A-3850 or i-2105 - Anaxtech review confusing me

[TheDarkKnight]

http://www.anandtech.com/show/4476/amd-a83850-review

This review, link above, shows the A-3850 getting its ass kicked in fps on Starcraft II on this page http://www.anandtech.com/show/4476/amd-a83850-review/3 but kicking the i3-2105's ass on this page:
http://www.anandtech.com/show/4476/amd-a83850-review/5


I realize that its CPU vs GPU performance but I guess I don't understand how the test was done. Anyway, my conclusion is that unless you spend another $60+ on a discrete video card to pair with Sandybridge that the A-3850 is the way better purchase. I can live with 74 fps on Starcraft II.

Anyone who wants to comment would be very welcome. From this review I am seriously considering the purchase of an A-3850.

 

[GaiaHunter]

The first link leads to a page where the i3-2100 and the A8-3850 are both paired with a discrete GPU.

The second link leads to a page where the i3-2100 and the A8-3850 are both using their on die GPUs.

The i3-2100 is obviously the fastest CPU but the the 6550D of the A8-3850 beats the crap of the i3-2100 HD3000.

What is best depends of your budget, use you give to your computer, current prices of processors, motherboards and GPUs, etc.

 

[TheDarkKnight]

My conclusion from the anadtech review on the A-3850 vs. the i3-2105 is that, for most popular games, GPU power yields more fps than CPU power. Therefore, the better purchase for a "gamer", if one is on a budget and has no extra money(or maybe just doesn't want to hassle with buying a videocard), there is no dispute that the A-3850 is the much, much better purchase.

 

[veri745]

If you want to do any sort of gaming and must do without a discrete GPU, whether for cost, power, or space reasons, the A8 is definitely the way to go.

 

[nonameo]

My conclusion from the anadtech review on the A-3850 vs. the i3-2105 is that, for most popular games, GPU power yields more fps than CPU power. Therefore, the better purchase for a "gamer", if one is on a budget and has no extra money(or maybe just doesn't want to hassle with buying a videocard), there is no dispute that the A-3850 is the much, much better purchase.

Personally I would get a phenom II 955 and a cheap discrete card. You can get 5670's in the 50$ range pretty regularly AR.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814134134 GT440 - okay, lags behind the 5670 a bit but it is a good price.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102871 5670, little more performance and a little more money

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127586 6670 - better, yes more money but this is waaayyy better than the 3850's gpu

both cards are significantly better than the 3850's gpu

You will have better CPU performance(even in games!) and GPU perfomance for a similar cost.

okay so you're going to have to spend 20 bucks more

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16819103808 955 BE

vs

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16819103942 A8-3850

Alternatively, if you don't want to spend the 20 bucks, you could go with something like this:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16819103932
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16819103881

and get similar performance. llano will be ever so slightly faster in CPU.

If you get an AM3+ motherboard, you'll be able to go to bulldozer supposing that you want to and it provides reasonable performance

can't say the same for FM1 though perhaps it will work with trinity.

 

[frozentundra123456]

My conclusion from the anadtech review on the A-3850 vs. the i3-2105 is that, for most popular games, GPU power yields more fps than CPU power. Therefore, the better purchase for a "gamer", if one is on a budget and has no extra money(or maybe just doesn't want to hassle with buying a videocard), there is no dispute that the A-3850 is the much, much better purchase.

Just get a discrete card. The on die GPU of the A-3850 is barely adequate for gaming at reduced settings and low resolutions. I think you would just be torturing yourself to try to do any kind of serious gaming on the Fusion GPU. Get either the i3 or an amd quad core and add a discrete card. Considering the total cost of the computer, games, internet, and other spending on entertainment, is the cost of a 50 to 100 dollar card really that much??

 

[cebalrai]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814127586 6670 - better, yes more money but this is waaayyy better than the 3850's gpu

Significantly more money.

Also, the 6670 is one of the GPUs that can use the Llano's Dual Graphics. Drivers are immature right now, but some games seem to benefit significantly and synthetic tests show a while lot of promise. I think if I was going to go with this card I'd lean towards the A8-3850 over the Phenom II X4.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/a8-3500m-llano-apu,2959-8.html

 

[nonameo]

Significantly more money.

Also, the 6670 is one of the GPUs that can use the Llano's Dual Graphics. Drivers are immature right now, but some games seem to benefit significantly and synthetic tests show a while lot of promise. I think if I was going to go with this card I'd lean towards the A8-3850 over the Phenom II X4.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/a8-3500m-llano-apu,2959-8.html

Well, you have to do the rebate which sucks... but it brings the card to 78$. there are still other cheaper options which perform better than the 3850's onboard graphics. I was just giving some options

the propus 2.9 is 90$. The 3850 is 140$. This gives a 50$ GPU budget. If you want something a bit closer to that then look at this card:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814131342

40$ and free shipping AR

the 5570 still clearly outperforms the 3850's gpu in every game and sometimes by a nice margin.

yes, the propus 2.9 is going to be ~6% slower in some benchmarks. That's just something you've got to decide if it matters to you or not.

 

[Arkaign]

There's also a 5670 1GB for $49AR.

Llano is bad for desktop gaming. Period. It's better than crap intel HD, but it's not good enough to be usable in new titles coming out like Witcher 2.

Where things really start to get good is in the ~$100 range. Sell some old stuff on ebay, save for another few weeks, anything you can do to get bumped up to that range will pay truly massive dividends. Getting up to 5750 or even GTX460 levels is many times faster than the APU, and notably quicker than the cards below that level.

 

[AtenRa]

You will have better CPU performance(even in games!) and GPU perfomance for a similar cost.

You will have to re-evaluate that assumption,

Have a look at Llano A8-3850 vs Phenom II 965 vs Athlon II 635 (all of them at 2.9GHz)

http://en.inpai.com.cn/doc/enshowcont.asp?id=7978&pageid=8064

 

[GaiaHunter]

Yeah the A8-3850 is more closely related in performance to the Phenom II than to the Athlon II due to the double L2$ amount.

 

[StrangerGuy]

http://www.anandtech.com/show/4476/amd-a83850-review

This review, link above, shows the A-3850 getting its ass kicked in fps on Starcraft II on this page http://www.anandtech.com/show/4476/amd-a83850-review/3 but kicking the i3-2105's ass on this page:
http://www.anandtech.com/show/4476/amd-a83850-review/5


I realize that its CPU vs GPU performance but I guess I don't understand how the test was done. Anyway, my conclusion is that unless you spend another $60+ on a discrete video card to pair with Sandybridge that the A-3850 is the way better purchase. I can live with 74 fps on Starcraft II.

Anyone who wants to comment would be very welcome. From this review I am seriously considering the purchase of an A-3850.

Whats your budget and intended usage? Desktop Llano isn't that appealing IMO.

 

[jvroig]

You will have to re-evaluate that assumption,

Have a look at Llano A8-3850 vs Phenom II 965 vs Athlon II 635 (all of them at 2.9GHz)

http://en.inpai.com.cn/doc/enshowcon...78&pageid=8064

He is still correct because 955 at stock is at 3.2, not artificially downclocked to 2.9. So buying a 955 instead of a Llano chip will indeed result in better CPU performance, not to mention very overclockable.

 

[AtenRa]

Im aware that Phenom 955 is clocked at 3.2GHz but i wanted to show that Llano has almost the same performance Clock to Clock with Phenom II and 3.2GHz are easily obtain via OC on Llano's part.

Even at default clocks 2.9GHz vs 3.2GHz, differences of performance in games will be minimal.

 

[sm625]

Over on the other thread you got some guy doubling his fps simply by raising his llano gpu and ram speeds. We have to wait and see what kind of OC we can get on the budget FM1 boards that get released in the next few months. An A8 + motherboard for $170 in the next couple months isnt out of the question. No way can you beat that with a $50 discrete card (leaving $120 for a mobo+cpu). Maybe an overclocked phenom X3 720 and a really cheap motherboard could do better. But even then only marginally, and power consumption would be higher.

There is a foxconn board on newegg for $43 shipped that can be paired with a phenom II X4 925 oem for $90 shipped. That is $133 + $50 for a gpu for a grand total of $183. I think that is the line in the sand for a llano cpu+motherboard. Of course one would be a fool to buy an AM3 system when it cost only a few bucks more to buy a bulldozer upgrade path.

 

[jvroig]

Im aware that Phenom 955 is clocked at 3.2GHz but i wanted to show that Llano has almost the same performance Clock to Clock with Phenom II and 3.2GHz are easily obtain via OC on Llano's part.

The OC situation with Llano is even more confusing. From the AT review, what I remember is if you do so, then the "other" part will suffer (if you OC the CPU, the GPU will suffer, and vice versa) thanks to a hard-wired TDP (or something, just recalling from memory), is this correct? I think this leaves only a very minimal OC capability on Llano, whereas the 955 is good for 3.8 or perhaps slightly more.

Of course, I do concede the fact that at stock (2.9 Llano and 3.2 Deneb), the CPU difference is minimal. I simply wished to point out that he was still technically correct in stating better CPU performance with the 955. It only gets better when OC becomes part of the picture.

Since we mentioned Llano overclocking, we had a new member a few weeks ago that is an author/reviewer at HardwareCanucks, yes? He promised more info about Llano OC, and hinted that the situation now (limited Llano OC due to hard-wired TDP control mechanism) is just the tip of the iceberg. I took from it that great Llano CPU OC will come true. I have not heard anything about it since then. How about you? Perhaps you have more / newer info than me.

 

[podspi]

Yea, Llano OCing is very confusing atm. Initially it looked like they were very limited, but now it looks like (on the mobile side, anyway) they're very OCable in K10Stat. I've read in a few places that even the mobo manufacturers aren't 100% sure what is going on with these chips, so hopefully as the BIOSes get more mature we're going to get more (and better) OCing options.

 

[RyanGreener]

Hey guys, about llano overclocking, it seems to only effect the turbo models and not the ones without turbo. There was also an article on "overclockers" on how to properly overclock without any issues. It seems that the main issue is the motherboard BIOS, and they need to be updated for everything to be working properly.

Most people are overclocking the CPU/GPU to ~3.6 GHz/~850 MHz and are doing fine with it.

 

[exar333]

He is still correct because 955 at stock is at 3.2, not artificially downclocked to 2.9. So buying a 955 instead of a Llano chip will indeed result in better CPU performance, not to mention very overclockable.

Don't buy Llano if you want to game with newer titles at all, period.

Get an AMD Athlon II or Phenon II quad, OC it, and get a discrete card <$100.

The Llano is great for low-power solution or if you want to play Farmville or Angry Birds on your PC.

 

[Jionix]

The Llano is great for low-power solution or if you want to play Farmville or Angry Birds on your PC.

Completely misleading statement.

Llano can do far more then play Farmville and Angry Birds. Or have you forgotten that PC games were, in fact, being made before 2010? Games that Llano is fully capable of rendering at respectable speeds.

 

[exar333]

Completely misleading statement.

Llano can do far more then play Farmville and Angry Birds. Or have you forgotten that PC games were, in fact, being made before 2010? Games that Llano is fully capable of rendering at respectable speeds.

No it is not. Get an Athlon X4 + $40-50 GPU and it will be much faster.

 

[Jionix]

The topic isn't whether a certain CPU and discrete card is FASTER, but whether Llano is only suitable for flash based games.

Llano is FULLY CAPABLE of rendering games at respectable speeds --- i.e., at 1680 resolution and averaging 40FPS. That is what I would consider respectable. Blazing fast? No. Respectable? Yes. Respectable. Understand? Respectable for the power envelope and price.

Llano is vastly more capable then just playing FLASH BASED GAMES, as you juxtaposed.

 

[Martimus]

No it is not. Get an Athlon X4 + $40-50 GPU and it will be much faster.

My X2 4200+ and HD 3850 are more than enough to play nearly any modern game at 1280x1024. The Llano has slightly more power in both GPU and CPU, so yes it should run most games at medium graphics at playable rates.

 

[Blue Shift]

As I've said elsewhere, I use a laptop with a Mobility FireGL V5700 (equivalent to Mobility Radeon HD 3650, but with worse drivers) and a crappy C2D for gaming at 1680x1050 rather often... That's far slower than a high-end Llano.

The question is what games you're playing. There are very few PC-Exclusive titles with good graphics that are actually worth playing; just take a look at the DX11 titles out now... Alien Vs Predator, Metro 2033, Crysis 2, DIRT 3 (supposedly not that bad). There are a couple of exceptions, of course (Witcher II), but I'm sure those are all still playable on Llano if you're willing to turn down the settings.

For every game that doesn't fit the above description, you're perfectly fine with Llano. For console ports, indie titles, MMORPGs, and older games (all at slightly lower resolutions and medium/high settings) you should be perfectly fine with Llano.

So, for all those saying Llano is worthless: For under $400, you can build a desktop that's great for general computing tasks and multitasking, as well as potentially replacing your gaming console entirely. The mass market appeal here is obvious, surely?

 

[Arkaign]

My X2 4200+ and HD 3850 are more than enough to play nearly any modern game at 1280x1024. The Llano has slightly more power in both GPU and CPU, so yes it should run most games at medium graphics at playable rates.

Is the 3850 really slower than the 5570?

The X2 4200+ is way weaker, but I actually would think that you have a little more GPU grunt than the APU.