The Kabini Deal: Can AMD Improve the Quality of Mainstream PCs with Its Latest APU?
by Anand Lal Shimpi on May 24, 2013 1:45 PM ESTGPU Performance
Looking at 3DMark’s Ice Storm test, the comparison between Intel’s 22nm HD Graphics in the Pentium 2020M and the Radeon HD 8830 in the A4-5000 is extremely close. In fact, across almost all of the 3DMark benchmarks we see the two perform very similarly. The lone exception being 3DMark 11 where the A4-5000 maintains a significant lead and even approaches Trinity in terms of performance (making it feel more like a fluke than the norm).
Turning to GFXBenchmark (formerly GL/DXBenchmark), we see performance tilt in favor of Kabini once again. The T-Rex HD test is extremely shader intensive. There’s about a 20% gap in raw shader performance between the 2-CU GCN implementation in Kabini and the 6 EU Gen7 graphics core in the Pentium 2020M, which maps almost perfectly to the performance delta we see in T-Rex HD. Now we see where the Pentium/Core i3 comparison comes from.
| GPU Performance | |||||||||||||||||
| 3DMark Ice Storm | 3DMark Cloud Gate | 3DMark Fire Strike | 3DMark 11 | 3DMark 06 | GFXBenchmark T-Rex HD | ||||||||||||
| AMD A4-5000 (Radeon HD 8330) | 23196 | 2159 | 310 | 580 | 3803 | 37 fps | |||||||||||
| Intel Pentium 2020M (HD Graphics) | 23135 | 2168 | 285 | 401 | 3542 | 30 fps | |||||||||||
All of this is fine if we’re looking at theoretical GPU benchmarks but what about actual games? In our Kabini review Jarred found the A4-5000 to be incapable of playing modern titles at reasonable frame rates, but what about titles from a few years ago? To find out, I dusted off Oblivion (with the Shivering Isles expansion) and threw it on my Kabini, Brazos and IVB Pentium systems.
I configured all three systems the same way: 1366 x 768, with medium graphics quality presets. I even used our old Oblivion SI benchmark from 2007. The results seemed to mirror what we saw in 3DMark:
| GPU Performance | ||||||||||||||||||
| Oblivion - 1366 x 768 Medium | Diablo III - 1366 x 768 Low | Oblivion - Power Consumption | ||||||||||||||||
| AMD E-350 (Radeon HD 6310) | 20.1 fps | 21.9 fps | ||||||||||||||||
| AMD A4-5000 (Radeon HD 8330) | 26.1 fps | 25.8 fps | 15.2W | |||||||||||||||
| Intel Pentium 2020M (HD Graphics) | 27.7 fps | 20.3 fps | 31.4W | |||||||||||||||
Kabini is about 30% faster than Brazos in GPU performance, and almost identical to the Pentium 2020M. Intel has a 6% performance advantage here, but I’m wondering if that’s from the CPU and not the GPU (Oblivion tends to hit both pretty hard). At lower quality settings (and/or resolution) you can definitely get Kabini above 30 fps, but even here I’d say it’s playable. More importantly, it’s performance competitive with Intel’s HD graphics.
I was also curious to see how Diablo III ran on Kabini so I fired up an early save and ran through the Cemetery of the Forsaken recording average frame rate. On a more modern title, both Kabini and Brazos actually hold a performance advantage over the Pentium 2020M.
As far as power goes, Kabini delivers relatively similar performance at roughly half the power of the Pentium 2020M.
With any of these integrated GPUs, the gaming experience even on previous generation high-end titles isn’t going to be a walk in the park.
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tipoo - Friday, May 24, 2013 - link
Fair enough. But I'll trade you ANY Tegra 3 device you have for my Nexus S :Pflyingpants1 - Monday, May 27, 2013 - link
I almost fell on the floor laughing..."Why settle for crappy game play on 3~4 year old PC titles when you can get a much better experience from tablet games?"
LMFAO!!!!!!
Okay... now that I've calmed down.. The reason to settle for crappy gameplay on 3-4 year old PC titles, (which isn't that long ago btw, there are bajillions of good PC titles released before 2009), is because it absolutely DESTROYS tablet gaming. Hell, even Playstation 1 destroys tablet gaming. Just the incredibly massive selection, full 3D everything, an actual method of inputting your controls.
By comparison, there is no such thing as tablet gaming. A few good titles here and there, but an overwhelming number of 2D or free-to-play/adware/begware titles with poor gameplay. (Candy Crush Saga, mentioned in these comments!) And hilariously pathetic touch-based controls.
I have no problems with tablets in general. But there is no such thing as a "tablet gaming" experience that competes in any way with a PC or console gaming experience. I wish there was, but it's not there yet.
I'm also no fan of AMD lately. Your post had the opposite effect on me, now I see why Kabini may actually deserve a chance in hell, even it if doesn't really stand one.
yellowblue - Friday, May 24, 2013 - link
The people who are going to use this will not play Oblivion or Diablo III on it. They are going to play Candy Crush Saga and other FB games. Why not add it to the benchmarks? My wife can't use her two year old SB laptop with GT 540M due to the excess heat and have been bugging me for some time now that I'll clean her laptop heat sink. iPad is not an option since the only levels she can play now are only available in FB.JarredWalton - Friday, May 24, 2013 - link
Is that laptop by chance an Acer TimelineX? I've had one and Acer just pushed too hard on getting the CPU and dGPU in there. It's a shame, as it was otherwise a compelling option. I'm going to try some FB gaming today on Kabini and maybe do a short Pipeline on it.yellowblue - Friday, May 24, 2013 - link
Cool I'm looking forward to it. It's Asus n53sv and it is running around 80c when playing Candy Crush. Probably needs a new thermal paste application but don't really want to fix something that is not really broken. It just runs very hot under FB games.Gaugamela - Saturday, May 25, 2013 - link
I have a N43, but never had that type of issues...Gaugamela - Friday, May 24, 2013 - link
eh, equal to my notebook. Core i7 Sandy Bridge with a overclocked 540M (it's just an underclocked 550M so I placed it at the 550M frequencies). Installed an SSD in it, increased RAM to 8Gb, and it will last me a long time. Perfectly satisfied with it since I play a few games every now and then.flyingpants1 - Monday, May 27, 2013 - link
Right, it does not replace your Core i7 with dGPU.kyuu - Saturday, May 25, 2013 - link
I'm looking at Kabini (or Temash or Richland), and I sure as heck am not going to be playing FB games on it. One of the great appeals of an x86 tablet or ultraportable notebook to me is having the entire library of games from Steam, GOG, my old CDs, emulators, etc. to choose from instead of being limited to whatever is in an app store.If it could play Diablo 3 or Starcraft 2 or Civ 5 on low settings, that'd be cool too, though it looks like you still need to step up to Trinity/Richland for that.
glsunder - Sunday, May 26, 2013 - link
I could play diablo 3 on my e-350 at around 20fps iirc. Civ 5 was barely playable on low on the smallest map. If these could turbo 1 or 2 cores up to 2.0 GHz, it'd probably make low end gaming feasible.