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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Medallish - Wednesday, April 9, 2014 - link
Well sadly it's not $35, but $59 But it does come with two extra Sata III ports, and the ability to plug a 19V DC directly into the boardhttp://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N8... Should be said the cable that comes along with it to supply drives with power directly from the motherboard, only supports 2 drives, so yeah if you do use that port you likely need to come up with an inventive way of supplying 2 additional drives.
If I were building a mini server though I'd likely to a little crazy and get this:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N8...
6x Sata III ports and 1x mSata & 1x eSata. And then get some Richland or Kaveri APU as cheap and low power as they get with onboard GPU.
I'm sure you'll get a lot of other replies with even better suggestions.
Communism - Wednesday, April 9, 2014 - link
Lol @ those prices,37 USD motherboard:
BIOSTAR H61MGV3 LGA 1155 Intel H61 Micro ATX
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N8...
43 USD CPU/GPU:
Intel Celeron G1610 2.60GHz LGA 1155 Processor
http://www.amazon.com/Intel-Celeron-2-60GHz-Proces...
Desktop Kabini is DOA for it's intended purpose.
Medallish - Wednesday, April 9, 2014 - link
I love it when people trot out a H61 based board like it renders Kabini useless, completely missing the fact that it compared to Kabini misses a lot, with H61 you only get USB 2.0 and Sata II.And then there's that wonderful 55W CPU you put in there that I'm sure doesn't even compare on GPU performance to the Kabini and only is slightly ahead in CPU bench's.
I built a kabini system using this case:
http://www.chieftec.eu/en/chassis/itx-tower/ix-01b...
And the Asrock board:
http://www.asrock.com/mb/AMD/AM1H-ITX/
I got a board with a lot more functions, and an incredibly simple build thanks to the DC-In port, and still incredibly cheap. Kabini is like the perfect build for a lot of my family members who still can get use out of newer standards like Sata III and USB 3.0
meacupla - Wednesday, April 9, 2014 - link
Do you really think the presence or not of SATA3 matters in such a low end system?USB3.0 is nice, however.
Medallish - Wednesday, April 9, 2014 - link
Might not be a selling point telling someone with no clue, that it has Sata III certainly, but IO performance adds to the "feel", and on that front I would definitely say it can matter.fokka - Wednesday, April 9, 2014 - link
sure i'd prefer sata3 too, but the IO performance you're talking about isn't hindered much by sata2. max throughput is capped in half, yes, but once you go random rw, sata2 shouldn't be the limiting factor.MrSpadge - Wednesday, April 9, 2014 - link
Once you're transferring at 270 MB/s (SATA2) the feeling is pretty good. And during installs & loads the CPU has to keep up, too.rudolphna - Wednesday, April 9, 2014 - link
Well. Here is the thing. I have a Celeron g1610 on a mATX b75m board that together cost me $105. I use our for network storage and as a plex server which is real-time h264 encoding. I tested it with handbrake. Under handbrake h264 encoding using the igp for display, the g1610 pulled a maximum of 17w according to coretemp, not 55 or anywhere close to it. It generally runs sub 10w, when doing a single plex encode.Medallish - Wednesday, April 9, 2014 - link
I really wouldn't count on Software to get a accurate meassure of that, and TDP != Power use, it simply refers to the cooling requirement, I'm pretty sure the 5350 and 5150 don't use the same amount of power, despite them both having a TDP of 25W.frozentundra123456 - Wednesday, April 9, 2014 - link
Upgradability is nice, but the problem is upgrade to what. Right now there is no real upgrade path, and it is unknown what and when the next upgrade will be. Seems like another very niche product, like the rest of AMD APUs, trying to use the graphics to leverage an advantage against higher power consumption and mediocre cpu performance. So far this strategy hasnt really been successful, as the marketplace shows. That could change as more apps use graphics, but IMO single core performance (and power consumption in a small envelope like this) is still king.