The Sandy Bridge Pentium Review: G850, G840, G620 & G620T Tested
by Anand Lal Shimpi on August 23, 2011 12:11 AM ESTFinal Words
Despite boasting Intel's latest Sandy Bridge microarchitecture, the conclusions here are pretty much unchanged from the past. Intel maintains an advantage when it goes up against an AMD chip with the same number of cores, almost regardless of clock speed. In the case of the Pentium G620, even an Athlon II X2 265 with a 27% clock speed advantage can't outperform the Sandy Bridge based CPU. If you're choosing between chips with the same number of cores at the same price, Intel wins.
The decision tilts in AMD's favor if you start comparing to the Athlon II X3. In heavily threaded workloads, the Athlon II X3's third core helps put it ahead of the entire SNB Pentium lineup. If you're building a machine to do offline 3D rendering, multithreaded compiling or video transcoding then AMD continues to deliver the best performance per dollar. It's in the lighter, less threaded workloads that the Pentium pulls ahead. If you're building more of a general use system (email, web browsing, typical office applications and even discrete GPU gaming), the Pentium will likely deliver better performance thanks to its ILP advantages. What AMD has offered these past couple of years is an affordable way to get great multithreaded performance for those applications that need it.
Unfortunately the entire Sandy Bridge Pentium lineup is clock locked. Without turbo modes there's no support for overclocking at all. While these new Pentiums would have normally been great for enthusiasts looking to overclock, Intel has ensured that anyone looking to get more performance for free at the low end will have to shop AMD. Unfortunately Intel's advantage in single/lightly threaded performance is big enough that a clock speed advantage alone is generally not enough to make up for it (see G620 vs. Athlon II X2 265 comparison). It's sad that it has come to this. I was hoping we'd see more K-series SKUs at the low end but it seems like those will only be for the enthusiasts at the high end.
The Pentium's on-die GPU isn't particularly impressive. It's the HD Graphics 2000 from the rest of the Sandy Bridge lineup without Quick Sync or any of the extra video features. I am particularly sad that Quick Sync is missing as it would've made these Pentiums extremely attractive for users that do a lot of video transcoding. Thankfully video decode acceleration and HD audio bitstreaming support remain, so if you're looking to build a cheap Sandy Bridge based HTPC and don't care about the frills these chips will work just fine.
However, if you're building a system to do any sort of 3D gaming you're much better off either springing for a cheap discrete card or looking at AMD's A6-3650 if you want to stay integrated. Although you can play older titles at low resolution on the Pentium's on-board GPU, you'll have a much better experience with a discrete GPU or with the A6.
It all boils down to this. If you want a good, cheap, general purpose PC then the Pentium G620 seems competent and cheap. You can consider the G840 if you want a bit more performance. If you do a lot of threaded work (e.g. offline 3D rendering) the next step up is the Athlon II X3 455. If you do any amount of consumer level video transcoding using apps that are Quick Sync enabled, opt for the Core i3 2100 instead. If gaming is important to you then either buy a discrete GPU or look to AMD's Llano.
As far as AMD's A6 vs. A8 goes, the A8-3850 only commands a $20 price premium over the A6-3650. That $20 gives you another 8 - 10% on the CPU side and around 20% on the GPU. In my opinion, if you're considering a Llano system - spring for the A8.
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Shadowmaster625 - Tuesday, August 23, 2011 - link
Despite the fact that these chips are so crappy, they will still outsell amd's cheaper alternative by a factor of at least 3 to 1. AMD could give you an A6-3650+FCH for the same price as a G850+chipset, and the G850 would still outsell it by 2:1.yankeeDDL - Tuesday, August 23, 2011 - link
I totally agree.Exactly like the Pentium 4 still surpassed the Athlon when it came out. Made no sense, but people still bought it.
MonkeyPaw - Tuesday, August 23, 2011 - link
There's more to it back then. Intel was using anti-competative practices to keep OEMs away from AMD. Now I think a huge part of AMDs problem is supply. Even now, there's a pretty nice mix of AMD and Intel products at B&M stores.That said, I totally loathe Intel's CPU marketing. You have to do in depth research on their products because features are randomly disabled down the product line. There's no good reason for it, and it just goes to show what Intel would sell you if there was no AMD.
CeriseCogburn - Wednesday, June 27, 2012 - link
Just look at the gaming benchmarks - the "crappy" G850 is at the top of the chart, the a6-3650 is 2/3rds to the bottom.The difference in G850 winning frame rates over a6-3650 is a gigantic super-win when it comes to evaluating video cards, so why does your prediction surprise you ? Why scowl and moan about it, amd loses and should sell less.
Do you want to buy a new motherboard, a new amd APU, get all fired up, drop your $500, then have some crappy Intel cpu with a $50 video card spank the ever loving daylights out of your brand new amd rockin' system ?
You probably don't, but that's what will happen. So you go buy a new smokin' video card to catch up - and the "crappy" G850 system slams you into the dirt, anyway !
Two years later, as you moan for amd driver patchings that don't break and fail other things while not really fixing anything except 2 fps in a game you used to play but don't anymore because your crappy amd APU can't keep the frames very high, you spend your upgrade money on depression meds...
The Intel G850 person upgrades to the then $99 2500K, overclocks it to 4400 on stock volts, and DOUBLES their frame rate. They show.... and you ... well... it's been good knowing you...
See- that's why 2X the sales really isn't enough. Should be 10X the sales of the amd apu.
Amd= locked into CRAP a6-3650 failure forever
Intel= massive G850 upgrade path on the cheap years down the road.
alent1234 - Tuesday, August 23, 2011 - link
3 year old intel GMA 950 graphics cards will accelerate flash as wellyankeeDDL - Tuesday, August 23, 2011 - link
Correct. Just like any GPU integrated in older north bridges. I think I am missing your point.CeriseCogburn - Monday, June 25, 2012 - link
Don't you feel like an idiot now yankeeDDL ? The crappy as heck amd APU and it's debilitated motherboard END OF LIFE is already toast.If you would have been smart instead of an amd fan with no sense, you would have supported the 850 and said " I can save literaly hundred$ a year or two down the road with a massive cpu upgrade, while amd will leave me and my crap single use cpu in the dirt dung of lonely and slow forever...
It's nice to see how these amd fan predictions work out - as in "epic fail".
BSMonitor - Tuesday, August 23, 2011 - link
It is not aimed at YOU at all. Lenovo, Dell, HP and others LOVE to sell these to the corporate world. The chart that matters most is that power consumption number. The will stick these in their ultra-low end "workstation" and sell millions of them.There is a huge number of computer users who need nothing more than a dumb terminal. And these are that. Intel can produce the quantity at a price point that AMD simply cannot offer for this kind of market.
Stuka87 - Tuesday, August 23, 2011 - link
Well, probably NOT HP....stimudent - Tuesday, August 23, 2011 - link
...and who the hell has a desktop computer anymore??!