AMD A4 micro-6400T user review

[monstercameron]

Thanks for posting ... I have one of these (Stream 14) in a box waiting for Christmas to give as a gift, and I wanted a basic understanding of the difference between this and, say, an i3/4030-based laptop.

The i3 will certainly be faster. The a4-micro will have better battery life though.

 

[dclive]

The i3 will certainly be faster. The a4-micro will have better battery life though.

Agreed - I've seen the CPUBenchmark.com and such scores - about double the speed -- but the 6400T should still be usable for all but, say, development or more serious work, even with 2GB and 32GB emmc. That was my concern.

 

[monstercameron]

Agreed - I've seen the CPUBenchmark.com and such scores - about double the speed -- but the 6400T should still be usable for all but, say, development or more serious work, even with 2GB and 32GB emmc. That was my concern.

The 2gb is workable but the Emmc memory is just too slow but a usb3 attached ssd does improve performance. For multimedia, word. Processing and web surfing, it is adequate.

 

[dclive]

The 2gb is workable but the Emmc memory is just too slow but a usb3 attached ssd does improve performance. For multimedia, word. Processing and web surfing, it is adequate.

Compared to a 500GB HDD (which is the other default budget hard drive the rest of the cheap laptop crowd is using) how bad is the emmc device?

In other words, my typical big complaint about cheap laptops isn't the CPU - most Core2 and later machines are good enough - my big complaint is the endless hard drive access (even with 6-8-10GB of RAM) on a modern Windows box, particularly at bootup.

Want to boot up? Wait 1-3 minutes for the bootup to fully finish so you can then get full speed access to your hard disk to fully load applications - that's the issue for me.

Does the emmc alleviate parallel (same-time) disk access issues, which are such a problem on a mechanical disk device?

 

[monstercameron]

Compared to a 500GB HDD (which is the other default budget hard drive the rest of the cheap laptop crowd is using) how bad is the emmc device?



In other words, my typical big complaint about cheap laptops isn't the CPU - most Core2 and later machines are good enough - my big complaint is the endless hard drive access (even with 6-8-10GB of RAM) on a modern Windows box, particularly at bootup.



Want to boot up? Wait 1-3 minutes for the bootup to fully finish so you can then get full speed access to your hard disk to fully load applications - that's the issue for me.



Does the emmc alleviate parallel (same-time) disk access issues, which are such a problem on a mechanical disk device?

Access times are decent but bandwidth is lower than 5400rpm drives.
Just opening Google chrome pegs the Emmc, it has some niceties like low power and shock resistance but annoyingly slow in others. Idk why they didn't use an cheap m.2 or msata drive.

 

[seitur]

firefox and chrome:

• youtube flash/html5
• hulu
• crunchroll
• most random flash video players

cpu usage goes way up, both on 14.9 and omega drivers.

I mean darn it, my old c-50 apu could play youtube better than this.

Shouldn't iGPU take most of the video playing work with hardware acceleration?

You sure you have video hardware acceleration turned on in flash/browser/etc?

Maybe some kind of driver bug or something.

Hell I am interested myself

 

[monstercameron]

Shouldn't iGPU take most of the video playing work with hardware acceleration?

You sure you have video hardware acceleration turned on in flash/browser/etc?

Maybe some kind of driver bug or something.

Hell I am interested myself

Not the igp but the uvd block and I've checked chrome and ff . Video decides fine in media players like Vlc and flash video is works well in ie. I believe it is a driver issue.

 

[seitur]

Not the igp but the uvd block and I've checked chrome and ff . Video decides fine in media players like Vlc and flash video is works well in ie. I believe it is a driver issue.

Ok thanks for this info. Hopefully it will be resolved soon.

 

[Shivansps]

For what ive noticed on my tablet, using the emmc(that i think it has higher performance than yours) has a kinda high cpu usage on it, but i never took the time to investigate it more, so i may not be right on that one, if that happens to amd devices as well is a big problem.

 

[thedavexp]

Just ordered a stream 14. Looking forward to putting it next to baytrail to see how it performs.

 

[monstercameron]

Just ordered a stream 14. Looking forward to putting it next to baytrail to see how it performs.

let us know when you get it.

 

[gmaster456]

Installed MC and the game runs ok with some settings turned down. I've been trying to find out if this thing takes SDXC cards so I can get a 128/256gb card so I can install some more games and apps.

 

[artivix]

Agreed - I've seen the CPUBenchmark.com and such scores - about double the speed -- but the 6400T should still be usable for all but, say, development or more serious work, even with 2GB and 32GB emmc. That was my concern.

The previous links to the Legitreview of the AMD Micro 6700T (4.5 watts, single channel memory) in a tablet showed the Passmark CPU rating at around 2100 which is not too far from a Intel i3-4010 (15w, dual channel memory) at 2475 laptop form factor. Another comparison is the Broadwell 5Y70 rating at around 2700.

http://www.legitreviews.com/amd-beema-mullins-apu_139863/6

More recent review from a Dutch site opened up the HP Stream 14 and it shows that HP has made provisions for upgraded capability and new models!

http://nl.hardware.info/productinfo/256055/hp-stream-14-14-z010nd#tab:fotos

The pictures show it may be possible to improve everything from APU performance (tablet sized passive to larger heatsink), M2 Broadcom wlan 1x1 to M2 Broadcom 94352Z dual band. The flat cable connector leads to right side expansion with M2 pads for fast SSD and SIM card.

 

[monstercameron]

do you guys think it is possible to replace the m.2 wifi/bt card for storage and have it boot from it?

 

[thedavexp]

I have a spare 16gb m.2 drive laying around would be keen to try with my stream when I get it could just use a tiny usb wifi adapter instead of the internal one...

Is it easy to open these up?

 

[monstercameron]

I have a spare 16gb m.2 drive laying around would be keen to try with my stream when I get it could just use a tiny usb wifi adapter instead of the internal one...

Is it easy to open these up?

seems easy enough, all the screws are exposed on the bottom.

 

[el etro]

cameron, how do the a4-6400 compares with latest Ipad graphic capacity?

 

[monstercameron]

cameron, how do the a4-6400 compares with latest Ipad graphic capacity?

I dunno but it is an interesting question. I will do some research on it.