Anyone have a llano rig yet

[hans007]

well i just ordered llano and board....

not much of an upgrade from my current athlon ii x2 245 with 785g, but i think it was more just to play with it. i guess i'll see how it is in a week when it gets here.

 

[Arkaign]

well i just ordered llano and board....

not much of an upgrade from my current athlon ii x2 245 with 785g, but i think it was more just to play with it. i guess i'll see how it is in a week when it gets here.

That'll be interesting, and I actually think it will be a fairly significant upgrade going from the Dual to the Quad w/larger L2. You get some bonus stuff like a more modern mobo chipset w/USB3 as well. Have fun with it!

 

[hans007]

That'll be interesting, and I actually think it will be a fairly significant upgrade going from the Dual to the Quad w/larger L2. You get some bonus stuff like a more modern mobo chipset w/USB3 as well. Have fun with it!

yeah thats what i figured.

the 245 happens to be 2.9ghz just like the llano 3850 i ordered . i think in most day to day stuff i will barely be able to tell the difference. im sure itll use slightly less power though. my sad justification in my head for this is i can uh turn the 245 and 785g into a media center... haha

 

[Arkaign]

Even without running apps that are Quad-friendly, it will help with keeping Windows singing smoothly as it runs all of the background processes (particularly if you have a lot of stuff running in the bg like AV/AS/messengers/etc). You could sell your old cpu/mobo and get a decent GPU with it, or perhaps grab just a 6670 and try that hybrid xfire deal.

 

[lau808]

looking forward to your personal review hans007

 

[Blitzvogel]

I was thinking about it. But AMD should have done a few things different with it.

1. All Desktop Llano's should have 400 radeon cores standard. Dual-Core, Quad-Core, Hexa-Core(If it ever comes to that). I don't care. Having that much GPU horsepower on even the slowest duallys would've been a major Marketing and Mindshare boost.

2. Dual Graphics should have atleast went up the 68xx series. 69xx is forgivable because it's not very likely that someone who spends 150$ on an APU will spend another 350$ on a gpu. The 6750 is only 35$ more than the 6670.

3. It's still not an upgrade for current Core 2 & K10 users. If first gen Llano had Bulldozer based cores, then Hell Yeah! I'd upgrade from my current K10 right away.

>1. AMD is targeting certain TDPs and power needs. That means balancing the graphics and general computing capability in order to meet those needs for specific platforms without overdoing things on options. Right now, the line is pretty easy to understand once you read about it.

>2. I agree on this, though AMD in general just needs to improve the crossfire drivers.

>3. As great as it would've been, we would be still waiting for Fusion parts.

Things I would've "fixed" would be faster available clock speeds across the board, especially with graphics. DDR3-1866 support in laptops, DDR3-2133 support in desktops.

 

[grimpr]

well i just ordered llano and board....

not much of an upgrade from my current athlon ii x2 245 with 785g, but i think it was more just to play with it. i guess i'll see how it is in a week when it gets here.

Not a bad choise, please post your experiences with the new build and some numbers in, boinc ati programs like collatz and milkyway@home if they run at all since we dont know the DP capabilities of the Radeon GPU on Llano, some OpenCL programs and the FPS on WebGL demos like the following. Thanks and have fun.

https://github.com/mrdoob/three.js
http://bodybrowser.googlelabs.com/
http://tinkercad.com/
http://ro.me/

 

[wahdangun]

try it with bitcoin please?

 

[hamunaptra]

Some hands on experience with an A6 currently being built in our PC shop as a floor display "midrange / affordable gaming machine".

I have her running stable @ 3.12ghz w/ a 120mhz bclk.
Motherboard is ASUS F1a75-m

Much higher and odd things start to happen, actually 120mhz is hit or miss on boot as I have experienced once the ethernet controller failed to be recognized on bootup as a device. I see no way in its BIOS to lock any speeds of southbridge.

As far as other parts, 2x2 1333mhz DDR3 RAM - kinda works at 1600mhz speeds.
500GB HDD, DVDRW , fsp 350watt PSU.
BIOS configured for all power saving options disabled

Somethings that are impressive:
Given all power savings options are turned off, the CPU idles @ 3.16ghz, 1.05v and the entire system consumes 50watts at the wall (measured via kilowatt).
HWmonitor reports temperatures anywhere from 17-20C idle for both all the cores and the GPU.

For load running LinX:
Power at the wall is about 180watts.
HWmonitor reports temperatures up to 69C on the cores and the GPU up 65ish as well despite not being loaded. Voltage reported is about 1.45v for cpu under load.

This is all tested on stock cooler which a whimpy little thing.

So, I think its safe to say this chip is powergating at idle and its doing a DAMN good job of it. I would say normal usage when I was playin around not doing stress testing, but installing games and surfing web was around 70watts average.

Installing 3dmark 11 and hopefully BC2 will finish downloading before I am off work. So, I can see how well it plays =)
GenTarkin



Little bit of an update here, so, this platform come to find out - HATES overclocking via bus speed. This entire time messing with it, I was wondering why my display was shimmering. It wasnt until I defaulted the clocks / voltages that it went away. If I ever tried increasing the bus just a tiny bit, the shimmering was back. I tried many different settings but ultimately only stock worked.

Also, it was pretty fun setting the multi to 47 and seeing cpu-z show 4700mhz =P ... even though its broke.

So, bummer for A6 and asus board, I wonder if a gigabyte and an A8 will be any different or if any boards coming out will have a SB speed lock setting so the bclk can be adjusted independently of it....

 

[hans007]

Try 133 bus with lower multiplier. At 120 the Pci divider is probably way overclocking the pci devices

 

[richierich1212]

thanks for the quick preview hamunaptra

 

[formulav8]

Yeah I am waiting for mature boards. Its obvious the FM platform is much more complicated than any of the other amd/intel platforms.

Eventually mobo makers will hopefully add in pci/pci express locks for unhindered ocing. Maybe they can figure out a way to increase the baseclock without having to overclock the gpu in the process? Now if its not possible to lock down the pci buses and what-not, then ocing will always be very limited. Even an unlocked llano only supports up to 3600mhz I think. So you would probably need bus ocing to truly push the cpu to the max

 

[LoneNinja]

If I hadn't just picked up a Phenom II X4 and X6 a few months ago I probably would have a Llano rig already. I won't be building anything new until next year, already spent more on computer hardware this year than I should have. lol

Reading this thread I can't help but ask a couple questions, and I'm not quoting anyone specifically has multiple people have discussed this.

Why does everyone want Llano to overclock?
It's primary advantage right now is low power, Phenom II will clock higher and perform better if overclocking is the goal. It also seems overclocking the cpu portion of Llano decreases GPU performance due to the max TDP, and if you don't intend to use the onboard GPU than Llano has horrible cost/performance.

Why are people complaining that Llano can't crossfire with anything stronger than a 6670? Why not complain that you can't use a 6450 and 6870 in crossfire? lol

 

[Plimogz]

Why does everyone want Llano to overclock?

I can't speak for everyone else, but for my part I wish to see overclocking results mainly because this is the first 32nm silicon from AMD. So seems like, with llano CPU cores being so close to PhII's, OC results would give some indication of what, if any, frequency headroom the new process has wrought.

 

[hamunaptra]

So, Ive been kinda loggin my llano A6 experience over at amdzone.com
Heres a link for all the details:
http://www.amdzone.com/phpbb3/viewtopic.php?f=532&t=138687

The most recent info is on towards the bottom of the post.

Things Ive found out, this particular motherboard / processor ended up HATING bclk increase. When I did any amount even like 5mhz...the screen was all wavy , like scanlines, not distortion but like good ol fashin looking refresh on a CRT...but I was on LCD. I thought it was my monitor but confirmed it on a diff LCD as well, tried different refresh rates - same issue. It only went away when bclk set to 100mhz.

I tried 133mhz and 150mhz ... dropping the mem divider and cpu multi but...the machine failed to POST , so I doubt there is any other bus dividers in place at all.

I also tried a low voltage / 1500mhz test.
vcpu @ 1.02v, coreclk via multi = 1500mhz (verified downward multis actually work)
(above close as possible to 3500M mobile part)
I also had all power saving features enabled in BIOS.
Power consumption at the wall was this:
40watts idle
99watts OCT gpu+cpu stress!!

System set completely stock w/ all power settings enabled in BIOS (puts vcore at 1.287v), power consumption was as follows:
40-45watts idle
163watts OCCT gpu+cpu stress!! (incredible)

BC2 usage @ 1280x1024 medium preset = avg load of 120watts

----
Also, take into account the PSU Im using is probably around 70% effeciency .. so take 70% of the values I posted and thats more around actual system component usage before the ineffeciency of the PSU!!!!

BC2, well I was amazed at how well this system played it. I even tried mixing in some high / medium settings and it performed well enough to play, this includes AA and AF.
It averaged anywhere from 15-40fps in multiplayer. At resolution and settings mentioned above.

-----
So, to me, the numbers Ive witnessed on the measly A6 processor....pretty much astound me. The performance achieved for the power consumed...is unheard of!
GO AMD!

 

[Soulkeeper]

How high can you clock it stable with 1.02v vcore ?
will your motherboard let you go under 1.0v ?

with your higher vcore those load kill-a-watt numbers are only modestly better than the 45nm quad core in my sig.

EDIT: I didn't notice you said gpu was loaded too, but 163-180watts still seems high to me

 

[hamunaptra]

Well, it was stable at 1500mhz 1.02v...I didnt try anything higher, but I did try lower voltage (.985v) and 1500mhz the system wouldnt boot into windows w/o BSOD.
So, I dont think 1.02 would be very stable at anything much above 1500mhz.

 

[yottabit]

Are you using an analog or digital output? I just read through this guide: http://www.overclockers.com/overclocking-amds-llano-apu/

He states that for some reason (unknown) you really have to use a digital monitor output. And he explains the drive recognition issue- it happens once the computer restarts. Interesting

This OCer attained very healthy IGP overclock results IMO

 

[StrangerGuy]

I can't speak for everyone else, but for my part I wish to see overclocking results mainly because this is the first 32nm silicon from AMD. So seems like, with llano CPU cores being so close to PhII's, OC results would give some indication of what, if any, frequency headroom the new process has wrought.

Obviously, AMD doesn't want Llano to cannibalize their Phenom II sales so they intentionally crippled the OCing. Who the hell would want to buy PhIIs when you can have a 4GHz+ Llano with an OCed 5570 class GPU at the same time for less money?

 

[Blue Shift]

Obviously, AMD doesn't want Llano to cannibalize their Phenom II sales so they intentionally crippled the OCing. Who the hell would want to buy PhIIs when you can have a 4GHz+ Llano with an OCed 5570 class GPU at the same time for less money?

The "crippled" overclocking is due to the TDP ceiling. If you'd like to overclock the CPU at the expense of the iGPU, you're still in good shape. I do think AMD intends for their three new architectures (Brazos, Llano, Bulldozer) to replace their existing line-up wherever possible.

 

[RyanGreener]

The "crippled" overclocking is due to the TDP ceiling. If you'd like to overclock the CPU at the expense of the iGPU, you're still in good shape.

Just throwing this out there, but this concept may only apply to the turbo models.

 

[Zap]

this platform is for:

1. People on a budget and want to game
2. Kids/Students/Mom&Dad
3. Small form factor (OEM/LAN/HTPC builds)

Not:
1. Enthusiasts who are accustomed to high expectations
2. People who want to pair this platform with a $500 VGA card
3. People who already own a regular gaming PC bought/assembled in the past two years

Well said. I'm even interested in Llano to play around with, but will probably wait for a Micro Center deal or mini ITX motherboards.

Extending past desktops, I'm pretty excited about mobile Llano.

Llano is not for hardcore gamers.

Well, all depends on how you define "hardcore gamers."

I knew this Bulgarian guy who gamed all the time and was REALLY good at the game he played... which was DotA (Warcraft III/Frozen Throne). Is he not a hardcore gamer? Does he need anything better than Llano?

What about all those CS 1.6 players out there that play all the time and even compete against other players, but who won't play anything else?

What about all those who still play original Starcraft/Broodwar? Yes, they're still out there, and some of them play a LOT.

 

[yottabit]

It is pretty crazy, in the link I posted the overclocked CPU+GPU was drawing almost 270W for the whole system. That's a ton of heat to be dissipated over such a small area!

 

[Blue Shift]

Well said. I'm even interested in Llano to play around with, but will probably wait for a Micro Center deal or mini ITX motherboards.

Extending past desktops, I'm pretty excited about mobile Llano.



Well, all depends on how you define "hardcore gamers."

I knew this Bulgarian guy who gamed all the time and was REALLY good at the game he played... which was DotA (Warcraft III/Frozen Throne). Is he not a hardcore gamer? Does he need anything better than Llano?

What about all those CS 1.6 players out there that play all the time and even compete against other players, but who won't play anything else?

What about all those who still play original Starcraft/Broodwar? Yes, they're still out there, and some of them play a LOT.

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.


Edit: 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.

 

[Axon]

I had wanted to buy a Llano system, but there was no way for me to justify it. It certainly wouldn't meet my gaming demands, and for someone like my father, I might as well just get a cheap Phenom X2 560 combo from Microcenter for $75 or whatever ridiculously low price they're selling it for now.