The Desktop Kabini Review Part 1: AMD Athlon 5350 (AM1) Tested
by Ian Cutress on April 9, 2014 8:00 AM ESTThe Competition
It is no secret that AMD is attempting to fire a shot across Intel’s Bay Trail. The low power x86 desktop space is almost all AMD vs. Intel (VIA still produces x86 parts), and the socketed direction for AMD’s Kabini is a new approach in this area. The claim of low power, quad core and low cost is something that entry-level desktop integrators might find hard to ignore – in fact AMD have stated that the feedback from their Latin America integrators for an upgradeable Kabini solution is very good.
While we have not necessarily looked at Bay Trail from a desktop perspective, there are products on the market today. In the UK for example, it is easy enough to purchase an Intel Celeron J1800-based motherboard and have it shipped next-day delivery.
AMD considers the Athlon 5350/5150 parts (quad core, 2.05 GHz and 1.6 GHz) in line with Intel's Pentium J2850/J2900, and the Sempron 3850 with the J1850/J1900 - all Silvermont based SoCs. In fact, I think the 5350 vs the J1900 is a better fit:
| AMD Athlon 5350 vs. Intel Celeron J1900 | ||||
| Athlon 5350 | Celeron J1900 | |||
| CPU Architecture | Jaguar | Silvermont | ||
| CPU Cores | 4 | 4 | ||
| CPU Frequency | 2.05 GHz |
2.0 GHz 2.4 GHz Turbo |
||
| GPU Cores | 128 SPs | 4 EUs | ||
| GPU Frequency | 600 MHz | 688 MHz | ||
| Memory Interface | 1 x 64-bit | 2 x 64-bit | ||
| Memory Frequency | 1600 MHz | 1333 MHz | ||
| L2 Cache | 2 MB | 2 MB | ||
| TDP | 25 W | 10 W | ||
| Price | $55 | $82 | ||
The big issue that AMD will point out is the price of the J1900. One of AMD’s big selling points will be the price of an APU and a motherboard, which as we discussed earlier should stretch from $56 to $90 depending on the APU/motherboard. On ark.intel.com, Intel does list the tray price of the J1900 as $82, however you can find a motherboard with integrated J1900 at Newegg for $92. Now either the motherboard manufacturer is getting a good deal on the CPU below tray price (most likely), or Intel is subsiding the cost, or the tray price is incorrect. We can only speculate, but it does mean that the Athlon 5350 and J1900 square off in terms of cost.
For CPU core counts and frequency, the 5350 and J1900 are closely matched with both being quad core parts at ~2.0 GHz, although the J1900 can boost up to 2.4GHz. AMD likely holds the GPU advantage with its R3 graphics/Radeon HD 8400 compared to Intel's 4 EU HD Graphics. With the Athlon there is a higher supported memory frequency, but only a 64-bit wide memory interface. That might hamper the IGP in our testing, and provide memory limited benchmarks an easy ride on the J1900. There's a pretty substantial TDP difference between the two as well, with Intel holding the theoretical power advantage. Intel does make a 20W Silvermont based SKU, the Atom C2750, although that is an 8 core module aimed at servers and costs $171.
The Test
Our AM1 Kabini coverage will be in two parts due to time constraints. This first part of the review is to explain the ecosystem with some Athlon 5350 numbers to compare against other platforms including a couple of Bay Trail and older Intel parts. We aim to publish a second review next week with more numbers, specifically a wider range of Kabini APUs and the key battle of the 5350 against the J1900. We were unfortunate to not be able to source a J1900 in time for this launch.
Our main Kabini Test Setup is as follows:
| Test Setup | |
| CPU |
AMD Athlon 5350 Quad Core, 2.05 GHz |
| Motherboard | GIGABYTE AM1M-S2H |
| Memory | 2x4GB DDR3-1600 9-10-10 |
| SSD | SF-2281 |
| Power Supply | Antec High Current Pro 1200 |
| Graphics | Integrated |
| Graphics Drivers | 14.3 Beta |
For other platforms:
| Test Setup | |||||
| CPU | Motherboard | Platform |
Cores / Threads |
Frequency | IGP |
|
AMD A6-5200 |
ASRock IMB-A180-H |
Kabini | 4 | 2.0 GHz | HD 8400 |
|
Intel Celeron J1800 |
GIGABYTE J1800N-D2H |
Bay Trail | 2 | 2.4 GHz | HD (Ivy) |
|
Intel Atom C2750 |
ASRock C2750D4I |
Avoton | 8 | 2.4 GHz | None |
|
Intel Celeron G1101 |
MSI Big Bang Fuzion |
Nehalem | 2 | 2.3 GHz |
Not Tested no IGP outputs |
|
Intel Celeron G465 |
ASUS Maximus V Gene |
Sandy Bridge | 1 / 2 | 1.9 GHz | HD (Sandy) |
|
Intel Celeron G2030 |
ASUS Maximus V Gene |
Ivy Bridge | 2 | 3.0 GHz | HD (Ivy) |
Other results in this review were taken from our AMD Kaveri launch review.
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ozzuneoj86 - Wednesday, April 9, 2014 - link
I do hope that all of this works out for AMD. It seems like a pretty huge gamble to invest so much time and energy into creating a new socketed platform. I do like the idea of tiny yet powerful systems, for sure. I built a Pentium 4 based mini-ITX system that won Maximum PC's rig of the month in July 2007, since there were relatively few ITX systems available at the time. This was pre-Atom, so you were either spending $300+ on a board that took an equally expensive Core-based laptop CPU, or you were going with a Via C7 or some other abysmally slow chip built into a board that still cost $200. Our grand total for the whole project was under $500.That system is socketed, but with Intel Extreme 2 graphics (before GMA) and only a PCI slot to work with, there was only so much it could be used for. It handles emulators perfectly fine though.
Anyway, I just hope they hang on to this platform for a while so that it makes sense for it to be socketed. Looking at the CPU options available, it doesn't look like it offers a huge range of possibilities. They are all quite firmly seated in the low end of performance and aren't all that power efficient. I could see a low end platform being useful if they offered significantly different combinations of CPU power, GPU power and wattages, but I'm not really seeing that with these.
ozzuneoj86 - Wednesday, April 9, 2014 - link
For clarification, by "not all that power efficient" I mean the TDP, when compared to Intel's non-socketed chips. These are still fairly low wattage, but you can't exactly stuff one of these in a cigar box and run in passively cooled.Also, any chance we could get a Celeron 1037u system benchmarked as well? I'm curious as to how the CPU\GPU performance compares to the J series, as well as Kabini. http://ark.intel.com/products/71995
Hardened - Thursday, April 10, 2014 - link
I woul like to support request for comparison with Celeron 1037U. It is a very interesting CPU performance and cost wise. Gigabyte GA-1037UN mobo is also a very nice offer with 2x LAN and eSATA ports all under 90 USD.Computer Bottleneck - Wednesday, April 9, 2014 - link
Do we know if any manufacturers will be supporting ECC RAM on these boards? Or any upcoming AM1 boards?According to CPU World Athlon 5350 does indeed support ECC:
http://www.cpu-world.com/CPUs/Jaguar/AMD-Athlon%20...
TheCrustyCupcake - Wednesday, April 9, 2014 - link
Water cooled AM1 socket-ed APU's anyone? If overclocking was available I could see an EVGA super ultra FTW edition AM1 motherboard with an 8-pin supplemental CPU power connector, and crossfire support!DudemanX - Wednesday, April 9, 2014 - link
In part 2 and in future articles when reviewing IGPs, can you do some game benchmarks at more mainstream resolutions(1680, 1920, maybe even 1440) but with "Low" quality settings? Many might disagree but not running my display at native resolution is one of the last compromises I make when using inadequate hardware. I understand these aren't mainstream chips but they are desktop/media center chips. Do people really buy desktop monitors/TVs lower than 1680 these days? Certainly no one's running games in 4:3 anymore, are they?mariush - Wednesday, April 9, 2014 - link
I just don't understand why they don't make the boards for these systems to run on 12-19v laptop adapter type power supplies.It's really not that expensive to add a dc-dc converter on the motherboard to make 5v for the sata drives and onboard stuff... no, we still have to use a big fat 24pin atx cable AND a 4 pin cpu cable for a system that uses 30-60 watts (without a powerful video card).
srkelley - Wednesday, April 9, 2014 - link
Can you post some modified benchmarks of the gaming performance please? I'm interested in seeing the average frame rate of the same games but run with Medium settings at 1280x720 please. It doesn't need to be in a fancy chart or done completely scientifically, just a few numbers would be helpful!shady28 - Thursday, April 10, 2014 - link
Great review, this helps clear up some questions regarding AM1.Suggestion for your follow up -
If possible, show more of the chips this succeeds and that it competes against.
ie :
J1800, J1900, 3770, and some of the older Atoms like D525 or D510.
It would also be interesting to see a couple of older reference desktop, like a P4 D chip. For some this would help answer the question, is this a viable upgrade for someone who wants a small low power replacement for an old power hog of a P4?
The obligatory i5-2500k or i5-3570k is fine, but stacking up a huge number of 100W chips in the comparison doesn't help, it just clutters up the charts with products that in no way compete with something like Kabini.
Penti - Thursday, April 10, 2014 - link
So it's a Kabini/Jaguar fabbed at Global Foundries in Germany? Why?