The Brazos Performance Preview: AMD E-350 Benchmarked
by Anand Lal Shimpi on November 16, 2010 12:01 AM ESTSetting Performance Expectations
AMD provided this slide of PCMark Vantage and 3DMark Vantage performance of Brazos compared to its existing mobile platforms (Danube and Nile):
If you look at the PCMark Vantage numbers you'll see that AMD's E-350 provides roughly the same performance as an Athlon V120. That's a single core, 45nm chip running at 2.2GHz with a 512KB L2 cache. Or compared to a dual core processor, it's within striking distance of the Athlon Neo K325 which features two cores running at 1.3GHz and 1MB L2 per core. The GPU performance however tells a very important story. While AMD's previous platforms offered a great deal of CPU performance and an arguably imbalanced amount of GPU performance, Brazos almost does the opposite. You get a slower CPU than most existing mainstream platforms, but a much better GPU.
In the sub-$500 market, you're not going to get much in the way of a discrete GPU. What AMD is hoping for is that you'll be happy enough with Brazos' CPU performance and be sold on its GPU performance and total power consumption. From AMD's standpoint, there's not much expense involved in producing a Zacate/Ontario APU, making Brazos a nice way of capitalizing on mainstream platforms. The 75mm2 die itself is smaller than most discrete GPUs as well as anything Intel is selling into these market segments.
AMD's Zacate APU, 19mm x 19mm package, 413 balls, 75mm^2 die
The Comparison
Brazos, like Atom, will fight a two front war. On the one hand you have the price comparison. The E-350 will be found in notebooks in the $400 - $500 range according to AMD. That puts it up against mainstream notebooks with 2.2GHz Intel Pentium DC and 2.26GHz Core i3-350M processors. Against these platforms, Brazos won't stand a chance as far as CPU performance goes but it should do very well in GPU bound games. I've included results from a 2.2GHz Pentium dual-core part (1MB L2 cache) as well as a simulated Core i3-350M in the mobile IGP comparison.
The other front is, of course, the ultraportable space. Here you'll see the E-350 go head to head with dual-core Atom, Core 2 ULV and Arrandale ULV parts. AMD's CPU performance should be much more competitive here. From this camp we've got the Atom D510 (close enough to the N550) and a simulated Core i3-330UM. The expectations here are better CPU performance than Atom, but lower than Arrandale ULV. GPU performance should easily trump both.
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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.