The Brazos Performance Preview: AMD E-350 Benchmarked
by Anand Lal Shimpi on November 16, 2010 12:01 AM ESTSetting Performance Expectations
AMD provided this slide of PCMark Vantage and 3DMark Vantage performance of Brazos compared to its existing mobile platforms (Danube and Nile):
If you look at the PCMark Vantage numbers you'll see that AMD's E-350 provides roughly the same performance as an Athlon V120. That's a single core, 45nm chip running at 2.2GHz with a 512KB L2 cache. Or compared to a dual core processor, it's within striking distance of the Athlon Neo K325 which features two cores running at 1.3GHz and 1MB L2 per core. The GPU performance however tells a very important story. While AMD's previous platforms offered a great deal of CPU performance and an arguably imbalanced amount of GPU performance, Brazos almost does the opposite. You get a slower CPU than most existing mainstream platforms, but a much better GPU.
In the sub-$500 market, you're not going to get much in the way of a discrete GPU. What AMD is hoping for is that you'll be happy enough with Brazos' CPU performance and be sold on its GPU performance and total power consumption. From AMD's standpoint, there's not much expense involved in producing a Zacate/Ontario APU, making Brazos a nice way of capitalizing on mainstream platforms. The 75mm2 die itself is smaller than most discrete GPUs as well as anything Intel is selling into these market segments.
AMD's Zacate APU, 19mm x 19mm package, 413 balls, 75mm^2 die
The Comparison
Brazos, like Atom, will fight a two front war. On the one hand you have the price comparison. The E-350 will be found in notebooks in the $400 - $500 range according to AMD. That puts it up against mainstream notebooks with 2.2GHz Intel Pentium DC and 2.26GHz Core i3-350M processors. Against these platforms, Brazos won't stand a chance as far as CPU performance goes but it should do very well in GPU bound games. I've included results from a 2.2GHz Pentium dual-core part (1MB L2 cache) as well as a simulated Core i3-350M in the mobile IGP comparison.
The other front is, of course, the ultraportable space. Here you'll see the E-350 go head to head with dual-core Atom, Core 2 ULV and Arrandale ULV parts. AMD's CPU performance should be much more competitive here. From this camp we've got the Atom D510 (close enough to the N550) and a simulated Core i3-330UM. The expectations here are better CPU performance than Atom, but lower than Arrandale ULV. GPU performance should easily trump both.
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silverblue - Wednesday, November 17, 2010 - link
Oh this is priceless. First we have all the anti-AMD accusations being spouted, and then YOU come in with the anti-Intel ones!rashire - Tuesday, November 16, 2010 - link
This article has me very interested for the potential as a HTPC. I've been looking for a compact (low draw) HTPC solution, I was looking at Atom + Ion combo, but I'm curious how this would preform comparatively. Mostly I'm interested in whether either system has enough power to playing x264 HD video (at a decently high bit rate) while also running par2 without any stutter in playback. (something my current socket 939 HTPC doesn't manage)Would definitely love more coverage on release for HTPC performance.
Brentnall - Tuesday, November 16, 2010 - link
Yes THIS!! +1Also recently been looking into a low power HTPC / File Server setup and the only reason I haven't gone for Atom + Ion yet is because AMD had some new stuff up their sleeves. Got to admit from reading other reviews, it looks pretty damn good compared to the atom, especially the power consumption... just hope the pricing is good too.
Couldn't care less about netbooks and laptops at the moment... more HTPC info please =D
Any ideas when we will start seeing some mobo's based on these chips?
nitrousoxide - Tuesday, November 16, 2010 - link
Current drivers can't give convincing performance boost on x264 HD Video decoding, but AMD will surely give better solutions by the time it ships its APUs. I remembered that when Anand tested the HD5450, it is clearly pointed out that 80 shaders don't have enough computing power to handle Vector Adaptive Deinterlacing, which is a important feature for a HTPC card. Given that HD6310 is slower than HD5450, it isn't a perfect HTPC solution either.nitrousoxide - Tuesday, November 16, 2010 - link
Anyway it could be competitive, though not PERFECT :)mino - Tuesday, November 16, 2010 - link
There will be Zacate boards with x16 PCIe slots for exactly those not willing to wait for Llano or not needing more CPU power.Dark_Archonis - Tuesday, November 16, 2010 - link
Zacate boards with x16 PCIe? What's the point? That's like offering SLI boards for Celeron processors.silverblue - Wednesday, November 17, 2010 - link
And there are i3s and i5s out there with on-die GPUs that have access to an x16 slot. By your logic, what's the point?If you come back and say you were referring to Celerons, please bear in mind there are probably people out there running SLi/Crossfire setups with an Athlon II at the heart. Bang for buck.
Shadowmaster625 - Tuesday, November 16, 2010 - link
Intel CULV processors are ungodly expensive. I dont see how the E-250 will be in the same price class. I did a price check on Core i3-330UM notebooks and they are ALL over $550. It is disingenuous to claim that those intel notebooks will be competing with the notebooks that will carry this tiny little chip.JarredWalton - Tuesday, November 16, 2010 - link
CULV is actually the brand for Core 2 ULV products, whereas ULV parts generally refer to the newer Core 2010 ULV stuff. ULV is certainly expensive, but not because it has to be... rather because Intel can charge that much and people will pay it. Even worse is that you can get nearly the same battery life with regular i3 processors (i.e. ASUS UL80Jt only gets about 30-45 minutes more battery life than the U30Jc). But if you look at CULV, which is where Brazos really competes, there's plenty of stuff selling around the $500 mark (search for Pentium Su4100 laptops).