HTPC CPU, Dual Core Llano vs Dual Core Trinity

[Fox5]

Hey all,

I'm thinking about building an HTPC, but I don't want to spend more than I have to. The low end llano and trinity chips seem like they'd be ideal, since then I get a gpu fast enough to handle 1080p media center, and still handle multiple high def recordings and a single high def playback.

That said, I can't find any benchmarks of dual core trinitys. I know dual core llano will perform like an athlon x2, but is there a chance that trinity performs more like a single core, due to the shared fpu?

 

[DaveSimmons]

The single-threaded benchmarks here might help:
http://www.anandtech.com/show/6347/amd-a10-5800k-a8-5600k-review-trinity-on-the-desktop-part-2/2

If you aren't doing any gaming then a dual-core Celeron is worth considering too, since they use 40+ watts less under load.

 

[hans007]

i'd get the trinity just to get a modern fm2 motherboard . i guess it depends on if this htpc is going to be a "build it and never upgrade it ever" computer or something you might upgrade

 

[wirednuts]

i would just make sure the system will do c5/c6 sleep states and go from there.

 

[Fox5]

The single-threaded benchmarks here might help:
http://www.anandtech.com/show/6347/amd-a10-5800k-a8-5600k-review-trinity-on-the-desktop-part-2/2

If you aren't doing any gaming then a dual-core Celeron is worth considering too, since they use 40+ watts less under load.

AMD's APUs are cheaper for a halfway decent IGP (supposed to drop to ~$30). I've used Media Center on low end IGPs before @ 1080p, it's not terribly pretty.

Also, this still doesn't help because llano has two real cores, trinity has one module with amd's super hyper threading. The dual core trinity might not scale well, but there's no benchmarks to know one way or another.

i would just make sure the system will do c5/c6 sleep states and go from there.

What cpus/motherboards support these? And the system would likely never go into complete sleep, since it'd be used for media center extenders to tune in and watch tv.

 

[infoiltrator]

From my reading the A8-5600/A10-5800 Trinity outperform the high end Llano conterparts.
I have seen no reports concerning the lower end chips, supposedly speed increases and changes in internal GPU processing favor the Trinity architechture.
OTOH Llano has been used sucessfully for HTPC.

What do you expect to do, and what level of iGPU performance is needed?
I've used Intel G620 for streaming, and people have used Celerons.

Are you interested in the best CPU or iGPU performance?
Realistically in any highly used HTPC lower power usage is a better long term investment over hardware costs.
An I3 3220 HD 2500 or I3 3225 HD4000 perform on the CPU level of an A-5800 and the iGPU (the 3225 anyway) of the A8 3870K.

A4-3300 Llano $49.99 some complaints regarding sound (15)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...ab=true&Page=2

A4-3400 $54.99 no performance complaints basic HTPC (40)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...ab=true&Page=2

A4-3500 $69.99 (99 reports, wins popularity contest)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...ssors-Desktops

A4-5300 $64.99 (6) Best Chip by customer reports/price/your request, no contest
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...ssors-Desktops

A6-5400K $74.99 (5 reports) Best choice dual core I think
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...ssors-Desktops

A4-3500 wins the popularity contest for Llano dual core
A4-5300 Trinity costs $5 less
A6-5400K Trinity is $5.00 more

1866 RAM preferred
Some complaints about heatsink

 

[wirednuts]

im not even sure what uses c5 and better sleep states, i thought the a6's did

i do know the amd e350 is finally well supported, and if youre looking for a low power box for an affordable price they shouldnt be overlooked. its a dramatic difference over atom setups... its like the e350 was designed to run media center, it works that well (it feels just the same as my i3 htpc, no joke).

 

[Fox5]

im not even sure what uses c5 and better sleep states, i thought the a6's did

i do know the amd e350 is finally well supported, and if youre looking for a low power box for an affordable price they shouldnt be overlooked. its a dramatic difference over atom setups... its like the e350 was designed to run media center, it works that well (it feels just the same as my i3 htpc, no joke).

I want a media center to replace all the dvrs in the house. IE. I want to stuff like 6-8 hd tuners into a single media center, and I'm not sure what kind of performance is necessary.
I've heard stories that an atom can do the streaming for multiple tuners, but suffers on trying to do playback at the same time. That makes it sound like a dual core AMD or Intel chip (not atom or e-350) should have no problem handling the load.
I've also tried media center at 1080p on the old phenom 2 IGP, and performance was sluggish, so I want a better IGP than that. I'm not sure the low end celerons and such would offer a significantly better IGP.

And since there are no benchmarks of a single module/dual core trinity, I'm worried the shared fpu will bottleneck it into performing like a single core.

Also, there was a recent report that AMD is slashing prices on its low end fusion chips to the $30 range, so llano and trinity will be quite cheap soon.

I can sort of get an idea of trinity's dual core performance from this
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/a10-5800k-a8-5600k-a6-5400k,3224-11.html
Compared to Tom's hardware's cpu charts:
In 3dsmax, A6-5400k is slightly slower than Athlon X2 240e (2.8ghz).
In Sandra 2012 Drhystone - on par with Phenom II X2 565 (3.4ghz), in Whetstone, a little faster than the 240e
And for the most part, in multi threaded tests, the 5400k stays around the speed of the 2.8ghz athlon x2, + or - a few percent, although sometimes it loses by a lot. In single threaded, it pulls way ahead most of the time (beats all phenom II chips). That said, that means it should compare pretty favorably to almost all the llano chips, since they operate <=3ghz.

 

[tcsenter]

There is an HTPC forum category. Just get a low-end graphics card that will be superior to any integrated graphics and be done with the difficulty in comparing APUs to CPUs.