Anyone else VERY underwhelmed with Llano's GPU performance?

[badb0y]

How can Llano be hyped lol. It was crystal clear what it was going to be, Stars CPU with 400 SP GPU. The hype just came from fanboys fighting each other over it.

Bulldozer on the other hand is hyped to hell, it's completely new architecture.

 

[Nemesis 1]

*sigh*

I've already mentioned this like a million times: I'm referring to mobile Llano. Like I've also said, I think Llano is mostly irrelevant for desktops because Deneb can now be had very cheap, unless desktop Llano manages to cost the same and OCs more.

And yes, it does live up to the hype, completely. You trade off some CPU performance to get a huge amount more GPU performance and a more balanced platform. Sorry you can't see this.

On the desktop . not going to sell many . Just won't happen , Hell you guys been say zacata selling like out cakes yet AMD lost mobile market share in 1st qt. that is in the mobile arena. On the desktop it has to go against i3 that could be tuff for shoppers looking for value.

Mobile tho there is a nice niche there.

 

[LOL_Wut_Axel]

I wish I wouldn't have looked . This llano is AMDS top fusion part .

I see were you got your numbers from. That fine your doing a dollar compare . IF how ever we do a compare against intels Best using IGP against llano and throw out the cost factor the picture is not as you paint . it. In none 3d apps the differance in productivity is in average 300%+ If you buy a pc for productivity the battery life is misleadu=ing as the top Intel SB M would be done 3x sooner . I doubt lano has 3x better battery life running the same productivity . As for 3d graphics I won't debate that llano is faster .

But I would never throw away $700 dollars on a slow gamer and really bad productivity . If you want to do a $$$ compare that OK by me , but through the $$ the window 99% would take SB highend put a 460m in there and call it a day.

But ya the llano does OK against the 2 core , Can't wait to see how Intel pricies the 2 core 4 threaded M. I would price that cpu and only that cpu at $50 dollars and call it a day and get IB ready .

The main point of this is that it's very balanced computing. Anyone comparing this to the mobile Core i7 and dedicated GPU is just laughable and completely wrong. Systems with those start at $300 more than top-end Llano, not to mention you lose around 1-2 hours of battery life even on integrated GPU in comparison. The differences don't end there either, though, because Llano will be able to be used in much smaller chassis. If the system that AMD supplied to reviewers is anything to go by, these will be in 13" to 15" chassis notebooks weighting from 4 to 5 pounds.

Again, why do people insist on comparing this to products it doesn't compete with? If it's not $500-700, it's not worth mentioning as viable competition.

 

[Blitzvogel]

yeah i know, but there are desktop chips out so AMD seems to think its a viable desktop option. And if they can do something about the memory bottleneck and actually obtain 5570 discreet performance they might be right.

Yup, memory bandwidth is the biggest issue. The low standard clocks are not much to go on with the older Stars architecture and the low GPU clocks are not much to go on either. I think AMD should push the GPU clocks higher on the upper end mobile Llano parts, even if it's at the cost of TDP.

I really wonder how Trinity and Krishna will work out, especially if AMD can match Intel's per clock capability. The other thing is how would things work out when the SIMDs are based on VLIW4, which would reduce the SIMD transistor counts quite a bit, so we could get a higher potential clock easier or better power usage.

 

[Nemesis 1]

How can Llano be hyped lol. It was crystal clear what it was going to be, Stars CPU with 400 SP GPU. The hype just came from fanboys fighting each other over it.

Bulldozer on the other hand is hyped to hell, it's completely new architecture.

Llano wwasn't being hyped that much until BD was pushed back . Thans when the real llano hype started . BD was pushed back because llano was the ticket. You read the stuff.

Ipersonnally think llano offers good value if thats what your shopping for on a notebook . But on the desk top . No way . If intel on the desktop does a 2 core 4 thread K look out.

On the mobile just price 1 2core SB at $50 and stand back it still not a good productive mobile so it will target value shoppers only .

 

[Nemesis 1]

Yup, memory bandwidth is the biggest issue. The low standard clocks are not much to go on with the older Stars architecture and the low GPU clocks are not much to go on either. I think AMD should push the GPU clocks higher on the upper end mobile Llano parts, even if it's at the cost of TDP.

I really wonder how Trinity and Krishna will work out, especially if AMD can match Intel's per clock capability. The other thing is how would things work out when the SIMDs are based on VLIW4, which would reduce the SIMD transistor counts quite a bit, so we could get a higher potential clock easier or better power usage.

Thats a really good question unless intel made IPC better on IB at stock were only loking at 20% that includes the higher stock clocks only . SB we already know is great O/C I/B is a question mark . As is BD now.

 

[Nemesis 1]

The main point of this is that it's very balanced computing. Anyone comparing this to the mobile Core i7 and dedicated GPU is just laughable and completely wrong. Systems with those start at $300 more than top-end Llano, not to mention you lose around 1-2 hours of battery life even on integrated GPU in comparison. The differences don't end there either, though, because Llano will be able to be used in much smaller chassis. If the system that AMD supplied to reviewers is anything to go by, these will be in 13" to 15" chassis notebooks weighting from 4 to 5 pounds.

Again, why do people insist on comparing this to products it doesn't compete with? If it's not $500-700, it's not worth mentioning as viable competition.

No its not balanced at all . It has a better IGP and thats it. You could say SB has better balance depending on what side of fence your on . You are suddenly making a cpu purchase based on an IGP that isn't good enough for real gaming Eye candy maxed high res. The smallest monitor we have here is 26" its also the biggest. We had 30" but when I bought this 26" we both liked the 26" better , 30" just to big . Sold those for a fair price.

 

[LOL_Wut_Axel]

No its not balanced at all . It has a better IGP and thats it. You could say SB has better balance depending on what side of fence your on . You are suddenly making a cpu purchase based on an IGP that isn't good enough for real gaming Eye candy maxed high res. The smallest monitor we have here is 26" its also the biggest. We had 30" but when I bought this 26" we both liked the 26" better , 30" just to big . Sold those for a fair price.

WTH are you talking about? This is for mainstream users, those who will play at 1366x768 and 1600x900 and at Medium settings. Mobile SB doesn't have balance at all. It has either a mainstream or high-end CPU combined with a low-end GPU. Llano has a mainstream CPU + mainstream GPU. For most users, an i7 is completely unnecessary, and the 3500M is only a tiny bit slower than the 2310M in multi-threaded apps.

Again, if you're not the intended market, that does not mean there's no use for a product. Your statements are ignorant, to say the least.

 

[GaiaHunter]

Anand did test with different RAM speeds, and there was a distinct and significant advantage of using DDR3-1866 over 1333. I crunched the numbers in the four games he tested.

At 1280x1024 DDR3-1866 gave an average 25% performance boost over 1333.
At 1024x768 DDR3-1866 gave an average 22% performance boost over 1333.

So there is a significant bottleneck when just using the typical DDR3-1333. Now what we don't know is how much of a bottleneck 1866 is undergoing.



Anand averaged the performance boost over Intel HD 3000 to be 58%. And in several of his benchmarks that boost brought games that weren't playable or barely playable on the Intel graphics into playable or more playable on the AMD APU.

wow i could have sworn that was not there last night, thanks alot!

I agree on laptops this is a very much bigger deal, i really should have specified in the OP i was trying to discuss the desktop chips.

I don't think it was there.

That makes Llano GPU look a bit better.

It still leaves questions since the 5570 is being tested on an i7 920 and it is clocked 25% (750 MHz for AT sample, which is an OC version) faster.

For example, with the faster memory (which is around the stock 5570 memory speed, no idea how fast is AT 5570 memory) in a game like Crysis, that is going to be clearly GPU bound, the difference is 17% (easily explained by a card that is clocked 25% lower).

It seems that the 5570 isn't being crippled by sharing bandwidth with the CPU - only by slower memory and lower clocks.

Guess fast memory makers will be extremely pleased with this kind of products.

And it actually beats or is very close to the GT240 in some instances.

Additionally in Mass Effect 2 it is quite close to the 5570.

From the CPU thread, apparently Anand posted the following on twitter.

 

[notty22]

I will be surprised if you ever see anything but 1333 ram in the price range laptops mentioned. I noticed negative comments regarding the memory speed in the articles. I can't agree with them, because most people do not run, and did not recommend 1866 ram, well until yesterday !
Cost of platform would usually not allow for spending an extra 25-30 dollars for 1866 ram over 1333-1600, all to avoid buying a 60 dollar discrete gpu.

 

[Genx87]

These are budget machines, thus budget ram will be used on the OEM side. 1333 will be the norm I expect.

 

[Gigantopithecus]

Not necessarily, but it's 9000 times better performance (only slight exaggeration), so I'm putting my $ where my mouth is. It has a warranty, and I've had a couple of older ones with zero problems I've had more trouble with other new laptops than the DV7 refurbs.

/facepalm

Yeah, and once I picked up a week old MacBook Pro from Craigslist for $500 because some nitwit couldn't pay their rent.

You're not putting your money where your mouth is, you're making an entirely invalid comparison. If you can't see why eBay refurbs =! retail pricing, then there's no point in arguing further with you.

 

[Gikaseixas]

sad sad sad. Please stop the AMD vs Intel fanboys fight.
Llano is actually very good and not intended to be a hardcore gamer setup (casual gaming yes). Yes it will play a few games quite well but will suck on more demanding titles. If they price it close to any SB + Discrete setup then they will be asking a lot. SB mobile is in another league when it comes to cpu speedwise but it needs a discrete card to beat Llano in graphical applications. Why argue so much.

Answering the OP - no i'm not underwhelmed with Llano. It performs exactly how i thought it would given all the information about the cpu performance and what kind of gpu it would have. Not a surprise at all.

 

[GaiaHunter]

I will be surprised if you ever see anything but 1333 ram in the price range laptops mentioned. I noticed negative comments regarding the memory speed in the articles. I can't agree with them, because most people do not run, and did not recommend 1866 ram, well until yesterday !
Cost of platform would usually not allow for spending an extra 25-30 dollars for 1866 ram over 1333-1600, all to avoid buying a 60 dollar discrete gpu.

DDR3 1600 is pretty much similarly priced to DDR3 1333 and already provides a reasonable boost. Of course for laptops a card with the performance of a 5570/GT240 doesn't cost only $60 - that is for desktops.

On the other hand a budget OEM platform could easily afford to spent an extra $30 in memory to save $60 on a GPU and require a less powerful CPU.

But we will have to wait for prices.

 

[notty22]

There will be more options now for the oem's, dell , HP, for sure. What to do with configurations. I just don't think its unrealistic to see 1333 for laptop baselines. What happens if they pair it with 1066 ? How bad does it do then ? The fact they can use LLano now, for a discrete like gpu performance level, may push them to move to faster memory. Give the buyer what he 'wants' and not just a illusion of that

 

[GaiaHunter]

There will be more options now for the oem's, dell , HP, for sure. What to do with configurations. I just don't think its unrealistic to see 1333 for laptop baselines. What happens if they pair it with 1066 ? How bad does it do then ? The fact they can use LLano now, for a discrete like gpu performance level, may push them to move to faster memory. Give the buyer what he 'wants' and not just a illusion of that

What I want is a cheap notebook that I can play guildwars, galciv2 or even play some oldies like ME/Fear/Half-Life 2 when I'm on the move, has good battery life and it is a lightweight.

A Llano on a 12"-13" notebook/laptop would be quite nice.

Unfortunately, considering you see E-350 on 15"+ laptops I'm not that sure.

 

[Gigantopithecus]

What I want is a cheap notebook that I can play guildwars, galciv2 or even play some oldies like ME/Fear/Half-Life 2 when I'm on the move, has good battery life and it is a lightweight.

A Llano on a 12"-13" notebook/laptop would be quite nice.

Unfortunately, considering you see E-350 on 15"+ laptops I'm not that sure.

My Lenovo X120e with the E-350 APU handles Guild Wars at 1333x768 just fine; it's capped by vsync.

 

[Nemesis 1]

WTH are you talking about? This is for mainstream users, those who will play at 1366x768 and 1600x900 and at Medium settings. Mobile SB doesn't have balance at all. It has either a mainstream or high-end CPU combined with a low-end GPU. Llano has a mainstream CPU + mainstream GPU. For most users, an i7 is completely unnecessary, and the 3500M is only a tiny bit slower than the 2310M in multi-threaded apps.

Again, if you're not the intended market, that does not mean there's no use for a product. Your statements are ignorant, to say the least.

Your kidding right. 2 core was beating up the llano You add a cheap NV and its game over

 

[GaiaHunter]

My Lenovo X120e with the E-350 APU handles Guild Wars at 1333x768 just fine; it's capped by vsync.

Yeah, my gf and I have been eyeing some E-350 notebooks but decided to wait to check Llano prices and then decide if it is worth or not to get some extra performance.

Thanks for the info on GW.

 

[dac7nco]

For me, battery life is the most important factor of a notebook, CPU second, Display third and GPU a distant fourth. I've never seen someone "game" on a laptop; it seems retarded to me, to swipe your finger across a trackpad as if your life depended upon it. IMO the dream of APUs won't happen for a very long time. A 480p video on a 15" screen looks the same as 1080p, from a foot away. Hell, some notebooks don't have the muscle to play certain "HD" files without help... and that's shit a Sandy Bridge Celeron manages with IGP2000... And don't yap about the 24HZ issue - there's probably five people here who would know it existed aside from reading about it @ AT.

Notebooks are NOT desktop replacements - they are supplements.

Daimon

Oh, and the answer is: Llano is the backbone for a great system, provided you are a normal user, and not an AT forum member.

 

[LOL_Wut_Axel]

Your kidding right. 2 core was beating up the llano You add a cheap NV and its game over

Not enough to be in a higher market tier. It's 20% faster on multi-threaded apps, big whoop. The fact that this is your only argument says a lot. The Radeon HD 6620G is 2x faster than the Intel HD 3000, yet you never mention that. You're clearly biased.

And your cheap GPU argument completely misses the point. That's $100 higher at least.

 

[Rifter]

For me, battery life is the most important factor of a notebook, CPU second, Display third and GPU a distant fourth. I've never seen someone "game" on a laptop; it seems retarded to me, to swipe your finger across a trackpad as if your life depended upon it. IMO the dream of APUs won't happen for a very long time. A 480p video on a 15" screen looks the same as 1080p, from a foot away. Hell, some notebooks don't have the muscle to play certain "HD" files without help... and that's shit a Sandy Bridge Celeron manages with IGP2000... And don't yap about the 24HZ issue - there's probably five people here who would know it existed aside from reading about it @ AT.

Notebooks are NOT desktop replacements - they are supplements.

Daimon

Oh, and the answer is: Llano is the backbone for a great system, provided you are a normal user, and not an AT forum member.

I agree, laptops arnt so much for gaming. This is why i think Llano may not even do so well for laptops because of its weak CPU side. Yeah sure it might have better battery life but its not any more productive, if a SB based laptop has 30-40% less battery life but accomplishes 30-40% more work due to the faster CPU then they are essentially the same thing, both are getting the same amount of work done on one battery..

Pricing will be very important for Llano to succede.

 

[iCyborg]

I agree, laptops arnt so much for gaming. This is why i think Llano may not even do so well for laptops because of its weak CPU side. Yeah sure it might have better battery life but its not any more productive, if a SB based laptop has 30-40% less battery life but accomplishes 30-40% more work due to the faster CPU then they are essentially the same thing, both are getting the same amount of work done on one battery..

They aren't for gaming, but apparently they are for heavy encoding, rendering and other CPU intensive work so this weaker CPU will badly hurt its sales, right? Or maybe this 30-40% stronger SB will allow me to browse through 30-40% more web pages and write more emails than Llano in the same time?

 

[Rifter]

They aren't for gaming, but apparently they are for heavy encoding, rendering and other CPU intensive work so this weaker CPU will badly hurt its sales, right? Or maybe this 30-40% stronger SB will allow me to browse through 30-40% more web pages and write more emails than Llano in the same time?

Alot of people use laptops as desktop replacements now and do use them for productivity tasks. Both my parents recently bought laptops to replace there desktops, my dad to use for work(mostly database) and my mom uses hers for school(shes a teacher, uses photoshop alot and does a fair bit of graphics work on it)

 

[LOL_Wut_Axel]

They aren't for gaming, but apparently they are for heavy encoding, rendering and other CPU intensive work so this weaker CPU will badly hurt its sales, right? Or maybe this 30-40% stronger SB will allow me to browse through 30-40% more web pages and write more emails than Llano in the same time?

LOL. You put things into perspective.