My Llano summary in two graphs and four sentences.

[Gigantopithecus]

1. Any modern multicore CPU (sans the Atoms) is enough for web browsing, email, and office productivity.

2. Light gaming like WoW, L4D, Dead Space 2, etc. no longer requires a discrete GPU.

3. You can either spend $125 (i3-2100) + $60 (H61 mATX board) or $145 (A8-3850) + $100 (cheapest FM1 board right now) - both systems can do everything the typical computer user needs to do with similar power consumption, the latter system can game for an extra $60 (and I expect this cost difference to diminish after the initial rush is over).

4. OEMs (i.e. non-dGPU systems) are going to sell a lot of Llano systems, and so am I.

 

[podspi]

AMD really has done a fantastic job on power consumption with these new CPUs. I'm excited to see what Bulldozer looks like (power usage-wise) since AMD has said BD's power optimizations are more aggressive than Llano's.

 

[BD231]

Haha, poor nvidia.

 

[Zap]

3. You can either spend $125 (i3-2100) + $60 (H61 mATX board) or $145 (A8-3850) + $100 (cheapest FM1 board right now) - both systems can do everything the typical computer user needs to do with similar power consumption, the latter system can game for an extra $60

The extra $60 will also buy a low end discrete card.

What I'm looking forward to are possible Micro Center deals. They have traditionally been really good with AMD CPU/mobo combos. If they have the A8-3800 (not 3850) with a free motherboard, gonna get me one.

What I'm looking forward to even more is a cheap Llano notebook.

Thanks Toms Hardware (wow, never thought I'd write that). for testing WoW at a common resolution. That's one of my complaints with AnandTech's articles, that the minimum 1024x768 resolution tested is not realistic for anyone who is no longer using a CRT. That, and not testing WoW because I see low end rigs as potentially being popular with that crowd.

 

[Dribble]

Wow is a bad example for llano:
http://www.overclock.net/11763223-post51.html

 

[Gigantopithecus]

The extra $60 will also buy a low end discrete card.

This is true. However:
1. If you look at Newegg, $60 buys weak dGPUs that aren't much better than the iGPU in the AMD APU.
2. If you do add a dGPU to the system, your idle and light load power consumption starts to exceed the AMD APU's power consumption.
3. As I said, the extra $60 as it is right now is likely the worst the price differential will be unless Intel makes substantial price cuts to the i3s. When $60 FM1 mATX boards hit retail channels, the difference becomes $20, and you can't buy a dGPU for that.

What I'm looking forward to even more is a cheap Llano notebook.

I agree. Llano has a place in the desktop market and is a good product, but mobile Llano is a great product.

Thanks Toms Hardware (wow, never thought I'd write that). for testing WoW at a common resolution. That's one of my complaints with AnandTech's articles, that the minimum 1024x768 resolution tested is not realistic for anyone who is no longer using a CRT. That, and not testing WoW because I see low end rigs as potentially being popular with that crowd.

WoW players account for more than every other game combined for my customers and friends/acquaintances. It is unfortunate we don't use it here. I also agree that 1024x768 is an essentially irrelevant resolution. I do not know anyone still using a CRT who also bought their desktop in the last five years. In other words, many people still use CRTs, but these are not people interested in Llano.

 

[Gigantopithecus]

Wow is a bad example for llano:
http://www.overclock.net/11763223-post51.html

I disagree. The author of that post is clearly not interested in 'acceptable' framerates. I have five personal friends who play WoW. The most powerful PC among them is rocking an E2200 with a 9600GT. Not one of them is interested in spending hundreds of dollars to play at a resolution higher than 1333x768 at more than 40ish FPS.

Have you looked at the Steam Hardware Survey lately?

 

[Edrick]

I agree. Llano has a place in the desktop market and is a good product, but mobile Llano is a great product.

I think this has a smaller place in the desktop market than the Intel i3's. But this is a great mobile product for AMD. And the world is moving more towards mobile, so, this should go well for them.

 

[Topweasel]

I think this has a smaller place in the desktop market than the Intel i3's. But this is a great mobile product for AMD. And the world is moving more towards mobile, so, this should go well for them.

Chances are for what people think that the Llano is trying to fill in the desktops, the FX-4k series will fill with ease and probably be a much better option then either Llano or the I3.

But there is a big market in ITX, AIO, HTPC machines, and compact home servers that the desktop Llano will fill well. I think its flexibility in that sense gives it legs to eventually have OEMs developing multi-market platforms for it, as apposed to singular models or series.

 

[Gigantopithecus]

But there is a big market in ITX, AIO, HTPC machines, and compact home servers that the desktop Llano will fill well. I think its flexibility in that sense gives it legs to eventually have OEMs developing multi-market platforms for it, as apposed to singular models or series.

Well said. I personally will be replacing my i3-2100 dGPU-less system with an A8-38x0 as soon as good mini-ITX FM1 boards are available.

 

[Kevmanw430]

I think AMD is on the right track, and light gamers now have a cheap, low power alternative to Intel. I also think that if there is a less than 13 inch mobile Llano system with an A8 in it, I'll pick one up for the long plane rides I have so often. 🙂

 

[richierich1212]

mini-itx, here I come

 

[Arkadrel]

Option's:

1)
Intel I3 - 2100 ~ 124$ (dual core) (not good overclocking)
Geforce 430 ~ 59$

2)
AMD A8-3850 ~ 135$ (quad core) (good overclocking)
(igp matching the geforce 430 (in gameing))


That is the truth of it, the cpu performance is about equal (i3-2100 faster with 2 thread apps, A8-3850 faster with 4 thread apps), and the gpu performance of both would be about equal. Yet the AMD A8-3850 will use much less power for that performance (the motherboards would come with more features ect).



CoD MW2 ~ 1280x1024 High settings, 4x AA :

 

[drizek]

Absolutely, but you could use another graph of the CPU performance in multithreaded scenarios. I think for most users, either they are doing nothing at all (email, facebook) or they are maxing out their CPUs (media editing/encoding/rendering). Llano is as good as SB in the first group and superior in the second group. Nobody is going to run single threaded cinebench on their computers, it's a useless benchmark for the vast majority of people. Either they have no interest in media at all, or they are going to be running highly threaded apps. And increasingly there will be the third group of apps that are GPU accelerated, where AMD just pummels Intel both in terms of raw performance and in terms of features (stream, opencl, dx11).

Once cheap Llano boards come out (and they will, I bet we will see $50 boards and <$150 bundles soon enough), it's going to be a pretty big win for AMD.

Then enable TurboCore and you can start to compensate for the relatively weak single threaded performance.

But above all, I never thought I'd live to see the day when AMD beats Intel at idle power consumption. Up until now, my line for AMD laptops was "only if it is really cheap, and only if you are going to keep it plugged in all the time". In the future, I think Llano based systems will be my default recommendation.

 

[Bman123]

Option's:

1)
Intel I3 - 2100 ~ 124$ (dual core) (not good overclocking)
Geforce 430 ~ 59$

2)
AMD A8-3850 ~ 135$ (quad core) (good overclocking)
(igp matching the geforce 430 (in gameing))


That is the truth of it, the cpu performance is about equal (i3-2100 faster with 2 thread apps, A8-3850 faster with 4 thread apps), and the gpu performance of both would be about equal. Yet the AMD A8-3850 will use much less power for that performance (the motherboards would come with more features ect).



CoD MW2 ~ 1280x1024 High settings, 4x AA :

Thank-you for that post, goes to show me that I can play cod4 without a video card. As soon as microcenter has cpu mobo combos for just the price of the cpu I will be buying one for sure. I've been waiting for llano and that post was the icing on the cake. For people on really tight budgets that want to be able to play some older games and run low res llano is a big win.

I can't wait to replace this Pentium d pc come on microcenter with the combo deals.

 

[nonameo]

Ew, 100$ for a llano motherboard? Come on, there are fewer things on it now that the motherboard makers don't really need to include a northbridge. These things should be a lot cheaper.

 

[Bman123]

The $100 makes me wanna puke, but its a steal when you can get a free mini from microcenter. Is that mw2 chart with the cpu and gpu stock? I play at 1280x720 so ill be good to go, if that's stock clocks overclocked will be much better

 

[jaydee]

I was waiting for this, but got impatient during all the delays, back last fall. I ended up with the system below, for probably cheaper than what Llano will debut at (mini-ITX mobo price unknown).

In other words, this offering really doesn't give you any different price/performance options than a year ago; it does give you better power consumption, fewer parts (no discrete video card) and full USB 3, SATA 6Gbps support.

While this is nice, given the breakneck speed of technology, I would have liked to have seen this come in at a lower price point to really differentiate itself from the Athlon/Phenom II + low-mid range GPU setups you could previously put together (considering there was no way it could outperform Athlon/Phenom II).

OEM's will like this, and if you're starting from scratch (on a budget) this will be a marginally better place to start, I just wish we could really see some noticeable improvements in the price/performance ratio.

 

[TakeNoPrisoners]

Wow is a bad example for llano:
http://www.overclock.net/11763223-post51.html

I agree. I get the feeling I am CPU limited even with a PII X4 at 3.8Ghz when I go to org and my fps drops from a steady 120-70 fps to 40fps. It doesn't help that WoW doesn't like to use more than two cores.

 

[Bman123]

I think its great because you can throw in a cheap 6 series card and x fire it and get really good performance for so cheap. Anybody who is at 720p and plays older games will love llano, I'm one of them...

 

[Puppies04]

I agree. I get the feeling I am CPU limited even with a PII X4 at 3.8Ghz when I go to org and my fps drops from a steady 120-70 fps to 40fps. It doesn't help that WoW doesn't like to use more than two cores.

Wow will use as many cores as you have if you set it up correctly I can't find a decent guide atm but for anyone that is interested the info is out there. I quit wow a while back but after seeing a guide in a pc mag i had bought i confirmed you can change a command line in the setup folder to manually adjust exactly how many threads you want wow to run on and also make it run in DX11 with another command. I checked and confirmed this after Cata dropped btw

 

[VirtualLarry]

But there is a big market in ITX, AIO, HTPC machines, and compact home servers that the desktop Llano will fill well.

That's the way I feel too. Which makes it all the more strange that ASRock's A75M-ITX board that SoftPedia previewed, is MIA on ASrock's web site.


The mobo:
http://news.softpedia.com/news/ASRock-s-A75M-ITX-AMD-Llano-Motherboard-Gets-Pictured-202870.shtml

ASrock's lineup:
http://www.asrock.com/microsite/A75/index.html

WHERE IS THE MINI-ITX, ASROCK!? WAKE UP!

 

[Arkaign]

Yeah people with small monitors/low res should be mostly good to go with Llano. People with a larger monitor (20" and above) would be better off getting i3 or PhII/etc, and throwing a ~$100ish GTX460 or whatever on there. 1680x1050 is probably where Llano starts to suffer with games like BC2, 1920x1080 and above, well, people shouldn't expect miracles lol.

Where I think Llano will really shine is in tiny-case HTPC duties.

 

[Idontcare]

Yeah people with small monitors/low res should be mostly good to go with Llano. People with a larger monitor (20" and above) would be better off getting i3 or PhII/etc, and throwing a ~$100ish GTX460 or whatever on there. 1680x1050 is probably where Llano starts to suffer with games like BC2, 1920x1080 and above, well, people shouldn't expect miracles lol.

Where I think Llano will really shine is in tiny-case HTPC duties.

Not surprising considering the target market for Llano was really the notebook/laptop markets where getting anything larger than 16x10 is rare just from a form-factor standpoint.

Once bulldozer launches I will be surprised if AMD positions desktop Llano anywhere in the low-end gaming market (not HTPC) versus pushing low-end Zambezi's and low-end discreet Radeon GPU's instead.

On desktops Llano has a narrow window of opportunity (~6months?) before 28nm low-end discreet cards come to market which will be cheaper to manufacture and have even better performance/watt metrics.

 

[Arkaign]

Not surprising considering the target market for Llano was really the notebook/laptop markets where getting anything larger than 16x10 is rare just from a form-factor standpoint.

Once bulldozer launches I will be surprised if AMD positions desktop Llano anywhere in the low-end gaming market (not HTPC) versus pushing low-end Zambezi's and low-end discreet Radeon GPU's instead.

On desktops Llano has a narrow window of opportunity (~6months?) before 28nm low-end discreet cards come to market which will be cheaper to manufacture and have even better performance/watt metrics.

Yeah, and to add to that somewhat : the bandwidth and memory usage will always be better managed with a discrete card. If the ATI ~7650 or GT640 comes out and is available for $79-$89ish with GTX460 performance, that combined with new games coming out such as BF3/Skyrim will spell obsolescence for Llano outside of HTPC duty.