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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flyck - Tuesday, November 16, 2010 - link
don't forget to look to different sites also...example:
http://hothardware.com/Reviews/AMD-Zacate-E350-Pro...
Totally different picture... power consumption for system is on a whole other level for those systems, advantage to zacate.
duploxxx - Tuesday, November 16, 2010 - link
where 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....
http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid=1039&type...
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.
Dark_Archonis - Tuesday, November 16, 2010 - link
Fact 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.
SandmanWN - Tuesday, November 16, 2010 - link
Seems 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.
Dark_Archonis - Tuesday, November 16, 2010 - link
We "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.
NullSubroutine - Tuesday, November 16, 2010 - link
Who 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.
Dark_Archonis - Tuesday, November 16, 2010 - link
Atom 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.
Griswold - Monday, November 22, 2010 - link
Atom 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.
Anand Lal Shimpi - Tuesday, November 16, 2010 - link
Updated with Arrandale ULV results :)Take care,
Anand
Griswold - Monday, November 22, 2010 - link
So many words, so little sense. You should have spared us this load of horseshit.