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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zondas30 - Thursday, June 30, 2011 - link
as i sed in other review it would be interesting to see if i could do that new crosfire trick with my good old ati hd 3870.but what i am realy interested is why cpu is combined with gpu, for me (and maby some other people) it would be beter to buy cheap powerfull cpu and not apu, my hd3870 is still powerfull to run alot of new games on max setings over 30 fps at 1440x900 resolution ant that is more then playable for me, so why integrate gpu in to cpu when what some people realy need is just cpu, mobo and ram? myself im looking for cpu and i dont care alot about gpu integrated in it and it would be beter if there wasnt any inside becouse in any case i wouldnt be able to use it.
Targon - Tuesday, July 5, 2011 - link
If you look at the sub-$500 computers out there, this will make for a nice low-cost BASIC system that will do very well. The low-cost i3 based machines out there already have a lot of issues due to cheap components, so Llano will compete fairly well in that regard.AMD has been working on two major projects for a while now, with Fusion ALWAYS going for that mainstream system as the target. AMD has also been working on an all new CPU core design to help keep AMD competitive, even if not taking the performance crown. Bulldozer, going up to an eight-core 3.8GHz at launch will be something for the enthusiast crowd to watch and wait for, since multithreaded software designs are getting more common.
Once we see Bulldozer released, AMD will release a new generation of Fusion processors with the new CPU core design, and with an updated GPU as well. That is when Fusion will really start to play out.
Think about it, what we are seeing here is something for your mainstream audience, the "good stuff" is going to take a bit longer.
kenyee - Thursday, June 30, 2011 - link
That's what I'm more interested in for an HTPC.I'm actually surprised the A8 can do 3D Bluray playback because the Sandy Bridge definitely doesn't AFAIK.
Quicksync is useful for trancoding (e.g., get rid of commercials, and compress the HDTV s stream into a .avi or mpeg4 file). The A8 has enough processors for CUDA support probably so in theory they could have added this...
ganeshts - Thursday, June 30, 2011 - link
Let us first get Blu-ray playback working in Linux :) AFAIK, the MakeMKV running in the background route is the only one, and even that doesn't give us Blu-ray menus. 3D on Linux will come much later.SNB can also do 3D BR with no issues.
Anand has covered transcoding performance (Intel beats out AMD there) in his desktop review.
kenyee - Thursday, June 30, 2011 - link
Hate the MakeMKV hack, but if that hack gets Bluray 3D, that's ok with me :-)Didn't know SNB could do 3D BR...thought it was missing some hardware decode accelerators for 3D. Quicksync is definitely a lot faster than anything out there right now...was just hoping AMD had some tricks in the GPU that we missed...
lestr - Thursday, June 30, 2011 - link
A good, honest review as always. The grafting process began with the Hudson E350, is now into phase II and only needs Bulldozing to completion. Yeah, I wish it was here today, too, but it isn't. Remember, this is a new animal we're dealing with here. Ain't hardly nuthin' perfect on the first try. Infidel proved that in January, created the H and P's and sort of cured those ailments with the Z all the while holding the X79 over your heads as 1156 went EOL... 1366 to follow shortly? Humm.. does that mean you're gonna be 1 DIMM short when you upgrade?To top it all off AMD has eliminated the 6450 for this chipset, made the 6570 a questionable option with hybrid which pushes up the 6670.as a new entry level upgrade card and it probably works in hybrid, too. When you think about it the 3800 series only has 320 SP's and ran at 650... sucked down a pot load of amps while everyone cried about fan noise and temps. That was a short 4 years ago. Sure they have a few kinks to iron out but we're dealing with tech that didn't exist back then, too. What's to argue about?
We're told the eventual result will add GPU power to augment CPU power all neatly tied together underneath that OLD but great cooler. That's what the big deal is. It's getting a new architecture while they iron out the kinks with this generation. As far as integration goes, unless you have an i5-7-K model you're paying for graphics you really don't want in the first place which means a discrete card to even THINK about serious gaming then you're gonna fork over another couple of hundred anyway and this APU only lightens your wallet by $130 or so which isn't much. Make for a great HTPC..
Hopefully the new mainstream buyers will go nuts over it. Serious upgraders are gonna wait. It's a great start.. Let's see where it leads.
AnandThenMan - Thursday, June 30, 2011 - link
After reading 4 or 5 other reviews, it's pretty easy to see that Anandtech has gone out of their way to minimize the virtues of Llano. So much information was left out, and the conclusions are very muted compared to other reviews. I just read the review@hardwarecanucks.com and got a much better picture of the capabilities, features, and performance.I hate to say it, but Anandtech is continuing to prove they are very biased against AMD, a real shame.
ganeshts - Thursday, June 30, 2011 - link
I am quite sorry you feel that way.In this piece, I have gone to great lengths to indicate how AMD's deinterlacing performance is much better than Intel's. So, there is actually no bias against AMD there.
When we do a review, there is no point in saying that everything works. For example, HD audio bitstreaming works without issues in all current day HTPC (i)GPUs, and so, there is no point in mentioning it.
My duty as a reviewer is to find faults (be it in Intel based systems or be it in AMD or NVIDIA ones) and bring it to the forefront so that the vendor can resolve them (eventually beneficial to the consumers). We do it irrespective of the vendor.
AnandThenMan - Thursday, June 30, 2011 - link
I am not the only one who is disappointed with the reviews here.http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php...
dragonsqrrl - Friday, July 1, 2011 - link
Okay... an AMD fanboy group therapy session... great.So because the conclusions of this review don't meet your 'agenda', the author must be biased and bought out by Intel or Nvidia. Unless every single available AMD option is wholeheartedly recommended, the reviewers are biased and bought out by Intel or Nvidia. I've heard it countless times in countless comments sections in both Anandtech and Tom's Hardware reviews. And this is by no means an exaggeration of your typical fanboy argument. There could be five positive reviews in a row of AMD products, followed by full-hearted approval and praise by the hardline AMD crowd. But the moment a flaw is pointed out, a strength under emphasized, or an AMD product failing to gain an unquestioned recommendation, and these same people start accusing the authors of bias and favoritism. Accusations start flying out from, ironically, some of the most blatantly biased and one-sided individuals I've ever seen.
Tom's couldn't bring themselves to recommend the HD6990, but instead recommended Xfire HD6970's as a superior alternative, and there was a huge uproar (unsurprisingly). Accusations of Nvidia favoritism, entirely baseless except for the fact that the reviewer had recommended one AMD product over another, were relentlessly thrown about until some of the more level headed readers dropped in to point out some rather obvious logical failings in their arguments.
Just recently, Tom's did a system builders guide that incorporated an i3-2100, and... well, I think you know what happened. I'm not kidding, some seriously ill thought-out rage comments directed at the author of the article, not unlike some of the comments I've observed here, and in the HD6990 review, and in countless other reviews with similarly ambiguous conclusions regarding an AMD product. I think I'm sensing a trend. All these accusations of Intel favoritism despite the fact that Tom's had built an AMD based system in every single builders guide since 2009!
The principle observation I've made is that AMD has some of the most loyal, and at times blatantly unreasonable fan-boys in existence. But honestly, if some of you guys truly believe sites like Anandtech and Tom's are conspiring with Intel to consistently dish out negative reviews of AMD products, then why don't you do everyone a favor and just move to SemiAccurate. You'll probably be far more satisfied their reviews and recommendations.