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AMD Llano - THE great HTPC chip? - Page 24

post #691 of 880
10/12/11 at 1:07am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Nevcairiel View Post

One thing is for sure, the CPU isn't nearly as good as everyone thought/hoped it would be.

- Less performance in single-threaded/lightly threaded workloads then Phenom II (the typical desktop workload)
- Less performance then Sandy Bridge in nearly all workloads (and higher power usage, too!).

All-in-all, for Desktop or HTPC workload, Bulldozer does not beat Intel, and it only marginally beats the Phenom II 6-core (if at all).
I'm not sure how the street prices will end up, but they will have to be rather low to even be viable.

Either way it's certainly not an HTPC friendly CPU. I was hoping it'd be encoding friendly with 8 cores @ x264 64bit... seems like even that's not a worthy upgrade coming from a Core i7.
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post #692 of 880
10/12/11 at 7:56am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Nevcairiel View Post

One thing is for sure, the CPU isn't nearly as good as everyone thought/hoped it would be.

- Less performance in single-threaded/lightly threaded workloads then Phenom II (the typical desktop workload)
- Less performance then Sandy Bridge in nearly all workloads (and higher power usage, too!).

All-in-all, for Desktop or HTPC workload, Bulldozer does not beat Intel, and it only marginally beats the Phenom II 6-core (if at all).
I'm not sure how the street prices will end up, but they will have to be rather low to even be viable.

NE has the 6 & 8 core parts available, at somewhat inflated prices. I'd be interested in the still unavailable FX-4100 (~$115?) for my new AM3+ MB, but pricing vs. the new Zosma (Thuban with 2 cores defeated) would have to be examined closely. The 3.0 GHZ Zosma and 3.6 GHz 4100 have the same 95W TDP.

But, based upon what has been printed regarding lower IPC than current AMD Phenom II, I don't understand what Bulldozer brings to the next-gen Trinity APU....

But it's early in the 32 nm game for AMD.
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post #693 of 880
10/12/11 at 8:03am
Quote:
Originally Posted by azazel View Post

Either way it's certainly not an HTPC friendly CPU. I was hoping it'd be encoding friendly with 8 cores @ x264 64bit... seems like even that's not a worthy upgrade coming from a Core i7.

But doesn't that depend on how you use your HTPC? If you only use your HTPC for video playback 8 cores is obviously overkill, and really even 4 cores (all my encoding, commercial scanning, etc... is done on my desktop PC and not my HTPC). If the Llano GPU is better off then the Intel GPU, and video playback is your only priority for an HTPC, wouldn't Llano be a better fit?
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post #694 of 880
10/12/11 at 12:57pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by dbone1026 View Post

If the Llano GPU is better off then the Intel GPU, and video playback is your only priority for an HTPC, wouldn't Llano be a better fit?

What about if it's used for a MythTV server as well (transcoding and commercial flagging)?
I'm at that decision now...looks like Trinity won't be that great....next version of Intel's Core i5 2500K might be more interesting if they fix their graphics issues w/ 24p...
Doesn't look like undervolting an 1100T is worth it...too expensive and power is still higher than the 2500K :-P
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post #695 of 880
10/12/11 at 5:23pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by kenyee View Post

What about if it's used for a MythTV server as well (transcoding and commercial flagging)?
I'm at that decision now...looks like Trinity won't be that great....next version of Intel's Core i5 2500K might be more interesting if they fix their graphics issues w/ 24p...

I'd love to hear other people respond to "looks like Trinity won't be that great", based upon the simple results on IPC being slightly lower than the current Phenom II. Llano is already 32nm, so if AMD bumps up clock speed (to say the FX-4100's 3.6 GHz) they'll simply increase the power of Trinity, beyond the 100W for the current power pig.

I don't get it...
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post #696 of 880
10/12/11 at 6:15pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by azazel View Post

Either way it's certainly not an HTPC friendly CPU. I was hoping it'd be encoding friendly with 8 cores @ x264 64bit... seems like even that's not a worthy upgrade coming from a Core i7.

Upgrade from a core i7, no I would say you don't have to upgrade from a core i7 for years.
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post #697 of 880
10/12/11 at 6:55pm
- ComputerBase
- TechConnect Magazine
- x-bit labs

Trinity is based on Piledriver core, the successor to Bulldozer core. Let's hope that Trinity (and Vishera) succeed, although 10-15% performance increase is not enough to catch up with SNB (let alone IVB).


LL
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post #698 of 880
10/13/11 at 6:19am
Guru of 3D

A quick comparison of A8-3850, FX-4100 and Core i3-2100 based on this review and Bjorn3D.com's review on Core i3-2100 (Guru of 3D's review does not include Core i3-2100):

- A8-3850: 2.9GHz, 4C, 100W, $135
- FX-4100: 3.6GHz/3.8GHz, 2M/4C, 95W, $115
- Core i3-2100: 3.1GHz, 2C/4T, 65W, $117

where M=Module, C = Core, T = Thread. In overall CPU performance,
A8-3850 > FX-4100 > Core i3-2100 So Trinity (= 10-15% improvement of FX-4100 + HD 7xxx GPU) should be enough competitive with IVB 2C/4T (apart from power consumption)? OK I missed (the lack of) L3 cache.

  A8-3850 FX-4100 Core i3-2100
x264 HD Benchmark 20.07 19.43 16.49
CineBench R11.5 3.43 3.12 3.01
Sandra Dhrystone (ALU) 46 55 52
Sandra Whetstone (SSE3) 33 34 37
AIDA64 Queen 22185 18523 21667
AIDA64 Mandel 3978 3098 2612
AIDA64 ZLib 146 139 122
AIDA64 HASH 1915 1940 908
AIDA64 VP8 2258 2002 1944
AIDA64 Memory Read 8870 13496 17909
AIDA64 Memory Write 9528 9828 16973

Red = highest, Blue = lowest.
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post #699 of 880
10/13/11 at 8:35am
Phoronix
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post #700 of 880
10/13/11 at 8:41am
Quote:
Originally Posted by renethx View Post

Guru of 3D

A quick comparison of A8-3850, FX-4100 and Core i3-2100 based on this review and Bjorn3D.com's review on Core i3-2100 (Guru of 3D's review does not include Core i3-2100):

- A8-3850: 2.9GHz, 4C, 100W, $135
- FX-4100: 3.6GHz/3.8GHz, 2M/4C, 95W, $115
- Core i3-2100: 3.1GHz, 2C/4T, 65W, $117

where M=Module, C = Core, T = Thread. In overall CPU performance,
A8-3850 > FX-4100 > Core i3-2100 So Trinity (= 10-15% improvement of FX-4100 + HD 7xxx GPU) should be enough competitive with IVB 2C/4T (apart from power consumption)? OK I missed (the lack of) L3 cache.

  A8-3850 FX-4100 Core i3-2100
x264 HD Benchmark 20.07 19.43 16.49
CineBench R11.5 3.43 3.12 3.01
Sandra Dhrystone (ALU) 46 55 52.4
Sandra Whetstone (SSE3) 33 34 36.86
AIDA64 Queen 22185 18523 21667
AIDA64 Mandel 3978 3098 2612
AIDA64 ZLib 146 139 121.7
AIDA64 HASH 1915 1940 908
AIDA64 VP8 2258 2002 1944
AIDA64 Memory Read 8870 13496 17909
AIDA64 Memory Write 9528 9828 16973

Red = highest, Blue = lowest.

I think the main selling point of trinity will be the integrated 7000 series graphics. Again the graphics side of the house is where AMD has a chance to upset intel.
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post #701 of 880
10/13/11 at 9:00am
Quote:
Originally Posted by jeffkro View Post

I think the main selling point of trinity will be the integrated 7000 series graphics. Again the graphics side of the house is where AMD has a chance to upset intel.

Graphics side, Llano is already twice better than SNB. High CPU and memory performance with low power consumption is urgent - trinity of CPU, memory and GPU.

I suspect that low memory performance of Llano is the cause of various strange phenomena of video playback.
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post #702 of 880
10/13/11 at 10:04am
Quote:
Originally Posted by renethx View Post

Graphics side, Llano is already twice better than SNB. High CPU and memory performance with low power consumption is urgent - trinity of CPU, memory and GPU.

I suspect that low memory performance of Llano is the cause of various strange phenomena of video playback.

Really what AMD needs to do is set up trinity so Mobo companies can put some GDDR5 sideport memory on their boards.
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post #703 of 880
10/13/11 at 11:04am
Quote:
Originally Posted by jeffkro View Post

Really what AMD needs to do is set up trinity so Mobo companies can put some GDDR5 sideport memory on their boards.

That's not gonna happen unless the memory port has reserved pins in the FM1 socket. Which I sorta doubt.

I know AMD offered that capability in past IGP chipsets: I've got at least one that has the sideport memory populated. The 880G I just bought does not have this AFAIK.
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post #704 of 880
10/13/11 at 11:10am
Quote:
Originally Posted by renethx View Post

Guru of 3D

A quick comparison of A8-3850, FX-4100 and Core i3-2100 based on this review and Bjorn3D.com's review on Core i3-2100 (Guru of 3D's review does not include Core i3-2100):

- A8-3850: 2.9GHz, 4C, 100W, $135
- FX-4100: 3.6GHz/3.8GHz, 2M/4C, 95W, $115
- Core i3-2100: 3.1GHz, 2C/4T, 65W, $117

where M=Module, C = Core, T = Thread. In overall CPU performance,
A8-3850 > FX-4100 > Core i3-2100 So Trinity (= 10-15% improvement of FX-4100 + HD 7xxx GPU) should be enough competitive with IVB 2C/4T (apart from power consumption)? OK I missed (the lack of) L3 cache.
...

Can you expand on what you meant by "I missed (the lack of) L3 cache."?

I'm impressed (at least on paper) by the 8MB of L3 cache on the FX-4100. I'm used to Intel nickel & dimeing you on cache for their low-end CPUs/APUs.
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post #705 of 880
10/13/11 at 11:43am
i just thought i'd mention in this thread that ive' been playing RAGE at 1080p off this iGPU or APU or whatever they call it. it plays perfectly smooth using just the integrated graphics. It also runs Crysis 2 totally smooth at lower settings. Remarkable little chip for $100.
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post #706 of 880
10/13/11 at 12:17pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by ryanazarko View Post

i just thought i'd mention in this thread that ive' been playing RAGE at 1080p off this iGPU or APU or whatever they call it. it plays perfectly smooth using just the integrated graphics. It also runs Crysis 2 totally smooth at lower settings. Remarkable little chip for $100.

Good to hear that.

I assume your APU is the A6-3500, correct?

FWIW, iGPU typically means there's a GPU integrated into the MB's chipset.
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post #707 of 880
10/13/11 at 6:46pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by vkristof View Post

Can you expand on what you meant by "I missed (the lack of) L3 cache."?

I'm impressed (at least on paper) by the 8MB of L3 cache on the FX-4100. I'm used to Intel nickel & dimeing you on cache for their low-end CPUs/APUs.

I mean the lack of L3 cache in Trinity (just a rumor).
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post #708 of 880
10/13/11 at 6:50pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by vkristof View Post

iGPU typically means there's a GPU integrated into the MB's chipset.

GPU integrated in MB's chipset has been already atypical. We can safely assume that iGPU means a GPU integrated in a chip.
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post #709 of 880
10/14/11 at 10:39am
Quote:
Originally Posted by renethx View Post

GPU integrated in MB's chipset has been already atypical.

I've been pretty happy w/ my old IGP desktop boards (nVidia and ATI chipsets w/ AMD processors), but I'd agree w/ this....nVidia seems to have abandoned updating their IGPs and are instead focusing on their Android Tegra chips.

The reason I'm looking for one is that MythTV(Linux) seems to work best on an nVidia graphics chip. Only thing I've been able to find is a Zotac board that has a Z68 Sandy Bridge socket w/ an ancient nVidia GT430 chip...Zotac boards have crappy QC and reliability from all the reviews I've read :-P
AMD is making good progress on their Linux driver VAAPI support, but it has far less deinterlacing support than nVidia's...
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post #710 of 880
10/14/11 at 10:13pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by jeffkro View Post

Really what AMD needs to do is set up trinity so Mobo companies can put some GDDR5 sideport memory on their boards.

Perhaps it's not just video memory, but system memory architecture in general.

SidePort memory is even uglier. Fortunately it won't happen.
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post #711 of 880
10/15/11 at 9:12am
Quote:
Originally Posted by kenyee View Post

I've been pretty happy w/ my old IGP desktop boards (nVidia and ATI chipsets w/ AMD processors), but I'd agree w/ this....nVidia seems to have abandoned updating their IGPs and are instead focusing on their Android Tegra chips.

The reason I'm looking for one is that MythTV(Linux) seems to work best on an nVidia graphics chip. Only thing I've been able to find is a Zotac board that has a Z68 Sandy Bridge socket w/ an ancient nVidia GT430 chip...Zotac boards have crappy QC and reliability from all the reviews I've read :-P
AMD is making good progress on their Linux driver VAAPI support, but it has far less deinterlacing support than nVidia's...

I think AMD and Intel denied nVidia further licensing of their FSB (or something similar) in the last few years. This stopped development of further nV chipsets for X98.
I had a number of AMD nV shipset MBs and still use AMD iGPU chipset MBs. I just bought an 880G chipset MB so that I could install 8GB of DRAM (for Windoze 7 X64) cost effectively. All my previous MBs were DDR2...
Also got SATA3 (SB850), which at this point is a don't care for me, but might be handy for something (SSD?) in the future. The USB3 (Etron controller) might also be useful in the future also.
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post #712 of 880
10/15/11 at 5:46pm
A85X (yeah, it's A85X, not "A85FX"), AMD's new chipset for Trinity, got USB-IF's approval (VR-Zone).
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post #713 of 880
10/16/11 at 4:31am
Hi would the dual core Llano with a cheapest A55 mobo be fine for HTPC with light gaming? Crysis 2 mentioned earlier: what resolution/settings was that? Also what is the difference between Llano mobos that use VIA VT1705/1708B and Realtek ALC887 audio chip? My bro will be sticking to 2.0/2.1 audio set up but i am curious about Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master support just in case/in the future :P
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post #714 of 880
10/16/11 at 5:41am
Quote:
Originally Posted by whentrumpetsfade View Post

Hi would the dual core Llano with a cheapest A55 mobo be fine for HTPC with light gaming? Crysis 2 mentioned earlier: what resolution/settings was that? Also what is the difference between Llano mobos that use VIA VT1705/1708B and Realtek ALC887 audio chip? My bro will be sticking to 2.0/2.1 audio set up but i am curious about Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master support just in case/in the future :P

A4-3400 has only 160 stream processors, the same as HD 6450 graphics card. So its performance is more or less the same as (or even worse than) HD 6450 DDR3 (not GDDR5 of course) discrete card + Athlon II X2 CPU...

TrueHD/DD+/DTS-HD MA/HRA are supported by all Llano.

VIA or ALC887, whichever cheap onboard codec, does not matter.
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post #715 of 880
10/16/11 at 6:25am
Quote:
Originally Posted by renethx View Post

A4-3400 has only 160 stream processors, the same as HD 6450 graphics card. So its performance is more or less the same as (or even worse than) HD 6450 DDR3 (not GDDR5 of course) discrete card + Athlon II X2 CPU...

TrueHD/DD+/DTS-HD MA/HRA are supported by all Llano.

VIA or ALC887, whichever cheap onboard codec, does not matter.

Thanks renethx! That really helps clearing up the matter
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post #716 of 880
10/16/11 at 10:33am
Quote:
Originally Posted by renethx View Post

A4-3400 has only 160 stream processors, the same as HD 6450 graphics card. So its performance is more or less the same as (or even worse than) HD 6450 DDR3 (not GDDR5 of course) discrete card + Athlon II X2 CPU...

TrueHD/DD+/DTS-HD MA/HRA are supported by all Llano.

VIA or ALC887, whichever cheap onboard codec, does not matter.

That being said an athlon II plus HD 6450 is a very usable HTPC system.
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post #717 of 880
10/17/11 at 10:32pm
So I haven't been following this thread that closely lately, but from the sounds of the last few pages, it seems like Llano isn't the greatest HTPC option, or am I reading wrong?
I have a perfectly usable HTPC that runs madVR + LAV filters perfectly fine, but I REALLY want an onboard USB 3.0 header so that I can use the front USB 3.0 ports on my case. I currently have an AMD 250 DC with a Radeon 5570 and I was considering getting the A6-3500 with a Gigabyte A75 D2H board. Would this be a good buy right now, or is there something around the corner that will be equal or cheaper than that combo?
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post #718 of 880
10/17/11 at 11:41pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by rahzel View Post

So I haven't been following this thread that closely lately, but from the sounds of the last few pages, it seems like Llano isn't the greatest HTPC option, or am I reading wrong?
I have a perfectly usable HTPC that runs madVR + LAV filters perfectly fine, but I REALLY want an onboard USB 3.0 header so that I can use the front USB 3.0 ports on my case. I currently have an AMD 250 DC with a Radeon 5570 and I was considering getting the A6-3500 with a Gigabyte A75 D2H board. Would this be a good buy right now, or is there something around the corner that will be equal or cheaper than that combo?

Why not just add a PCIe expansion card like the SilverStone EC01. Don't know if Newegg sells it, but I think Amazon does. There don't seem to be many expansion cards with the internal 3.0 header, but there are a few.
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post #719 of 880
10/18/11 at 12:40am
The CPU performance of A6-3500 is more or less identical with Athlon II X2 250. You'd better add an USB 3.0 expansion card instead of replacing CPU and mb, unless you go with A8-3850, ditching HD 5570 too (advantages of A8-3850 over Athlon II X2 250 + HD 5570 are better CPU, 1080p60 AVC hardware decode acceleration, MVC hardware decode acceleration, perfect playback of all contents under madVR [see below]).

BTW Athlon II X2 250 3.0GHz + HD 5570 is underpowered for 1080i60 with madVR (try this clip; CPU is the bottleneck here). It looks like you don't play interlaced contents?
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post #720 of 880
10/18/11 at 7:58am
Quote:
Originally Posted by rahzel View Post

So I haven't been following this thread that closely lately, but from the sounds of the last few pages, it seems like Llano isn't the greatest HTPC option, or am I reading wrong?
I have a perfectly usable HTPC that runs madVR + LAV filters perfectly fine, but I REALLY want an onboard USB 3.0 header so that I can use the front USB 3.0 ports on my case. I currently have an AMD 250 DC with a Radeon 5570 and I was considering getting the A6-3500 with a Gigabyte A75 D2H board. Would this be a good buy right now, or is there something around the corner that will be equal or cheaper than that combo?

Yes, there is definitely something better around the corner, but probably not cheaper. Both intel ivy bridge and amd trinity should be a fairly big improvement over whats offered now. I do agree you can cheaply get a usb 3 pcie card, but the more cards you add the more power you consume.
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