Anyone have a llano rig yet

[Blue Shift]

Re-posting this from a few pages back, since there were no replies:

The fact that Oblivion runs well on Llano really speaks to the overall adequacy of the platform. Does anyone know how the computing power of a high-end Llano chip compares to the XBox 360 and PS3?

If it's somewhat comparable, then all console ports should run OK at "low" resolutions on Llano. Console ports typically aren't optimized very well, though, so that's probably not the case in practice.

I have a laptop with a Mobility FireGL V5700 (~ Mobility Radeon HD 3650), and it runs most games I own at medium settings on its 1680x1050 screen. Since the Llano IGPs are technically superior to it in many ways, I'd hope that they would provide similar performance.

 

[sm625]

Unfortunately there is still precious little information on how well turbo is actually working on llano right now. Until this clears up I would not trust anything except benchmarks. Luckily, we have hundreds of good benchmarks of phenom II X4 chips to compare to. If I buy a llano notebook that is suuposed to turbo up to 2.5GHz, yet the benchmarks seem to indicate it is only running at 1.8GHz, I'd be taking it back. It only takes a few minutes to download passmark and get a rating.

 

[cebalrai]

Unfortunately there is still precious little information on how well turbo is actually working on llano right now. Until this clears up I would not trust anything except benchmarks. Luckily, we have hundreds of good benchmarks of phenom II X4 chips to compare to. If I buy a llano notebook that is suuposed to turbo up to 2.5GHz, yet the benchmarks seem to indicate it is only running at 1.8GHz, I'd be taking it back. It only takes a few minutes to download passmark and get a rating.

I kind of wonder if there's throttling going on. Turbo kicks in and heats up unacceptably and then turns off again...

 

[Vesku]

Could also be battery profile versus plugged in profile. Wonder if there is a detailed review of a retail Llano notebook up yet.

 

[cebalrai]

Could also be battery profile versus plugged in profile. Wonder if there is a detailed review of a retail Llano notebook up yet.

http://www.notebookcheck.net/Review-HP-Pavilion-dv6-6110eg-Llano-Notebook.57360.0.html

They couldn't get Turbo Core to go higher than 1.7 ghz on a 1.6/2.3 ghz A8 processor. I have yet to see anything other than Turbo Core being a huge flop. How disappointing.

Also that review shows dual graphics churning out blue screens and stuttering at a horrible rate. They had to disable it just to get through their gamine tests.

:thumbsdown:

 

[toyota]

Re-posting this from a few pages back, since there were no replies:

The fact that Oblivion runs well on Llano really speaks to the overall adequacy of the platform. Does anyone know how the computing power of a high-end Llano chip compares to the XBox 360 and PS3?

If it's somewhat comparable, then all console ports should run OK at "low" resolutions on Llano. Console ports typically aren't optimized very well, though, so that's probably not the case in practice.

I have a laptop with a Mobility FireGL V5700 (~ Mobility Radeon HD 3650), and it runs most games I own at medium settings on its 1680x1050 screen. Since the Llano IGPs are technically superior to it in many ways, I'd hope that they would provide similar performance.

you must not own a lot of modern games if you are playing them using medium settings at 1680x1050 on a mobile 3650. my 8600gt is as fast or faster and no way is that happening in newer games.

 

[sm625]

On one hand you have turbo not working very well, and on the other hand you have chips that run very cool. Surely there cant be anything wrong with the hardware. Maybe AMD just need to tweak the way it estimates TDP.

 

[podspi]

In order for us to say turbo isn't working, benchmarks with it on and off should be done. Has this been done anywhere? It's possible I missed it (that link wouldn't load past 30% for me) either in the above link or somewhere else, but on my Thuban, I also generally can't see Turbo kick in, but it definitely has an effect on benchmarks.

CPU-Z is not a benchmark, Overdrive is not a benchmark. We need to stop obsessing over reported clock speeds and look at the performance.

Of course, if the benchmarks are identical with turbo on and off, I take it back. That's no good

 

[sm625]

Turbo cant be enabled or disabled. Its just there, supposedly.

 

[Skiprudder]

I just set up a Toshiba with an A6-3400M and it turbos from 1.4 to 2.3Ghz just fine for me. I had cpu-z up while I was installing things.

 

[cebalrai]

I just set up a Toshiba with an A6-3400M and it turbos from 1.4 to 2.3Ghz just fine for me. I had cpu-z up while I was installing things.

Would you mind showing a screenshot?

I wonder if turbo core works in little spikes instead of sustaining through a benchmark? I'm a bench noob so I'm not sure this is even possible.

 

[podspi]

Turbo cant be enabled or disabled. Its just there, supposedly.

Really? So it isn't like CnQ or TurboCORE 1 where it can be toggled?!

 

[hans007]

well if anyone wants an a8-3850.. i've got an extra sealed retail box one for $125.

 

[sm625]

I just set up a Toshiba with an A6-3400M and it turbos from 1.4 to 2.3Ghz just fine for me. I had cpu-z up while I was installing things.

What we need to see are super pi and hyper pi results. Those results will tell us exactly what average frequency the machine is running. Super pi will give us the single core turbo boost, and hyper pi will give us the full load turbo. If you do that, I bet that super pi will give results that match an athlon II regor core chip underclocked to 1.9GHz.

 

[Tuna-Fish]

The fact that Oblivion runs well on Llano really speaks to the overall adequacy of the platform. Does anyone know how the computing power of a high-end Llano chip compares to the XBox 360 and PS3?

Honestly, I think that was the target it was designed for. An A8-3500 should be as good as or better than the consoles in almost everything.

 

[Skiprudder]

Here is the requested screenshot. I haven't had a change to bench it with anything, and I may not get one since I'm delivering it tomorrow, but at least the screen shows turbo is working.

http://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-oh_X8gPvxtg/TijJwVYcSHI/AAAAAAAAEUo/ftwyUS1_Tzg/A6-3400M-Turbo.jpg

 

[Skiprudder]

I had time to do a few runs with hyperpi as requested. Turbo is definetly working! I can do a 1M hyperpi calculation on all 4 cores at ~48 seconds on each core. Most of the time cpu-z is reporting operating frequency on the chip at 1.4GHz, or full "normal" speed.

If I set hyperpi to test only a single core, much of the test runs at the full turbo speed of 2.3GHz (drops back to 1.4 from time to time, so I presume adjusting to temperature and TDP requirments) and completes the calculation in only 38 seconds.

So there you go, turbo is working on A series.

In general I'm rather happy with the machine. It'll be going to a client who is a pretty typical computer user in that she'll be doing internet, office, some movies, etc on it. The machine is snappy and responsive, and being a Toshiba is no-frills, but well built. It was also a pretty nice deal at $500 and gives my client a lot of flexibility as well as good battery life.

 

[cebalrai]

I had time to do a few runs with hyperpi as requested. Turbo is definetly working! I can do a 1M hyperpi calculation on all 4 cores at ~48 seconds on each core. Most of the time cpu-z is reporting operating frequency on the chip at 1.4GHz, or full "normal" speed.

If I set hyperpi to test only a single core, much of the test runs at the full turbo speed of 2.3GHz (drops back to 1.4 from time to time, so I presume adjusting to temperature and TDP requirments) and completes the calculation in only 38 seconds.

So there you go, turbo is working on A series.

In general I'm rather happy with the machine. It'll be going to a client who is a pretty typical computer user in that she'll be doing internet, office, some movies, etc on it. The machine is snappy and responsive, and being a Toshiba is no-frills, but well built. It was also a pretty nice deal at $500 and gives my client a lot of flexibility as well as good battery life.

Excellent news.

Has anyone used dual-graphics yet on their Llano rigs? Looks like benchmarks using it are really mixed - a few games (ie WoW) benefit nicely while others show no benefit or blue screen. Could this be due to immature drivers?

 

[Arkaign]

Honestly, I think that was the target it was designed for. An A8-3500 should be as good as or better than the consoles in almost everything.

I think that as long as you look at games in the same standards, say 1280x720 (typical console rendering resolution, native full 1080p games are very rare on consoles) at ~30fps with low/no AA, and older designs like Oblivion (2006), then that's fair.

Imho it's honestly pretty terrible for a desktop gaming rig though. Any recent game will make it cry at resolutions like 1080p, and nearly everyone has a 1080p or better display by this point. Add to that the consideration that many PC games are terribly coded ports like GTA4 or Black Ops, and a lot of the time I'll be willing to bet that an Xbox360 will look considerably better for newer titles than what is possible on Llano. The overhead of Windows + drivers + etc has something to do with it as well of course.

With 20" 1080p LCDs being under $100, and cards like the 6850 and GTX550 being fairly inexpensive as well, desktop gamers are much, much, much better off building a PC with a real video card than dealing with Llano. The price difference might mean putting off a game purchase or eating from the dollar menu instead of steak and drinks at Friday's, but good lord what a difference.

Llano's big promise is SFF, HTPC, and cheap laptops. Intel HD video is pure crap, and as I've said before, twice as fast as crap is still crap, as far as gaming's concerned. For general 2d video, web browsing, cheap box home and basic business desktops, I think it's really quite nice.

 

[ElFenix]

anyone who expected it to be competitive with mid range discrete desktop graphics (when the hell did the radeon x8xx series become midrange? that was top of the line!) was fooling themselves. from the get go this has been about AMD having a compelling notebook platform (for once) and somewhat about starting to get APU type systems out in the wild.

it's actually better at gaming than i figured it would be, especially with fast ram (though, that may not be much of an option in a laptop). i figured it'd be way too memory bottlenecked.


perfect for a 13" notebook, if you ask me.

 

[Arkaign]

anyone who expected it to be competitive with mid range discrete desktop graphics (when the hell did the radeon x8xx series become midrange? that was top of the line!) was fooling themselves. from the get go this has been about AMD having a compelling notebook platform (for once) and somewhat about starting to get APU type systems out in the wild.
it's actually better at gaming than i figured it would be, especially with fast ram (though, that may not be much of an option in a laptop). i figured it'd be way too memory bottlenecked.


perfect for a 13" notebook, if you ask me.

Agreed.

 

[frozentundra123456]

I agree with Arkaign. The only place I really see Llano being competitive is in laptops, where it is not easy to add a discrete card. In the desktop, it may find a spot in the low end, but the integrated graphics is really not enough to compensate for the outdated CPU. And I bet most of the Llano desktops, being built for the low end, will have slow ram also, which will further handicap the the graphics performance.

I did see the HP dm1z with the E350 in a thin and light package that was very attracitve.

 

[frozentundra123456]

anyone who expected it to be competitive with mid range discrete desktop graphics (when the hell did the radeon x8xx series become midrange? that was top of the line!) was fooling themselves. from the get go this has been about AMD having a compelling notebook platform (for once) and somewhat about starting to get APU type systems out in the wild.

it's actually better at gaming than i figured it would be, especially with fast ram (though, that may not be much of an option in a laptop). i figured it'd be way too memory bottlenecked.


perfect for a 13" notebook, if you ask me.

I agree about the suitability for a small notebook. However, do you really think for the low-end prebuilt desktop market (which Llano is suited for) that they will put in fast ram that optimizes the graphics???

 

[Arkaign]

I agree about the suitability for a small notebook. However, do you really think for the low-end prebuilt desktop market (which Llano is suited for) that they will put in fast ram that optimizes the graphics???

I don't think they will (the OEMs), as most buyers wouldn't know the difference, just like PSUs are one of the most-overlooked specs out there.

It will still be a more balanced system than say an i3 dual w/Intel HD video, but for gaming it's gonna be pretty disappointing for someone expecting to be able to do much of anything. I can just see someone with an A6 w/1066 DDR3 picking up a copy of the new COD or NFS game, loading it up, and getting a total slideshow with default settings, and only moderately playable with the resolution set to way under the native 1080p of their display, resulting in weird looking pixelization effects.

In a 13" notebook though, if you have a display that's like 1280x800 or something, that should be fairly decent.