AMD A8-3850 : An HTPC Perspective
by Ganesh T S on June 30, 2011 6:20 AM ESTDXVA Checker indicates the various capabilities of the AMD6550D, as exposed by the drivers.
The only puzzling aspect is the missing ModeH264MVC_VLD_Avivo entry which is present in the AMD 6xxx cards with UVD3. Instead, we have ModeH264_VLD_Multiview_Avido, which means that the Blu-ray players will have to interface with this new entry. AMD let us know that the 6550D doesn't have full hardware acceleration for 3D Blu-Rays. Some sort of extra assistance from the host CPU will be needed.
Our grouse with the low end AMD GPUs like the 6450 and 5450 was the fact that they were not certified for 1080p60 H.264 playback. Instead, they confined themselves to Blu-ray specs. With the advent of camcorders capable of 1080p60 recording, we believe this restriction should not be in place. What about the AMD 6550D?
We fired up DXVA Checker, and tried to benchmark a 1080p60 clip from a camcorder.
With all post processing steps enabled, I was pleased to find that the clip benchmarked at 77 fps, well beyond the 60 fps necessary to avoid frame drops.
With full hope, I tried playing back the clip in MPC-HC. As it turned out, approximately half the frames were dropped with ESVP on. Manually disabling all post processing options enabled us to play back the clip without frame drops (except for the initial startup trouble).
The discrepancy between DXVA Checker and MPC-HC was a surprise. They tallied without issues when we were benchmarking the discrete GPUs earlier this month. Either DXVA Checker or MPC-HC has problems with the AMD 3550D, and hence, we decided not to carry out the FPS benchmark for various codecs.
According to AMD, Blu-ray content shouldn't have any such issues. We took a 1080i60 clip from a Blu-ray (M2TS file) and tried playing it back in PowerDVD. Unfortunately, it looks like nothing other than Vector Adaptive (VA) deinterlacing is available, as shown in the gallery below.
In our opinion, it is not good for mainstream integrated GPUs to skimp on video post processing for Blu-ray videos itself.
All in all, even without running the DXVA benchmark, we have encountered a host of issues in playing back files at their native frame rate. Once the drivers get mature and the discrepancy between MPC-HC and DXVA Checker get resolved, we will probably revisit this. But, we wouldn't be surprised if AMD puts up its hands and says that the unit's functionality and performance are as per expectations.
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ganeshts - Thursday, June 30, 2011 - link
For casual HTPC users (or even non-HTPC .. just users who want to play back HD video), there was no need for a discrete HTPC GPU starting with the Clarkdales / Arrandales (some would say even with the IGP in the 4500, but let us not talk about that because it was a pain to use).Hey, it looks like AMD's latest GPUs are not even able to decode videos that SNB / Clarkdale has no trouble with! (agreed it is a driver issue, but when are they going to fix it? We reported it 6 months back)
Agreed about Intel's GPU very weak, but only for gaming. And for videos, the only place 6550D stands out is in deinterlacing quality (most people are OK with proper playback of progressive content).
Atom deserves to get creamed in any way it can. But, I don't ever suggest people buy Atom based products (and I still advise friends to avoid anything with that level of performance, which includes Brazos) -- though market might not agree with me here. ION market no longer exists.
The other propositions, I agree with. In this piece, I restricted myself to HTPC performance.
cyrusfox - Thursday, June 30, 2011 - link
I can respect and agree with your response, it just originally seemed to me that you were trumping Intel unfairly in regards to GPU integration efforts. But strictly in regards to video consumption in an HTPC, I can't fault your analysis, my apologies.As for AMD and its drivers, it can take awhile for them to get all the issues right(many times I have to opt for a hotfix release to fix one issue only to create another). But I have a little more faith in AMD releasing a driver update that corrects its issues than Intel. Then again you will be testing to see if you can achieve 23.976 Hz on SB with a new driver in the works, maybe Intel is stepping up there GPU driver game. Shoot, maybe Intel will even get the linux community sorted(we can hope!)
prdola0 - Friday, July 1, 2011 - link
"HTPC Quality is better on Liano vs"What? You didn't even finish that sentence. HTPC Quality is better on i3-2100 + proper dGPU than on Llano.
Then you throw at us some opinions totally unsupported by facts.
"Features are better on AMD chipsets"
Again, just an opinion and a flawed one. How are AMD chipsets better than Intel chipsets? You can't just say that without telling us what is better on AMD side or missing on Intel's. I can't really find anything.
"Performance idle and playback is lower then Intel "
No. The former is true, but the latter is a lie. In the main review Llano won just one power consumption test and lost the other four.
Instead of accusing a quality review of bias without any facts to support it, just go away already.
StormyParis - Friday, July 1, 2011 - link
The tests in the article seem to find video playback quality better on Llano. And much better for games.Superior features on the AMD chipset: USB 3, more SATA2 ports, typically better sound chip than on H61 boards (that's an OEM choice though, I just couldn't fnd an H61 board with ALC 892.. I didn't look much).
Indeed lower idle power, higher under load.
maroon1 - Friday, July 1, 2011 - link
What is the cheapest motherboard for Llano ?H61 motherboards can be found for $60 and H67 can found for only $75 in newegg
Is there any Llano motherboard that cost same in newegg ?
StormyParis - Friday, July 1, 2011 - link
give it a bit of time ?just4U - Friday, July 1, 2011 - link
I've found the past few years that AMD boards are higher quality with more features then their Intel counterparts in similiar price ranges. I think it has to do with Intel charging more for their chipset maybe.. (a guess). AT could easily confirm this observation I think since they must have noticed the same thing.just4U - Friday, July 1, 2011 - link
as an afterthought..Outside of OEM you really don't see bare bones Amd Boards like you do for Intel $60 boards. They'd have to sell them for 35-40 bucks and margins would be so low it's just not worth it. So they add more to bump the cost up (and appeal) making AMD's rock bottom boards equivelent to Intels $100 offerings.
T2k - Saturday, July 2, 2011 - link
prdola0,you are surely retarded, I must say - which part you STILL cannot grasp?
For HTPC Llano is better EVERY WAY when compared to Intel's shitty Sandy Bridge solution and still scores better when compared to your Intel + VGA setup, first and foremost thanks to much lower power consumption which is one of the primary considerations when building an HTPC.
L. - Thursday, June 30, 2011 - link
Mhhh no.Any other APU with the same GFX will do the same, I have no data about the others, but seeing how much this is memory constrained I would expect scaling to be non-linear in favor of the worse igp's.
You will save slightly less than 30 bucks on the memory if you really want to buy 1333 today.
BUT!
You will also save only 30 bucks if you go for 2133mhz ram, with which the Llano performs much better, as shown in other reviews.
4Gigs of 1333 (dual) : $33.99
4Gigs of 1600(dual): $37.99
4Gigs of 1866(dual): $59.99
4Gigs of 2133(dual): $64.99
Your I3+mobo already costs 20 bucks more than the Llano+mobo.
i3 : $124.99
cheapest p67 : $104.99
Total : 230
Llano A8 : $135 (announced)
cheapest Llano mb : $70 (announced)
Total 205
Well .. I guess you could consider having a $5 rebate on your discrete GPU a total win in favor of i3 ...
Need real numbers ? Go check newegg it's not my job ;)
So in effect you are telling me that a more expensive system will be better... I do trust you on that ;)