AMD A8-3850 : An HTPC Perspective
by Ganesh T S on June 30, 2011 6:20 AM EST
3D Blu-ray Playback CPU Load
We saw in one of the previous sections that the 6550D doesn't have the same MVC decode feature of the 6xxx GPUs. We took the 3D Blu-ray version of Alice in Wonderland for a spin and played it on the 6550D as well as the 6570 (not in CrossFire mode). As expected, the 6570 had marginally lesser CPU utilization. The GPU load (not recorded here) was also lesser compared to the 6550D (that is to be expected because of the difference in the DRAM and GPU core clocks). We also recorded the CPU load while playing a 2D Blu-ray (HQV Benchmark) on the 6550D. It gives an indication of the CPU assistance required by the 3D Blu-rays.
| Blu-ray Playback CPU Usage | ||
| Alice in Wonderland [3D] (6550D) | 21% | |
| Alice in Wonderland [3D] (Sapphire 6570) | 16% | |
| HQV 2.0 Benchmark Blu-ray [2D] (6550D) | 12% | |
Steady Video
AMD is also advertising 'Steady Video', a feature to make your shaky hand held videos such as those from the PlaySports and the Flips look more stabilized. This requires the CPU and the GPU to work in close conjunction. The good aspect is that 'Steady Video' is available even when playing back videos in MPC-HC. For reasonably steady videos, it works wonders, but fails in places where it really matters (like videos taken while walking, where there is a lot of scene change as well as shakiness). The bad aspects come in when one tries to be aggressive with the steady video algorithms. Sometimes, the image quality suffered, while there were lip sync errors in other cases. Even in videos where it is effective, there are slight periodic jerks.
All in all, our opinion is that this is a good feature for the marketing department to advertise. Note that Cyberlink has been having a True Theater Image Stabiliser for camcorder videos since PowerDVD 10. That feature works across all CPU / GPU combinations.
YouTube and Netflix
The good news is that hardware acceleration is present and works for both YouTube and Netflix, as the screenshots below show.
Power Numbers
We put our testbed through some typical activity and recorded the average power consumption numbers. Note that these numbers are relevant only when compared with the idle playback power consumption. Different testbeds may end up with different power consumption numbers.
| Llano HTPC Testbed Average Power Consumption (W) | ||
| Idle | 36.1 | |
| 1080p MKV from SSD | 49.1 | |
| 2D Physical Blu-ray Playback | 57.1 | |
| Call of Pripyat Benchmark (Max. settings) | 91.8 | |
| Prime 95 + Furmark | 141.2 | |
Miscellaneous Notes
We are yet to evaluate some important aspects like RGB - YUV colour conversion accuracy and audio channel mapping in 7.1 channel configurations. AMD is looking into the local file playback having high GPU load issue also. By the time we evaluate the next HTPC / HTPC GPU, some Catalyst releases should have passed by. Expect further analysis of the AMD 6550D in those pieces, particularly with respect to the aspects we have missed covering in this review.
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ganeshts - Thursday, June 30, 2011 - link
For casual HTPC users (or even non-HTPC .. just users who want to play back HD video), there was no need for a discrete HTPC GPU starting with the Clarkdales / Arrandales (some would say even with the IGP in the 4500, but let us not talk about that because it was a pain to use).Hey, it looks like AMD's latest GPUs are not even able to decode videos that SNB / Clarkdale has no trouble with! (agreed it is a driver issue, but when are they going to fix it? We reported it 6 months back)
Agreed about Intel's GPU very weak, but only for gaming. And for videos, the only place 6550D stands out is in deinterlacing quality (most people are OK with proper playback of progressive content).
Atom deserves to get creamed in any way it can. But, I don't ever suggest people buy Atom based products (and I still advise friends to avoid anything with that level of performance, which includes Brazos) -- though market might not agree with me here. ION market no longer exists.
The other propositions, I agree with. In this piece, I restricted myself to HTPC performance.
cyrusfox - Thursday, June 30, 2011 - link
I can respect and agree with your response, it just originally seemed to me that you were trumping Intel unfairly in regards to GPU integration efforts. But strictly in regards to video consumption in an HTPC, I can't fault your analysis, my apologies.As for AMD and its drivers, it can take awhile for them to get all the issues right(many times I have to opt for a hotfix release to fix one issue only to create another). But I have a little more faith in AMD releasing a driver update that corrects its issues than Intel. Then again you will be testing to see if you can achieve 23.976 Hz on SB with a new driver in the works, maybe Intel is stepping up there GPU driver game. Shoot, maybe Intel will even get the linux community sorted(we can hope!)
prdola0 - Friday, July 1, 2011 - link
"HTPC Quality is better on Liano vs"What? You didn't even finish that sentence. HTPC Quality is better on i3-2100 + proper dGPU than on Llano.
Then you throw at us some opinions totally unsupported by facts.
"Features are better on AMD chipsets"
Again, just an opinion and a flawed one. How are AMD chipsets better than Intel chipsets? You can't just say that without telling us what is better on AMD side or missing on Intel's. I can't really find anything.
"Performance idle and playback is lower then Intel "
No. The former is true, but the latter is a lie. In the main review Llano won just one power consumption test and lost the other four.
Instead of accusing a quality review of bias without any facts to support it, just go away already.
StormyParis - Friday, July 1, 2011 - link
The tests in the article seem to find video playback quality better on Llano. And much better for games.Superior features on the AMD chipset: USB 3, more SATA2 ports, typically better sound chip than on H61 boards (that's an OEM choice though, I just couldn't fnd an H61 board with ALC 892.. I didn't look much).
Indeed lower idle power, higher under load.
maroon1 - Friday, July 1, 2011 - link
What is the cheapest motherboard for Llano ?H61 motherboards can be found for $60 and H67 can found for only $75 in newegg
Is there any Llano motherboard that cost same in newegg ?
StormyParis - Friday, July 1, 2011 - link
give it a bit of time ?just4U - Friday, July 1, 2011 - link
I've found the past few years that AMD boards are higher quality with more features then their Intel counterparts in similiar price ranges. I think it has to do with Intel charging more for their chipset maybe.. (a guess). AT could easily confirm this observation I think since they must have noticed the same thing.just4U - Friday, July 1, 2011 - link
as an afterthought..Outside of OEM you really don't see bare bones Amd Boards like you do for Intel $60 boards. They'd have to sell them for 35-40 bucks and margins would be so low it's just not worth it. So they add more to bump the cost up (and appeal) making AMD's rock bottom boards equivelent to Intels $100 offerings.
T2k - Saturday, July 2, 2011 - link
prdola0,you are surely retarded, I must say - which part you STILL cannot grasp?
For HTPC Llano is better EVERY WAY when compared to Intel's shitty Sandy Bridge solution and still scores better when compared to your Intel + VGA setup, first and foremost thanks to much lower power consumption which is one of the primary considerations when building an HTPC.
L. - Thursday, June 30, 2011 - link
Mhhh no.Any other APU with the same GFX will do the same, I have no data about the others, but seeing how much this is memory constrained I would expect scaling to be non-linear in favor of the worse igp's.
You will save slightly less than 30 bucks on the memory if you really want to buy 1333 today.
BUT!
You will also save only 30 bucks if you go for 2133mhz ram, with which the Llano performs much better, as shown in other reviews.
4Gigs of 1333 (dual) : $33.99
4Gigs of 1600(dual): $37.99
4Gigs of 1866(dual): $59.99
4Gigs of 2133(dual): $64.99
Your I3+mobo already costs 20 bucks more than the Llano+mobo.
i3 : $124.99
cheapest p67 : $104.99
Total : 230
Llano A8 : $135 (announced)
cheapest Llano mb : $70 (announced)
Total 205
Well .. I guess you could consider having a $5 rebate on your discrete GPU a total win in favor of i3 ...
Need real numbers ? Go check newegg it's not my job ;)
So in effect you are telling me that a more expensive system will be better... I do trust you on that ;)