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 ESTFinal Words
AMD’s family of cat-cores began their lives as higher performing alternatives to Intel’s Atom. Ambition (and a desire for higher ASPs) drove them to compete with the lower end of Intel’s Pentium lineup. The Jaguar based Kabini APU continues the trend and even aims higher up the product stack, with the highest spec Kabini APU aiming for Intel’s Core i3.
When it comes to GPU performance, Kabini is absolutely there. Depending on the benchmark we either saw parity, a slight disadvantage or large advantage for Kabini’s integrated Radeon HD 8830 compared to Intel’s 22nm HD Graphics.
On the CPU front, we already established that Kabini runs laps around Brazos and Atom. The point of today’s article however, was to find out if comparing to a $320 notebook based on a Pentium 2020M would change things. The answer ends up being, not really. Kabini is very efficient for what it is, but the Ivy Bridge cores simply have better single threaded performance. Even a lower clocked/lower TDP Pentium part would maintain a healthy single threaded CPU performance advantage.
Whether that CPU performance advantage matters really depends on your usage model. Anyone who’d be happy with a Cortex A15 based Chromebook for example would likely be just fine with Kabini under the hood of their next notebook.
Where Kabini excels however is in its power consumption. Better battery life than a Brazos based notebook is a given, but in our earlier comparison we even noted better battery life than a 17W Ultrabook. I suspect AMD is indeed being a little conservative with its 15W TDP rating for the A4-1500.
That brings us to the deal that AMD is offering OEMs. A lower cost, lower power APU that’s better than Atom/Brazos, comparable to Pentium in GPU performance but behind it in single threaded CPU performance. Historically PC OEMs have taken the cost savings AMD offered them and delivered a lower priced system, my hope with Kabini is that we’ll finally get something different.
Kabini alone offers a power advantage, which itself may be enough, but if an OEM were to take Kabini's cost savings and put the money towards a better LCD or better storage that could significantly alter the balance of things. I agree with what Jarred said in his conclusion yesterday: "Give me a reasonable Ultrabook-style chassis (or maybe a dockable tablet) with Kabini and a decent quality 1080p touchscreen and do it at the right price and there are plenty of people that will jump at the offer."
The traditional approach would be for an OEM to offer a Kabini system at a lower price than a Pentium based system. The Kabini system might offer better battery life, while the Pentium machine delivers better single-threaded CPU performance. Should that same OEM offer both systems at the same price, but give the Kabini an appreciably better display, I think many users would be willing to overlook the difference in CPU performance entirely.
As it stands, I like Kabini. It’s a good part that could make for the foundation of a nice, affordable ultraportable system. The best selling notebook on Amazon remains the Cortex A15 based Samsung Chromebook. The second best selling? A Core i3 based ASUS X202E. Consumers are clearly willing to sacrifice CPU performance if the price is right and the rest of the machine/experience is well designed. I see no reason that a Kabini based platform couldn’t be up there as well. It’s just up to an enlightened OEM to do the right thing with what AMD has given them.
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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.