AMD A8-3850 : An HTPC Perspective
by Ganesh T S on June 30, 2011 6:20 AM EST
3D Blu-ray Playback CPU Load
We saw in one of the previous sections that the 6550D doesn't have the same MVC decode feature of the 6xxx GPUs. We took the 3D Blu-ray version of Alice in Wonderland for a spin and played it on the 6550D as well as the 6570 (not in CrossFire mode). As expected, the 6570 had marginally lesser CPU utilization. The GPU load (not recorded here) was also lesser compared to the 6550D (that is to be expected because of the difference in the DRAM and GPU core clocks). We also recorded the CPU load while playing a 2D Blu-ray (HQV Benchmark) on the 6550D. It gives an indication of the CPU assistance required by the 3D Blu-rays.
| Blu-ray Playback CPU Usage | ||
| Alice in Wonderland [3D] (6550D) | 21% | |
| Alice in Wonderland [3D] (Sapphire 6570) | 16% | |
| HQV 2.0 Benchmark Blu-ray [2D] (6550D) | 12% | |
Steady Video
AMD is also advertising 'Steady Video', a feature to make your shaky hand held videos such as those from the PlaySports and the Flips look more stabilized. This requires the CPU and the GPU to work in close conjunction. The good aspect is that 'Steady Video' is available even when playing back videos in MPC-HC. For reasonably steady videos, it works wonders, but fails in places where it really matters (like videos taken while walking, where there is a lot of scene change as well as shakiness). The bad aspects come in when one tries to be aggressive with the steady video algorithms. Sometimes, the image quality suffered, while there were lip sync errors in other cases. Even in videos where it is effective, there are slight periodic jerks.
All in all, our opinion is that this is a good feature for the marketing department to advertise. Note that Cyberlink has been having a True Theater Image Stabiliser for camcorder videos since PowerDVD 10. That feature works across all CPU / GPU combinations.
YouTube and Netflix
The good news is that hardware acceleration is present and works for both YouTube and Netflix, as the screenshots below show.
Power Numbers
We put our testbed through some typical activity and recorded the average power consumption numbers. Note that these numbers are relevant only when compared with the idle playback power consumption. Different testbeds may end up with different power consumption numbers.
| Llano HTPC Testbed Average Power Consumption (W) | ||
| Idle | 36.1 | |
| 1080p MKV from SSD | 49.1 | |
| 2D Physical Blu-ray Playback | 57.1 | |
| Call of Pripyat Benchmark (Max. settings) | 91.8 | |
| Prime 95 + Furmark | 141.2 | |
Miscellaneous Notes
We are yet to evaluate some important aspects like RGB - YUV colour conversion accuracy and audio channel mapping in 7.1 channel configurations. AMD is looking into the local file playback having high GPU load issue also. By the time we evaluate the next HTPC / HTPC GPU, some Catalyst releases should have passed by. Expect further analysis of the AMD 6550D in those pieces, particularly with respect to the aspects we have missed covering in this review.
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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.