010 - link
Oh this is priceless. First we have all the anti-AMD accusations being spouted, and then YOU come in with the anti-Intel ones!rashire - Tuesday, November 16, 2010 - link
This 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.
Brentnall - Tuesday, November 16, 2010 - link
Yes THIS!! +1Also 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?
nitrousoxide - Tuesday, November 16, 2010 - link
Current 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.nitrousoxide - Tuesday, November 16, 2010 - link
Anyway it could be competitive, though not PERFECT :)mino - Tuesday, November 16, 2010 - link
There will be Zacate boards with x16 PCIe slots for exactly those not willing to wait for Llano or not needing more CPU power.Dark_Archonis - Tuesday, November 16, 2010 - link
Zacate boards with x16 PCIe? What's the point? That's like offering SLI boards for Celeron processors.silverblue - Wednesday, November 17, 2010 - link
And 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.
Shadowmaster625 - Tuesday, November 16, 2010 - link
Intel 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.JarredWalton - Tuesday, November 16, 2010 - link
CULV 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).