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AMD Llano - THE great HTPC chip? - Page 18

post #511 of 880
9/7/11 at 9:07pm
Sorry, meant to quote jeffkro, who stated:

Quote:
Originally Posted by jeffkro View Post

AMD graphics on llano is so far beyond pentium its not funny. Pentium has better cpu performance but that really doesn't effect us here.

(I quoted your response to him instead)
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post #512 of 880
9/8/11 at 2:19am
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16819103955
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post #513 of 880
9/8/11 at 4:07am
Quote:
Originally Posted by pimpbotmcfly View Post

Sorry, meant to quote jeffkro, who stated:



(I quoted your response to him instead)

Gotcha.
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post #514 of 880
9/8/11 at 7:59am
Product Specs and Price List
APU Cores Clock L2 Cache GPU Cores Clock TDP Price
A8-3850 4 2.9GHz 4MB HD 6550D 400 600MHz 100W $135
A8-3800 4 2.4-2.7GHz 4MB HD 6550D 400 600MHz 65W $129
A6-3650 4 2.6GHz 4MB HD 6530D 320 443MHz 100W $115
A6-3600 4 2.1-2.4GHz 4MB HD 6530D 320 443MHz 65W $109
A6-3500 3 2.1-2.4GHz 3MB HD 6530D 320 443MHz 65W $89
A4-3400 2 2.7GHz 1MB HD 6410D 160 600MHz 65W $69
A4-3300 2 2.5GHz 1MB HD 6410D 160 443MHz 65W $64
Ahthlon II X4 631 4 2.6GHz 4MB - - - 100W $79
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post #515 of 880
9/8/11 at 8:09am
Quote:
Originally Posted by elockett View Post
Great! Now all I need is the low cost A55 MBs to go with it.
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post #516 of 880
9/8/11 at 8:14am
Quote:
Originally Posted by renethx View Post
Product Specs and Price List
APU Cores Clock L2 Cache GPU Cores Clock TDP Price
A8-3850 4 2.9GHz 4MB HD 6550D 400 600MHz 100W $135
A8-3800 4 2.4-2.7GHz 4MB HD 6550D 400 600MHz 65W $129
A6-3650 4 2.6GHz 4MB HD 6530D 320 443MHz 100W $115
A6-3600 4 2.1-2.4GHz 4MB HD 6530D 320 443MHz 65W $109
A6-3500 3 2.1-2.4GHz 3MB HD 6530D 320 443MHz 65W $89
A4-3400 2 2.7GHz 1MB HD 6410D 160 600MHz 65W $69
A4-3300 2 2.5GHz 1MB HD 6410D 160 443MHz 65W $64
Ahthlon II X4 631 4 2.6GHz 4MB - - - 100W $79
So what is considered the sweet spot for HTPCs, the 65W A4-3400 (where does the 6410D stand up against the 6530D and 6550D)?
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post #517 of 880
9/8/11 at 8:16am
What are you all using as a CPU cooler for these?
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post #518 of 880
9/8/11 at 8:30am
I haven't tested HD 6410D, but perhaps

- A4-3400 for DXVA 2D/3D
- A5-3500 for DXVA 2D/3D and 2D->3D
- A8-3800 for DXVA 2D/3D, 2D->3D and madVR (high-quality)

Limitations in DXVA mode:

- HD 6410D: You have to disable "Mosquito Noise Reduction", "Deblocking" and "Enable Dynamic Contrast" for 1080i60; No 1080p60.
- HD 6530D: You have to disable "Mosquito Noise Reduction" for 1080i60 and 1080p60.
- HD 6550D: None.

Well, I rarely use these post processors anyway (and Intel does not offer such sophisticated post-processors).
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post #519 of 880
9/8/11 at 8:38am
Quote:
Originally Posted by renethx View Post
I haven't tested HD 6410D, but perhaps

- A4-3400 for DXVA 2D/3D
- A5-3500 for DXVA 2D/3D and 2D->3D
- A8-3800 for DXVA 2D/3D, 2D->3D and madVR (high-quality)

Limitations in DXVA mode:

- HD 6410D: You have to disable "Mosquito Noise Reduction", "Deblocking" and "Enable Dynamic Contrast" for 1080i60; No 1080p60.
- HD 6530D: You have to disable "Mosquito Noise Reduction" for 1080i60 and 1080p60.
- HD 6550D: None.

Well, I rarely use these post processors anyway (and Intel does not offer such sophisticated post-processors).
Interesting, thanks. I haven't used any of AMDs post processors so shouldn't be an issue. Looking to upgrade my Clarkdale mini-ITX HTPC, so thinking of going the AMD route over Sandy
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post #520 of 880
9/8/11 at 6:21pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by renethx View Post

- A8-3800 for DXVA 2D/3D, 2D->3D and madVR (high-quality)

But A8-3800 is still not here yet, so this would have to be A8-3850 undervolted... :-)
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post #521 of 880
9/9/11 at 6:07am
Where are the A4 reviews, its officially on the market now.
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post #522 of 880
9/9/11 at 7:01am
Ok, I'm in on the A4 bandwagon. Starting to make my purchases so far I got a steal on memory.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...-436-_-Product

Patriot G Series ‘Sector 5’ Edition 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model PGV34G1600ELK

No shipping cost and $22.99 after rebate.

http://www.softwaresupplygroup.com/m...m-branded.html

Win7 $68.99 free shipping - fourth copy of windows 7 I've purchased, seems like I should get a stock option or something.
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post #523 of 880
9/9/11 at 7:56am
A8-3800 is finally shipping! YAY! I am so happy!

Edit: Dammit I cannot post links
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post #524 of 880
9/9/11 at 8:53am
Thread Starter 
Hmm, just when AMD has finally released cheaper Llano, the barrier to entry on Intel SNB lowers with the release of Celeron SNB. Wish there were reviews available so I can see CPU+GPU load power consumption on the A4. The only thing attractive about Llano is its GPU performance and I will definitely use it for games (PSX emulation, etc) in case I get it.
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post #525 of 880
9/9/11 at 9:00am
Quote:
Originally Posted by ilovejedd View Post

Hmm, just when AMD has finally released cheaper Llano, the barrier to entry on Intel SNB lowers with the release of Celeron SNB. Wish there were reviews available so I can see CPU+GPU load power consumption on the A4. The only thing attractive about Llano is its GPU performance and I will definitely use it for games (PSX emulation, etc) in case I get it.

I predict that A4-3400 consumes more power than Celeron/Pentium SNB

- at idle: by ~0W
- at DXVA video playback: by ~10W
- at non-DXVA video playback: ~30W
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post #526 of 880
9/9/11 at 9:17am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by renethx View Post

I predict that A4-3400 consumes more power than Celeron/Pentium SNB

- at idle: by ~0W
- at DXVA video playback: by ~10W
- at non-DXVA video playback: ~30W

Ouch. That's not looking good given my case only has an 80W PSU. Sounds like it'll definitely exceed that during gaming. One nice thing about the GF9300+E3300 was it allowed for relatively decent old-school/emulation gaming experience with fairly low power consumption (~50-60W while gaming). While SNB does have equal performance to the GF9300, OpenGL2 drivers leave a lot to be desired.
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post #527 of 880
9/9/11 at 9:55am
Quote:
Originally Posted by ilovejedd View Post

Ouch. That's not looking good given my case only has an 80W PSU. Sounds like it'll definitely exceed that during gaming. One nice thing about the GF9300+E3300 was it allowed for relatively decent old-school/emulation gaming experience with fairly low power consumption (~50-60W while gaming). While SNB does have equal performance to the GF9300, OpenGL2 drivers leave a lot to be desired.

Yeah, I don't think 80W is a big enough cushion for a 65W processor. I think I would stay in the 35W processor range and stick with integrated graphics. Your best choices would be G620T or core i3 2120T I would say. If you want gaming at that low power you really need laptop internals.
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post #528 of 880
9/9/11 at 11:30am
Quote:
Originally Posted by ilovejedd View Post

Hmm, just when AMD has finally released cheaper Llano, the barrier to entry on Intel SNB lowers with the release of Celeron SNB. Wish there were reviews available so I can see CPU+GPU load power consumption on the A4. The only thing attractive about Llano is its GPU performance and I will definitely use it for games (PSX emulation, etc) in case I get it.


Yep, & since Intel is Intel, the 2.4 GHz SNB Celeron is only $57 @ Newegg. And Newegg still doesn't have the AMD A55 based motherboards, but the Intel H61 MBs still start @ $50...

One thing for sure: I should buy a LGA775 CPU to upgrade my elderly Intel P35? MB, before LGA 775 CPUs become scarce & expensive.
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post #529 of 880
9/9/11 at 11:31am
Quote:
Originally Posted by vkristof View Post

Yep, & since Intel is Intel, the 2.4 GHz SNB Celeron is only $57 @ Newegg. And Newegg still doesn't have the AMD A55 based motherboards, but the Intel H61 MBs still start @ $50...

One thing for sure: I should buy a LGA775 CPU to upgrade my elderly Intel P35? MB, before LGA 775 CPUs become scarce & expensive.

I wouldn't. As older LGA775 pcs get decommisioned there will be available used CPUs out there.
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post #530 of 880
9/9/11 at 11:50am
Quote:
Originally Posted by jeffkro View Post

Ok, I'm in on the A4 bandwagon. Starting to make my purchases so far I got a steal on memory.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...-436-_-Product

Patriot G Series Sector 5' Edition 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model PGV34G1600ELK

No shipping cost and $22.99 after rebate.

Boy, I knew marginal DRAM mfgs were getting out of the business, but I didn't realize prices were so low. This might cause me to just buy a new Intel SNB Pentium (or below) CPU/MB/DRAM combo. You're talking about $130 for everything if you get a Celeron...
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post #531 of 880
9/9/11 at 11:51am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by jeffkro View Post

Yeah, I don't think 80W is a big enough cushion for a 65W processor. I think I would stay in the 35W processor range and stick with integrated graphics. Your best choices would be G620T or core i3 2120T I would say. If you want gaming at that low power you really need laptop internals.

Actually, the TDP of the CPU isn't the problem. Despite the 65W TDP, the G620's power consumption uses just 5W or so more than the G620T at load. The issue is that AMD's processors appear to actually use the full TDP with both CPU and GPU loaded.

Quote:
Originally Posted by vkristof View Post

One thing for sure: I should buy a LGA775 CPU to upgrade my elderly Intel P35? MB, before LGA 775 CPUs become scarce & expensive.

That depends. If you're still on, say, Allendale or Conroe (Celeron E1xxx, Pentium E2xxx, Core 2 Duo E4xxx or Core 2 Duo E6xxx), then yes, I would consider an upgrade to, at most, a Pentium E6xxx Wolfdale (although, personally, I'd go with Pentium E5xxx for better overclocking potential). I have a $40 Celeron E3300 running at 3.33 GHz (200 -> 266 BSEL mod) and it works beautifully. Even at stock, it's nothing to sneeze at. Performs much better than my old Pentium E2160 1.8 GHz. Of course, that's assuming you have a decent P35 board worth salvaging (which most should be).

If you're looking at Q6xxx or Q8xxx, I'd hold off on those. The Core i3 (Clarkdale and Sandy Bridge), despite being a dual-core with two fake cores, already performs similar to the older quads in heavily multi-threaded applications while beating them soundly in lightly threaded ones.
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post #532 of 880
9/9/11 at 12:05pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by vkristof View Post

Boy, I knew marginal DRAM mfgs were getting out of the business, but I didn't realize prices were so low. This might cause me to just buy a new Intel SNB Pentium (or below) CPU/MB/DRAM combo. You're talking about $130 for everything if you get a Celeron...

Yep. AMD has its work cut out, imo.
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post #533 of 880
9/9/11 at 12:22pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by ilovejedd View Post

Actually, the TDP of the CPU isn't the problem. Despite the 65W TDP, the G620's power consumption uses just 5W or so more than the G620T at load. The issue is that AMD's processors appear to actually use the full TDP with both CPU and GPU loaded.


That depends. If you're still on, say, Allendale or Conroe (Celeron E1xxx, Pentium E2xxx, Core 2 Duo E4xxx or Core 2 Duo E6xxx), then yes, I would consider an upgrade to, at most, a Pentium E6xxx Wolfdale (although, personally, I'd go with Pentium E5xxx for better overclocking potential). I have a $40 Celeron E3300 running at 3.33 GHz (200 -> 266 BSEL mod) and it works beautifully. Even at stock, it's nothing to sneeze at. Performs much better than my old Pentium E2160 1.8 GHz. Of course, that's assuming you have a decent P35 board worth salvaging (which most should be).

If you're looking at Q6xxx or Q8xxx, I'd hold off on those. The Core i3 (Clarkdale and Sandy Bridge), despite being a dual-core with two fake cores, already performs similar to the older quads in heavily multi-threaded applications while beating them soundly in lightly threaded ones.

Intel is stating that the G620 is capable of hitting 65W when the chip is maxed out.
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post #534 of 880
9/9/11 at 12:24pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by vkristof View Post

Boy, I knew marginal DRAM mfgs were getting out of the business, but I didn't realize prices were so low. This might cause me to just buy a new Intel SNB Pentium (or below) CPU/MB/DRAM combo. You're talking about $130 for everything if you get a Celeron...

I've had good luck with patriot ram and the reviews are very positive. I know not to by questionable ram, I have had fits with it in the past.
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post #535 of 880
9/9/11 at 12:28pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by ilovejedd View Post

Actually, the TDP of the CPU isn't the problem. Despite the 65W TDP, the G620's power consumption uses just 5W or so more than the G620T at load. The issue is that AMD's processors appear to actually use the full TDP with both CPU and GPU loaded.


That depends. If you're still on, say, Allendale or Conroe (Celeron E1xxx, Pentium E2xxx, Core 2 Duo E4xxx or Core 2 Duo E6xxx), then yes, I would consider an upgrade to, at most, a Pentium E6xxx Wolfdale (although, personally, I'd go with Pentium E5xxx for better overclocking potential). I have a $40 Celeron E3300 running at 3.33 GHz (200 -> 266 BSEL mod) and it works beautifully. Even at stock, it's nothing to sneeze at. Performs much better than my old Pentium E2160 1.8 GHz. Of course, that's assuming you have a decent P35 board worth salvaging (which most should be).

If you're looking at Q6xxx or Q8xxx, I'd hold off on those. The Core i3 (Clarkdale and Sandy Bridge), despite being a dual-core with two fake cores, already performs similar to the older quads in heavily multi-threaded applications while beating them soundly in lightly threaded ones.


Thanks.
The MB is an genu-wine Intel ATX MB. The system only has 2 GB RAM & the CPU is C2D 4300 @ 1.8 GHz. This would not be used as a HTPC, but would be used for virtualization (running virtualbox, for example) to host other, non-Windoze OS. I think any current CPU I buy has HW virtualization capabilities & probably the existing slow E4300 also does [CORRECTION, the E4300 does NOT have VT-x].

So, I can buy a 2.4 GHz SNB Celeron, MB and 4 GB DDR3 for ~$130
or
I can buy 4GB DDR2 for ~$40 & a 3 GHz E5700 for ~ $67 = ~$110

hmm...
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post #536 of 880
9/9/11 at 12:31pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by vkristof View Post

Yep, & since Intel is Intel, the 2.4 GHz SNB Celeron is only $57 @ Newegg. And Newegg still doesn't have the AMD A55 based motherboards, but the Intel H61 MBs still start @ $50...

One thing for sure: I should buy a LGA775 CPU to upgrade my elderly Intel P35? MB, before LGA 775 CPUs become scarce & expensive.

I'm guessing AMD was pressuring mobo manufacturers not to release the A55 until the A4's were out. The goal being to push potential buyers into buying the higher end stuff for a while and then releasing the bargain stuff. Intel always does this with their processors, like holding off on the pentium and then celeron lines. So what I'm saying is I expect the A55 boards to be on the market very soon. If they delay to long I guess I could go celeron, but I think llano has a lot more HTPC potential.
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post #537 of 880
9/9/11 at 1:13pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by vkristof View Post

Thanks.
The MB is an genu-wine Intel ATX MB. The system only has 2 GB RAM & the CPU is C2D 4300 @ 1.8 GHz. This would not be used as a HTPC, but would be used for virtualization (running virtualbox, for example) to host other, non-Windoze OS. I think any current CPU I buy has HW virtualization capabilities & probably the existing slow E4300 also does [CORRECTION, the E4300 does NOT have VT-x].

So, I can buy a 2.4 GHz SNB Celeron, MB and 4 GB DDR3 for ~$130
or
I can buy 4GB DDR2 for ~$40 & a 3 GHz E5700 for ~ $67 = ~$110

hmm...

What are you using for your graphics card? The SNB route has the benefit of the latest Intel GFX.
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post #538 of 880
9/9/11 at 1:34pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by jeffkro View Post

Intel is stating that the G620 is capable of hitting 65W when the chip is maxed out.

The TDP is more a guideline to heatsink manufacturers than an actual estimate of CPU power consumption. With the newer Intel chips, you'd need to be working in extreme conditions before you actually reach the 65W TDP. On a regular desktop (even M-ITX one), you'd be hard pressed to actually get it to reach 65W power consumption even when running Linpack and Furmark at the same time.

Just look at the CPU+GPU load power consumption of a system based on Sandy Bridge and one based on Llano. You'll notice the Llano system has much higher load power consumption compared to SNB. That's because the 65W TDP SNB processors don't use anywhere near close to their rated TDP while Llano does. If it was AMD making SNB, they'll probably be rated at 35~45W TDP. Intel just likes to play it safe, I guess.
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post #539 of 880
9/9/11 at 1:40pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by renethx View Post

I haven't tested HD 6410D, but perhaps

- A4-3400 for DXVA 2D/3D
- A5-3500 for DXVA 2D/3D and 2D->3D
- A8-3800 for DXVA 2D/3D, 2D->3D and madVR (high-quality)

Limitations in DXVA mode:

- HD 6410D: You have to disable "Mosquito Noise Reduction", "Deblocking" and "Enable Dynamic Contrast" for 1080i60; No 1080p60.
- HD 6530D: You have to disable "Mosquito Noise Reduction" for 1080i60 and 1080p60.
- HD 6550D: None.

Well, I rarely use these post processors anyway (and Intel does not offer such sophisticated post-processors).

You don't think the A4 series will be able to do 1080p60 with post processing turned off?
Curious, what is the minimum cpu necessary for doing 1080p60 purely in software, on the CPU, and with no offloading to a gpu?
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post #540 of 880
9/9/11 at 1:43pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by vkristof View Post

So, I can buy a 2.4 GHz SNB Celeron, MB and 4 GB DDR3 for ~$130
or
I can buy 4GB DDR2 for ~$40 & a 3 GHz E5700 for ~ $67 = ~$110

Note, though, if your total budget is $130 for MB/CPU/RAM, you'll likely get a not so nice uATX motherboard. It really depends on what features your current P35 board has if it's worth re-using (e.g. mine has 8xSATA which is definitely nice). More so if you also need to purchase expensive, obsolete DDR2 RAM. Heck, you can get 8GB DDR3 for $40 nowadays. For a virtualization rig, that's definitely the way to go.
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