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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Jamahl - Tuesday, November 16, 2010 - link
Anand 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.
mino - Tuesday, November 16, 2010 - link
Even better. benchamrk something that is actually PLAYABLE on these machines !Original Far Cry, CnC Generals, HL2 anyone ?
mino - Tuesday, November 16, 2010 - link
Ah, sorry, almost forgot that Intel drivers can't handle such a demanding title as 2002 CnC Generals ... :)Dark_Archonis - Tuesday, November 16, 2010 - link
So benchmarking those games would be admitting that Zacate cannot handle modern games.mino - Tuesday, November 16, 2010 - link
No 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?
AnandThenMan - Tuesday, November 16, 2010 - link
I think we all know why certain games and CPU benches were chosen. This site is becoming more and more transparent all the time.jamyryals - Tuesday, November 16, 2010 - link
Seriously 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.
nitrousoxide - Tuesday, November 16, 2010 - link
Well 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.nitrousoxide - Tuesday, November 16, 2010 - link
I mean...I'm not questioning your test because this is only a PREVIEW. Just some dissatisfaction with tests on other AMD CPUs :)Dark_Archonis - Tuesday, November 16, 2010 - link
It's not so baffling when you begin to understand certain people are paid to post such "emotional" posts.