Braswell reviews

[myocardia]

Has Braswell reached NUCs yet? I'd be interested in picking up an N3700 or equivalent for my father, to replace his aging 1.8ghz Core2Duo system.

This refurb is ~10x as fast, and will cost you half as much. It's 4" tall, and 15" deep, though. http://www.ebay.com/itm/Acer-Intel-...765?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item3cf835b7b5

 

[Vesku]

I suppose Braswell mini-itx might come down a bit as more SKUs show up but for right now things like Asus 2955U powered Chromebox are a lot more compelling.

 

[Yuriman]

This refurb is ~10x as fast, and will cost you half as much. It's 4" tall, and 15" deep, though. http://www.ebay.com/itm/Acer-Intel-...765?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item3cf835b7b5

Yes, but he's pretty happy with the performance of his C2D and I'm hoping to save him some desk space - he lives in a travel trailer and space is at a premium. Plus, current Atom NUCs are not $250, but closer to $125.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16856102062

He already has a SSD to drop into it.

 

[ShintaiDK]

No need to punish anyone with one for desktop usage.

For simple HTPC and/or NAS its another matter tho.

 

[Yuriman]

How much of a performance loss will he have, going from a 1.8 C2D E4xxx to a 2.4ghz+ Bay Trail or Braswell quad? I was under the impression that Bay Trail had nearly the per-clock performance of early Core2's.

Something like this seems almost ideal for his uses:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16883218038
or
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16856102062
or
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16856110129R


EDIT: I wasn't aware there were Broadwell Celerons out there yet, but I just found this:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16856167091

I suppose Atom is a tough sell when you can get a nearly complete Broadwell system for $150.

 

[frozentundra123456]

My recollection was that BT was about had about half the IPC of early Core 2. So a quad BT at 2.4 could reach or be faster in multithreaded but still trail in single threaded.

 

[frozentundra123456]

How much of a performance loss will he have, going from a 1.8 C2D E4xxx to a 2.4ghz+ Bay Trail or Braswell quad? I was under the impression that Bay Trail had nearly the per-clock performance of early Core2's.

Something like this seems almost ideal for his uses:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16883218038
or
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16856102062
or
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16856110129R


EDIT: I wasn't aware there were Broadwell Celerons out there yet, but I just found this:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16856167091

I suppose Atom is a tough sell when you can get a nearly complete Broadwell system for $150.

If they are your thing (they arent mine), that celeron NUC you linked looks like a great deal. I would take that over an Atom or Cat core any day.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Don't do that! Brasswell Sadly is a brutal step back of Bay Trail. You are dooming your father to a Pentium D levels.
In the best case just go and buy a Pentium G3220 with a cheap MB

I'd like to compare between Bay Trail and Braswell in person. BT doesn't have horrible CPU performance, if clocked high enough. But the iGPU is definitely lacking. They improved the iGPU in Braswell, but now they don't clock as high. I mean, really, what was Intel thinking.

 

[ninaholic37]

They improved the iGPU in Braswell, but now they don't clock as high. I mean, really, what was Intel thinking.

Match AMD (better GPU, lower CPU)? Heh. Can Braswell handle 4K resolution?

 

[myocardia]

My recollection was that BT was about had about half the IPC of early Core 2. So a quad BT at 2.4 could reach or be faster in multithreaded but still trail in single threaded.

Yeah, that's a good rough guesstimate.

EDIT: I wasn't aware there were Broadwell Celerons out there yet, but I just found this:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16856167091

I suppose Atom is a tough sell when you can get a nearly complete Broadwell system for $150.

This big-core Broadwell is at least 2-2.5X as fast as a 2-2.4* Ghz Baytrail quad in single & dual-threaded software, and roughly as fast or slightly faster in quad-threaded.

*edit: Actually, it would be more like a 2.4-2.5 Ghz Core 2 Duo, an E6600 or E7200.

 

[ShintaiDK]

Can Braswell handle 4K resolution?

Yes.

 

[dark zero]

Yes.

Only some contents. Not all of them... Also, there's few 4K content right now... Even Full HD is not fully implemented.

Waiting for the next iteration. It should correct Cpu problems.

 

[myocardia]

Waiting for the next iteration. It should correct Cpu problems.

Skylake is supposed to be fully hardware decode accelerated, but they aren't also 'giving' us hardware accelerated encode until the Kabylake generation/Cannonlake iGPU. We do have a bit of native 4k content atm, in case you weren't aware. Both Amazon and NetFlix have 4k content, although I'm sure you have to pay extra to get it. BTW, if you happen to know how much of either's content is available in 4k, would you mind sharing with us? (Or any other poster, actually.)

 

[gorion]

Another good review on braswell.

http://www.hardware.fr/articles/936-6/consommation.html

 

[sm625]

http://www.techspot.com/review/1014-intel-celeron-n3050-pentium-n3700/

What a horrible review. Every single game they tested was unplayable. What is the point in testing a bunch of unplayable games? Why no DOTA2 / LoL or Minecraft or Sims 4 benchmarks? You know, games the thing might actually be able to play?

 

[dark zero]

I see more and Braswell is ending into a big dissaster... It made even Mullins seems competent!

 

[waltchan]

I see more and Braswell is ending into a big dissaster... It made even Mullins seems competent!

We're heading into the third consecutive year of CPU decline performance yearly since Celeron Sandy Bridge/Ivy Bridge. It fast peaked with Celeron G470 (desktop) and 1037u (notebook) in 2013 for the budget market, and we have not looked back since.

 

[frozentundra123456]

I see more and Braswell is ending into a big dissaster... It made even Mullins seems competent!

Atom is has better performance per watt though. What I dont like is the shift from cpu to gpu, and I dont understand the purpose. If you look at the combined cpu+gpu performance per watt, Braswell is actually more efficient than Bay Trail. Problem is that the cpu is less efficient and the gpu is much more efficient. I would have liked to see the improvement in performance split between cpu and gpu instead of actually decreasing cpu frequencies and shifting to gpu. Or maybe atom architecture on 14nm has some problem clocking as as high as 22nm. But I dont know what you need all that gpu power for. You will just end up being cpu limited. Perhaps they will up the clocks as time goes on and the process matures.

But the real problem is that Intel, and also AMD are pushing these basically tablet chips into larger laptops and desktops where a ULV big core for laptops or any big core for desktops are a much better fit.