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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jdonkey123 - Tuesday, November 16, 2010 - link
What 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...
Joe Supersales - Tuesday, November 16, 2010 - link
If you want to test one please contact Joe Jao at www.jetwaycomputer.com, Tel: 510-857-0130 Ext# 128, thanks.gudodayn - Tuesday, November 16, 2010 - link
With 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!!!
Iketh - Wednesday, November 17, 2010 - link
you'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
sprockkets - Tuesday, November 16, 2010 - link
What about the performace of this vs. the current Zotac Ion board with the Intel SU3200 dual core chip at 1.2ghz?Dark_Archonis - Tuesday, November 16, 2010 - link
Irrelevant 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.
Dark_Archonis - Tuesday, November 16, 2010 - link
Yes 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?
Dark_Archonis - Tuesday, November 16, 2010 - link
Better 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.
Dark_Archonis - Tuesday, November 16, 2010 - link
No, 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.
Iketh - Wednesday, November 17, 2010 - link
"dark_archonis", just stop... you're making a complete fool of yourselfanand need's DT's post rating scheme please