Athlon 5350 consensus for mITX media build

[severus]

For people actual using this in real world situations (not benchmarks), how is it? I can get this processor with a ASrock motherboard from Microcenter for $40. I can upgrade the ram in my main machine an pull out the 8 gigs of kingston 1333 and put them in here, adding another 8-16 gigs of 1600 to my gaming rig. Add a coolermaster ITX case for $40 and a DVD drive, maybe a video card? I'm not sure how the APU on this is.

 

[daxzy]

Have you used any Bay-Trail atom cmoputer? It's basically a competitor to the Bay-Trail Atom setups, but better CPU/GPU.

I think it's decent for $40, but its a dead end platform. For the same price, you could pick up a used mITX + low end Kaveri or Celeron/Pentium based Sandybridge/IvyBridge and at least have some upgrade path.

 

[dave_the_nerd]

CPUs in that class are frustratingly sluggish in day-to-day use unless you don't know any better.

It will compare well to your 1.1GHz Duron though. Ahhh, memories...

 

[dark zero]

Unless this chip can be OCed going to Core Quad levels, making the pain bear able.

 

[Azuma Hazuki]

Having used both AM1 and Baytrail PCs, I can tell you the Athlon 5350 will feel noticeably better. It's sitll slow, comparable to any machine you can find at Best Buy with the A6 or A8 Carrizo-L CPUs in them, but better than Atom.

I'd strongly advise running Linux rather than Windows on these; at the low end, the higher efficiency really shows, and all the more so if you can run a light desktop like LXDE or even a plain window manager like Fluxbox.

 

[nenforcer]

I upgraded from a Intel Atom 330 Dual Core Diamondville / nVidia ION HTPC to this and its quite a potent little machine. The onboard HD 8000 series graphics are not GCN and the video ports are only HDMI 1.4 / DP 1.2 so it can't do 4K 60Hz but the APU combination is still capable of doing 4K 30Hz streaming as a HTPC.

 

[escrow4]

Buy a $50 Android knock off media box instead or a fancy pants Shield if you want everything all working out of the box.

 

[ShintaiDK]

Get a big core Celeron/Pentium/APU. And avoid the small core lines like the plague.

 

[jfelano]

I wouldn't say it's a dead platform, AMD has said it plans to release new processors.

I was unable to game anymore due to health issues so I sold my i5 rig and my plan was to build a very green pc. I chose this platform cause it was really cheap and really green.

I have:
Asus Am1m-A
5350 @ 2.46
8GB Gskill DDR3 1600
Liteon CD burner
Rosewill SRM-01
Team 240gb SSD
Evga 550w bronze psu
Windows 10

I already had the psu and OS and the parts came to $202 shipped, plus there was a $10 rebate.

I work online all day but just internet and basic use-age and I'm very pleased with it. Overclocking it made a big difference too and no noticeable temp increase at all with stock cooler. I've seen some interesting gaming benchmarks too, with a cheap card like a 750ti it's not too far behind a i7.

I have never seen it go over 40c using hardware monitor, that's after being on all day, and it's hot and humid here in S. Florida. My office is around 80f during the day, even with the A/C at 77f.

 

[Insert_Nickname]

For people actual using this in real world situations (not benchmarks), how is it?

The word that comes to mind is "tolerable". If you set your expectations accordingly. Media playback shouldn't be an issue, except HEVC and VP9 decoding.

Honestly, at this time I'd wait a month and get a low-end AM4 APU like the A6-9500. That should take care of your media needs for the foreseeable future.

I wouldn't say it's a dead platform, AMD has said it plans to release new processors.

They did.

http://products.amd.com/es-xl/searc...U/Athlon™-5370-APU-with-Radeon™-R3-Series/182

It's a good bet that one is the last APU you'll see on AM1, since AMD will unify their desktop sockets on AM4.

 

[The Stilt]

No point in choosing this APU for a multimedia system, since it cannot decode anything but VC-1 / H.264 up to 1080p using the hardware decoder. Carrizo / Bristol Ridge & Stoney Ridge are the first APUs with 4K and HEVC support, but they are only available in the mobile BGA package and in the upcoming AM4 package.

 

[VirtualLarry]

The word that comes to mind is "tolerable". If you set your expectations accordingly.

I agree. I have some Sempron 3850 quad-core Kabini rigs I built, and OCed from 1.3 to 1.6, and they're indeed "tolerable", with an SSD. But not quite to the level of "pleasurable", like my OCed Intel Skylake Celeron and Pentium rigs (moreso the Pentium, as it has a PCI-E M.2 AHCI SSD).

 

[NTMBK]

I would try to find a Stoney Ridge motherboard, that would make a better HTPC.

 

[frozentundra123456]

Get a big core Celeron/Pentium/APU. And avoid the small core lines like the plague.

Yep. But I would also avoid the "dual core" i.e. single module APUs.

A8-7600 is a very nice APU, or any big core pentium or i3 would be a good choice. Energy use is really not that much different, considering the absolutely huge performance increase. IIRC, 5350 is 25 watts, while pentium G4400 is 54 watts and the A8-7600 is 65 watts. Real world power use probably would be quite close, as neither of the big core cpus would have to work as close to full TDP as the 5350. Both the pentium and A8 have single thread passmark scores in the area of 3x that of the 5350, although the MT scores are closer due to the pentium being dual core and the A8 not a "true" quad core.

 

[Justinbaileyman]

I would pass on the 5350 and grab the 5370. I have the 5370 and it overclocked to 2.86Ghz with an $8 Arctic Alpine M1 cooler using the Asus Am1m-a motherboard.Best thing is you dont have to disable AHCI for IDE mode. I have this setup paired with a GTX 960 4gb and it plays games just fine and seems to load windows faster then my FX8300 did.Also plays all the video I can throw at it including 4K movies.

 

[jpiniero]

Get a big core Celeron/Pentium/APU. And avoid the small core lines like the plague.

The T parts are hard to come by other than the 6100T though. OP would have to go OEM if he wanted something other than that, which honestly isn't a bad idea.

 

[Zstream]

I have a shit ton of these and they work well, paired with a ssd. Just don't plan on using the gpu for anything other than videos, dvd, web.

 

[daxzy]

Having used both AM1 and Baytrail PCs, I can tell you the Athlon 5350 will feel noticeably better. It's sitll slow, comparable to any machine you can find at Best Buy with the A6 or A8 Carrizo-L CPUs in them, but better than Atom.

I'd strongly advise running Linux rather than Windows on these; at the low end, the higher efficiency really shows, and all the more so if you can run a light desktop like LXDE or even a plain window manager like Fluxbox.

Agreed with the first paragraph. Disagree with the second. Windows 10 on low end hardware feels similar to a stock Linux distro box for the average user. Of course if you are very familiar with Linux, you can tweak it to be more memory friendly and run with lower resources (hence why people assume it's less resource intensive), but if you are not memory constrained, the difference should be negligible, even on these small-core (Atom/Kabini).

 

[Azuma Hazuki]

@daxzy

Yeah, Gnome or KDE-Plasma distros are heavy. Hence why i said something like LXDE (Lubuntu?) or even a custom Fluxbox setup. Granted, a lot of the weight is still going to be the same because the web is heavy, but i notice tremendous feeling differences between Xfce or LXDE and something like Cinnamon.

 

[severus]

What I'd like to do with this machine is:

1. Use network services like New Japan World or WWE Network for video streaming on my television
2. Have emulators for older video game systems
3. Watch movies, I might use a Blu-Ray instead of a DVD drive
4. Have a large selection of music on it

Maybe I'd be better off getting something like a Q9550 and a 775 itx board, throw in a slim graphics card?

 

[coercitiv]

Maybe I'd be better off getting something like a Q9550 and a 775 itx board, throw in a slim graphics card?

No, best options for what you're describing are, either go for a Skylake Pentium or the highest clocked Kabini quad. As a former Kabini user I can tell you the quad core it is a good product, did a wonderful job in a HTPC box until I needed more horsepower for a Plex server. I did not regret making the purchase, however at this point in time I would choose the Skylake Pentium over it - primarily for the updated feature set.

Now that I recommended what to do, let me tell what not to do: don't even contemplate getting dual core Kabini even if the store gives it away for free (they actually did in my favorite shop), the combination of low frequency and halved core count is the equivalent of a lobotomy for CPUs. Kabini's strength (if I may call so) came from it's quad core configuration combined with decent clocks, preferably above 2Ghz. As others have mentioned, it can overclock a bit and most importantly it can also undervolt nicely. (default voltage settings are a joke actually)

You can still shop around for a second hand system at great price, just don't go as far as C2D, by now there should be really good deals for Ivy Bridge or Trinity/Richland and later products.

 

[Hi-Fi Man]

What I'd like to do with this machine is:

1. Use network services like New Japan World or WWE Network for video streaming on my television
2. Have emulators for older video game systems
3. Watch movies, I might use a Blu-Ray instead of a DVD drive
4. Have a large selection of music on it

Maybe I'd be better off getting something like a Q9550 and a 775 itx board, throw in a slim graphics card?

For emulation you're going to need the high single thread performance a Celeron or Pentium offers. In addition if you plan on using MadVR get a decent video card.

 

[Insert_Nickname]

Have emulators for older video game systems

As others have said a Skylake Celeron/Pentium is what you want here. I'd say the G4500 would be a decent choice, as it combines reasonable clocks (3.5GHz) with the HD530. The lower-end G44xx's only have the cut-down HD510 with half the EUs.

 

[jfelano]

I guess the best part is I calculated that my electricity savings will pay for the entire build in about 10 months, nothing like a FREE office computer.

 

[JWade]

I have an Athlon 5350 running stock speeds as an htpc, 240gb ssd, 16gb ram. onboard video. works great and no bog down. movies, streaming all smooth on it. kids play sims on it, flash games, etc all play with no problem or lag. yeah, its not as fast as my i7 system, but in everyday use, I cant tell a difference for what its used for