More Llano leaks (A8 APU extensively benchmarked)

[LOL_Wut_Axel]

The top end llano was competing with a stock Q6600 in the anand review!

That's a 4 1/2 year old processor!

No, it wasn't. SysMark isn't a reliable performance benchmark. Llano is a tiny bit faster than Propus in terms of IPC, and Propus already has a bit higher IPC than Kentsfield.

 

[Dribble]

No, it wasn't. SysMark isn't a reliable performance benchmark. Llano is a tiny bit faster than Propus in terms of IPC, and Propus already has a bit higher IPC than Kentsfield.

Sorry there isn't really a way to spin this. When you get down to it llano's primary job is to be a cpu. The bottom line is at that job it just isn't competitive.

 

[Borealis7]

that comparison is so flawed. no one in their right mind would take a Llano to do the same job as the Q6600 when it first came out as a high end CPU. you wont find a Q6600 in any budget PC today or 4.5 years ago for that matter.

while you're on the subject, how good is the Q6600's GPU then?

 

[pantsaregood]

Just a question that's been on my mind...

Sandy Bridge, Nehalem, and K10 CPUs are all known to see extremely minimal performance gains from increased memory bandwidth. The CPUs just aren't bandwidth-hungry enough to make use of it at the moment.

Most Llano benchmarks use DDR3 1866, which is considerably higher bandwidth than the current standard of DDR3 1333. Modern IGPs share the CPU's memory controller, so bandwidth must be an issue.

Would Llano's GPU further benefit from DDR3 2133, or even faster?

What about Intel's HD 2000/3000? I've seen people overclocking those IGPs to absurd levels, but they don't see any real performance gain due to being severely bottlenecked by bandwidth. Would high bandwidth RAM allow meaningful overclocks?

 

[Terzo]

I'm kinda surprised they didn't go over media playback (or did they?). Is that going to be covered in the desktop variant review? I figure media playback would be a strong point for llano.

 

[Arkadrel]

I'm kinda surprised they didn't go over media playback (or did they?). Is that going to be covered in the desktop variant review? I figure media playback would be a strong point for llano.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/a8-3500m-llano-apu,2959-21.html

HD Video Quality Benchmark: HQV 2.0

Let’s concentrate in the differences between Sandy Bridge’s HD Graphics 3000 and Llano’s Radeon HD 6620G using the HQV 2.0 benchmark for comparison:

HQV Benchmark version 2.0 Results (out of 210 possible)

AMD A8-3500M = 191 score
Radeon HD 5670 = 191 score
Intel HD Graphics 3000 = 159 score


So, how does Llano do? With 191 out of 210 possible points, it performs like a Radeon HD 5570, which is to say, quite well indeed.



The Intel HD Graphics 3000 scores 159 out of 210, which is significantly lower. We’re impressed with Intel HD Graphics 3000’s ability to handle noise and compression artifacts, and to optimize poor skin tones. On the other hand it disappointed us with poor 2:2 Film Resolution cadence support, substandard contrast enhancement, and terrible chroma up-sampling and scaling performance.


On top of this, Intel HD Graphics continues to suffer from Intel’s inability to support 23.976 FPS video playback, doubling a frame every 40 seconds. All things considered, AMD wins in this discipline.

Llano should make quite good HTPCs too, if thats your desire.

To be frank, most folks aren’t going to be able to distinguish between a Sandy Bridge-based Core processor or a Llano-based A-series chip when it comes to Web browsing or composing a document in Word.

Then again, if you fire up a game, the A-series APU surges past Intel’s HD Graphics implementation. Play that same title on a mobile system using battery power and you’re treated to another surprise: improved performance is complemented by longer battery life.

^above is probably what most "should" take away from the reviews.

The Llano IGP will give you about 2x performance of the Intel SandyBridge IGP in games, and it ll do so useing much less power, nearly doubling your play time, on your laptop.
It also has better Idle power use than the Intel Sandy bridges.

 

[Terzo]

Llano should make quite good HTPCs too, if thats your desire.

Thanks. I had only read the Anandtech review, didn't come to mind to check another review.

 

[Fox5]

$700-$800 for a llano laptop is WAAAAYYYY too much. While llano does have a power efficiency advantage, laptops with llano's graphics performance (which is the only thing people are going to care about when looking at this thing as a cheap gaming platform) have been available for a couple years. At the screen size we're probably looking at for this (15" or greater) people aren't going to be gaming on the go, there will be a wall outlet nearby anyway.

In 2009, my friend got a laptop with a 2.8ghz core 2 duo and the mobile equivalent of a 9800gtx for under $800.

In December, I got a dual core Athlon II with Radeon 4650 graphics (400 shaders, 500mhz) for $400. Considering that most games are dual core only still, and that I have a faster gpu than llano (discrete memory!), I'm pretty happy with my purchase as my cheap gaming platform. Right now, I see core i3 systems with radeon 4650 level graphics for ~$500. Llano really needs to drop into the $400-$600 price range to be competitive with its performance levels.

 

[Idontcare]

http://www.anandtech.com/show/4444/amd-llano-notebook-review-a-series-fusion-apu-a8-3500m/2

Llano 1.45B transistors @ 228mm2
SB 995M transistors @ 216mm2

It seams GloFo's 32nm Gate first has a tremendous density advantage vs Gate last ??

Unfortunately you can't compare them that way, or I should say you can't attribute the results of such a comparison to the process integration as you are attempting.

Over half of the llano die is composed of a transistor block that need only operate at ~400-500MHz. When your clockspeed requirements are that low, your Idrive requirements are equally lowered.

Glofo's 32nm xtors are electrically 2-dimensional, they have a length and a width (as do Intel's). "gate density" is determined by the gate length, but you must make the xtors as wide as needed for Idrive purposes (hitting your clockspeeds).

This is the same basic device physics that are at play when you see sram cell sizes changing between full-speed L2$ cache versus 1/2 speed (or slower) L3$. The slower L3$ is more dense, it can be more dense because the clockspeed is intentionally reduced meaning the xtor widths can be reduced as well, leaving more room to pack in more xtors in the same area.

SB benefits from this as well as their GPU is likewise lower in clocks, xtors can be intentionally slower (i.e. smaller) in the GPU logic versus the CPU logic, but the relative area is smaller than that in llano.

To get a feel for the normalized xtor density benefits of gate-first versus gate-last between these two processes we need to compare IC circuits that are nearly identical (including the clockspeeds and the operating voltages).

 

[boran]

That's one sexy laptop/HTPC chip. [...]

Yeah, but I hope the mobile offerings get available to consumers, the desktop varieties start at 65W which is waaay too much for a HTPC.

 

[Genx87]

Looks good for an integrated GPUs solution. Like I suspected bandwidth will be an issue for this platform. Discrete low end offerings are quite a bit faster in gaming according to anands review. Though, wish he could had showed the difference between a discrete GPU and the integrated using Llano as the CPU just to show how bandwidth starved the GPU.

 

[Vette73]

Yea for a IGP system looks great and battery life is also good. Should get better with age and better drivers.

 

[996GT2]

From Anandtech:

Even in heavily-threaded benchmarks where quad-core CPUs can shine, dual-core i5 processors are still typically 30% faster than the A8-3500M.

Really? That's just sad.

And for the people saying that Llano will be substantially cheaper than Sandy Bridge, that's not true. You can buy Sandy Bridge i3-2310M notebooks for $450 right now, and you can currently buy a 15.6" HP dv6t with an i5-2410M and HD 6770M discrete graphics for $830 without any coupons or special deals. With coupons, you could probably get that into the $700 range without much trouble. Maybe Llano would could undercut that price by a bit, but let's be real, even the highest-end 400 shader Llano IGP is nowhere near an HD 6770M either. And Llano's CPU performance is completely obsolete against a SB Core i5.

 

[formulav8]

I can't really complain, Llano looks good for its target market as we really already new.

Anand only used 1333mhz ram. I would really like to see what the gains are when changing to higher bandwidth 1600mhz and 1866 mhz ram. You just might be able to get it quite close to the discreet version of the igp.

 

[drizek]

Yeah, but I hope the mobile offerings get available to consumers, the desktop varieties start at 65W which is waaay too much for a HTPC.

No they don't. With TurboCore and all these other aggressive power management techniques, TDP means just the maximum power use. I expect quad core Llano will idle at the same power draw whether it is a 35W mobile part or a 100W desktop part. TDP just limits the maximum clocks, it doesn't mean anything about base power consumption. I bet the 125W Bulldozer will use less power at idle than a 45W 4850e.

 

[cotak13]

From Anandtech:

Even in heavily-threaded benchmarks where quad-core CPUs can shine, dual-core i5 processors are still typically 30% faster than the A8-3500M.

Really? That's just sad.

And for the people saying that Llano will be substantially cheaper than Sandy Bridge, that's not true. You can buy Sandy Bridge i3-2310M notebooks for $450 right now, and you can currently buy a 15.6" HP dv6t with an i5-2410M and HD 6770M discrete graphics for $830 without any coupons or special deals. With coupons, you could probably get that into the $700 range without much trouble. Maybe Llano would could undercut that price by a bit, but let's be real, even the highest-end 400 shader Llano IGP is nowhere near an HD 6770M either. And Llano's CPU performance is completely obsolete against a SB Core i5.

Try putting that combo into an ultra mobile laptop and see if it fits or melts or even has more than 40 minutes of battery life while gaming. A Prius isn't going to win drag races but it's pretty nice feeling to have at the pumps.

Also you can talk about the prices but here's how retailers and OEMs will see it. If the masses (and no we aren't the masses, we are a minority here on this forum) buys Llano at similar prices to Intel's stuff they are more or less sure to make a better margin from Llano than that i5 combo you mentioned. From their point of view it's a win for them. And as a result they are going to push harder to sell more of them. And from AMD's point of view it's it's at the bank that counts.

Too many people are looking at this chip from the point of view of "can I play my games on it the way I play them now on my existing system". That's not the target market. This is about pushing the bar higher for mass consumer expectations. Look at it this way for a normal person their home us is going to be youtube and surfing the web and watching movies etc. It's all going to work just fine on a Llano product. And when they try to play games it'll work. Then they experience intel's iGPU and whoops it falls flat. That is a much more important user experience than how fast the CPU is or how fast the GPU is compared to high end stuff.

 

[ElFenix]

From Anandtech:

Even in heavily-threaded benchmarks where quad-core CPUs can shine, dual-core i5 processors are still typically 30% faster than the A8-3500M.

Really? That's just sad.

did you really expect anything different? it's a stars core. that's what they are, slower than SB. that's not why anyone was excited about this thing.

 

[bridito]

You can buy Sandy Bridge i3-2310M notebooks for $450 right now.

Dell Inspiron 14R Laptop Computer- Intel Core i3-380M is now $399 on their site. Darn good deal if you're looking for a laptop (which I'm not).

 

[Vette73]

Dell Inspiron 14R Laptop Computer- Intel Core i3-380M is now $399 on their site. Darn good deal if you're looking for a laptop (which I'm not).

Thats not SB. Its graphics are even worse than SB.

 

[Topweasel]

did you really expect anything different? it's a stars core. that's what they are, slower than SB. that's not why anyone was excited about this thing.

Exactly. Everyone has known that it is a quad core Stars (with some tweaks). It is not a production powerhouse. What it is designed to be is a multitasking, multimedia power house.

In my office for the people I support, its not about the speed of the cores but the amount. Take a poorly written virus scanner, an old outlook version, add in a deparment specific app or two that intensive and these Core 2 Dous's and i5's choke up. Now I can start ordering i7's (sadly we are going to) at an extra $300. When really these Star cores are plenty fast enough for any specific tasks and adding 2 for free basically would be a boon to its multitasking capabilities.

Then their is the IGP, for anyone that has worked on laptops in the past. The stupid IGP Intel either suck horribly or the interface sucks and limits a lot of what people need, or you have to add a discrete card at an added cost and know that its going to to kill the battery life, not be worth it (because your not adding even a mid range part but a very low-end), and increase heat output).

That's just in a business world. But the same applies even more so to the standard desktop and laptop setups. People are barely buying i5's let alone i7's. For the most part its about how quick the PC feels. I think 4 core's and a faster IGP will be noticed their more then 2 quicker cores with a worse IGP. In Desktops its the end of someone buying a $700 PC taking it home and coming back a month later because it can't play WoW or some other middle of the road game for their kid and finding out that its a pain to upgrade it because the manufacturer didn't put in a 16x slot.

In a world where benchmark and pure numbers don't matter as much as features and capabilities Llano will be a star. In systems where people analyze the numbers on the CPU end to see which one is marginally better for one task or another, BD is AMD's CPU for that. We will see where that one lies later.

 

[podspi]

Dell Inspiron 14R Laptop Computer- Intel Core i3-380M is now $399 on their site. Darn good deal if you're looking for a laptop (which I'm not).

And the HP DM1z starts at $449. Whoa.

I think Fusion is going to be a huge win for AMD. As someone who uses a T5250 as their daily-driver laptop, Llano will be more than fast enough for most people. Honestly, I wouldn't replace my C2D (as long as I can keep on buying replacement batteries I'll stick with it, its great) but the IGP is killing me! It can't even play the original Portal...

 

[Genx87]

Exactly. Everyone has known that it is a quad core Stars (with some tweaks). It is not a production powerhouse. What it is designed to be is a multitasking, multimedia power house.

In my office for the people I support, its not about the speed of the cores but the amount. Take a poorly written virus scanner, an old outlook version, add in a deparment specific app or two that intensive and these Core 2 Dous's and i5's choke up. Now I can start ordering i7's (sadly we are going to) at an extra $300. When really these Star cores are plenty fast enough for any specific tasks and adding 2 for free basically would be a boon to its multitasking capabilities.

Then their is the IGP, for anyone that has worked on laptops in the past. The stupid IGP Intel either suck horribly or the interface sucks and limits a lot of what people need, or you have to add a discrete card at an added cost and know that its going to to kill the battery life, not be worth it (because your not adding even a mid range part but a very low-end), and increase heat output).

That's just in a business world. But the same applies even more so to the standard desktop and laptop setups. People are barely buying i5's let alone i7's. For the most part its about how quick the PC feels. I think 4 core's and a faster IGP will be noticed their more then 2 quicker cores with a worse IGP. In Desktops its the end of someone buying a $700 PC taking it home and coming back a month later because it can't play WoW or some other middle of the road game for their kid and finding out that its a pain to upgrade it because the manufacturer didn't put in a 16x slot.

In a world where benchmark and pure numbers don't matter as much as features and capabilities Llano will be a star. In systems where people analyze the numbers on the CPU end to see which one is marginally better for one task or another, BD is AMD's CPU for that. We will see where that one lies later.

I do the purchasing for my company. We havent bought a laptop or desktop in 2 years that has anything other than Intels integrated garbage. It works just fine in the business world. What are you doing where a business desktop is choking on 2-4 cores? Intels IGP also supports dual monitors just fine. Just recently moved to I3-2100s in the desktops and laptops. The biggest driver of performance is SSD's IMO. Graphics on a business desktop are fine for office work and have been for 15 years. But SSD's are a tangible improvement in performance.

Looking at the CPU performance of Llano if your apps are chocking on i5s and i3s, it will choke completely on Llano.

Typing this on my new Ultra Small Form Optiplex 790, i3-2100, and 128GB SSD

 

[bridito]

Thats not SB. Its graphics are even worse than SB.

I stand corrected.

 

[Topweasel]

I do the purchasing for my company. We havent bought a laptop or desktop in 2 years that has anything other than Intels integrated garbage. It works just fine in the business world. What are you doing where a business desktop is choking on 2-4 cores? Intels IGP also supports dual monitors just fine. Just recently moved to I3-2100s in the desktops and laptops. The biggest driver of performance is SSD's IMO. Graphics on a business desktop are fine for office work and have been for 15 years. But SSD's are a tangible improvement in performance.

Looking at the CPU performance of Llano if your apps are chocking on i5s and i3s, it will choke completely on Llano.

Typing this on my new Ultra Small Form Optiplex 790, i3-2100, and 128GB SSD

ITs not support but usability. I have people demanding the discrete option just for portions where the flexibility of the Intel IGP just doesn't cut it. (This is more of a driver thing).

I guess you don't get the choking part. It has nothing to do with the processing capability of a thread. A Pentium M is more then enough CPU power for most tasks, When tasks that took half an our take a minute, and now the difference is in measuring 20 seconds for one task to 45 seconds to another it doesn't matter. What I run into with our 2 core setups is that some users combined with really crappy programs hit a wall in threads. Most of the time is our horrible antivirus tying up one core while their app brings the other core to its knees. That's when having 4 cores would be nice. I would rather buy a 4 core CPU at $150 then the $500 (or extra $300 on the build) that the i7m's cost.

But I am not and I wouldn't anyways. Not till they have proven to be as a capable and flexible platform for businesses in the future. But I like the way they are going. There are not true CPU killing applications anymore. Single core performance for the last three years has made the killer apps their beyoootch, so why over analyze the few seconds saved. Its why I like the BD setup as well. Cheap small multicore setups, the more the marrier. Obviously it has to cap off at some point and maybe 4 cores is the sweet spot for general users, but it has to be more then 2.

As for SSD's being tangible and being a benefit are to different things. But that's a completely different discussion.

 

[Gigantopithecus]

But I like the way they are going. There are not true CPU killing applications anymore. Single core performance for the last three years has made the killer apps their beyoootch, so why over analyze the few seconds saved. Its why I like the BD setup as well. Cheap small multicore setups, the more the marrier. Obviously it has to cap off at some point and maybe 4 cores is the sweet spot for general users, but it has to be more then 2.

I very much agree with your argument and think you make a lot of compelling points about the big picture of CPU development and its effects on typical/mainstream productivity. I see exactly what you see at my contractor job - lots of E8400s with 4GB DDR2 that lag out and slow down because our overzealous security applications are choking an entire core and eating the capacity of the other core.

However, there are many, many applications that can use the power of a second gen Core system vs a Phenom II system. I am primarily a scientific researcher and I use a lot of compute-intense programs, so I made sure my lab has i5s in it (couldn't afford i7s). However, at home, an i5 system was actually overkill for my needs. I downgraded to an i3 and will probably replace that later this year when Llano matures. I'd much rather have an i3 and an SSD than an i5 and a mechanical hard drive for home use.