The Llano Desktop Preview: AMD A8-3850 CPU & GPU Performance
by Anand Lal Shimpi on June 14, 2011 12:00 AM ESTFinal Words
There are still a number of unanswered questions about Llano on the desktop. In the coming weeks we'll be looking at HTPC performance, power consumption, and hopefully we'll be able to figure out what the deal is with overclocking AMD's new mainstream APUs.
The question of processor graphics performance is open and closed. Llano offers what I'd expect to be the bare minimum from any processor offering a real performance oriented GPU. All of our bench suite is playable on Llano and its actually possible to drive up image quality settings without sacrificing playability. If you're looking to build an entry-level gaming PC, Llano is most likely going to be on your hit list this year.
It took AMD spending half the transistors of Llano on its GPU to deliver the sort of performance we've been asking for from integrated graphics for over a decade; the question I have is whether or not Intel is willing to make a similar sort of move in its architectures.
Ivy Bridge has already been decided upon; it'll be faster but not a significant upheaval in performance. However Intel does have a history of building upon ideas that AMD introduced before their time (e.g. IMC, x86-64, Fusion), and with Llano we may be given a peek at what's to come in the future.
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mczak - Tuesday, June 14, 2011 - link
Oh and forgot to add could you please specify the exact specification of the HD5570? The article only says 400 cores at 750Mhz (seems very high for 5570) and misses the memory completely (there are 5570 on the market with pretty much anything ranging from ddr2 to gddr5...). Reference 5570 would be 650Mhz core clock and 900Mhz ddr3 memory.Tanclearas - Tuesday, June 14, 2011 - link
Seriously?! Have you even checked memory prices lately?DanNeely - Tuesday, June 14, 2011 - link
newegg typical basely prices for 2x2GB DDR3:1333: $40
1600: $44
1866: $70
2000: $60
anything above 1600 starts to show a binning penalty. (The 1866/2000 prices are not an error, DDR3-2000 is readily available for less than 1866.)
Tanclearas - Thursday, June 16, 2011 - link
Right. So $14 difference changes a $499 system into a $513 system. While I recognize the psychological difference between those numbers, I also know that manufacturers and marketing departments can find ways to trim that $14 from somewhere else and highlight the DDR3-2000 memory, even if they only advertise and run it as DDR3-1866.I would not typically encourage the use of high-speed memory because traditionally it has little to no impact on most real applications. However, Llano changes that when using the IGP.
Anand Lal Shimpi - Wednesday, June 15, 2011 - link
Here's some additional data to tide you over :)http://images.anandtech.com/reviews/cpu/amd/llano/...
Anand Lal Shimpi - Wednesday, June 15, 2011 - link
Hmm a shortened link, looks like our comment system needs a tweak :)http://bit.ly/kYGkvk
mczak - Wednesday, June 15, 2011 - link
very nice scaling results. This platform REALLY wants at least ddr3-1600. AMD should have only officially supported ddr3-1600 and faster to force the OEMs to not skimp on the memory :-).duploxxx - Wednesday, June 15, 2011 - link
major improvement seen from this increase of RAM speed, can you pls reload ALL benches with this new DRAM?It was clearly mentioned in the AMD slides that memory bandwidth was very important, this might also influence the CF setup a lot.
mczak - Wednesday, June 15, 2011 - link
The cpu benches shouldn't change really, just like older Phenom II you could just as well use ddr2 I bet.It should probably help for CF indeed as it will make the setup more symmetric, but given it barely worked at all I don't think there's much point retrying that without a newer driver version anyway.
plonk420 - Tuesday, June 14, 2011 - link
will the final review have 1333 vs 1866 ram?