AMD Llano - THE great HTPC chip? - Page 27

No, I've not heard of any situations where the prescribed HD cards didn't work the APU in CFX mode. It's just that websites like Newegg allow you to filter cards based on CFX support yes/no. I've ordered a Sapphire Ultimate HD6670 and looking forward to it. I use the HTPC mainly for watching movies and shows, but occasionally play COD5... the framerate was a bit unsatisfactory with just the APU rendering at 1920x1080.

There's always going to be better hardware out there!

Not to get off subject but with those graphics numbers it might be my next laptop.

Installed the Sapphire HD 6670 Ultimate card in CFX to help out the A6-3500 APU and COD5 is butter smooth with all the highest settings. I think the image quality is better with the Radeon hardware than the nVidia, but maybe I'm not seeing things right. This is definitely a very nice and cost effective setup for an HTPC used for occasional gaming.

A4 for entertainment notebook and A8 for multi-purpose desktop. I'm sold.

I wonder if AMD has any A4 Llano that could fit into something like this new Lenovo "Smallest desktop PC in the world". The TDP of the Atom D2500 is 10W, dunno what a HD 6450A w/512 MB dissipates. VERY cute package, the 1st sheet is the base unit WITH DVD drive attached:

http://www.lenovo.com/products/us/de...tasheet_US.pdf

I'm surprised the Llano can handle Battlefield 3 at a decent framerate at low-res:
http://www.jagatreview.com/2011/11/c...battlefield-3/

I started looking around for an INEXPENSIVE bottom of the line HD5xxx or HD6xxx generation card so that I could add another analog monitor (old $10 CRTs) to a recent AMD system.

I came across NE dumping (I assume) HD6450 for "$19.99 after mail-in rebate card ". $45 initial cost.
It's a Gigabyte card, and I already am hoping that GB will actually send me the $10 Mail-in card that they are processing for the recent MB...

Anyway, $20 end cost for a passively cooled 64-bit DDR3 sounds good to me. The only deficiency I see for my need is lack of DVI-I: you are definitely limited to a single VGA. For the vast majority of users this would be a don't care.

I want it in a Mac-Mini style desktop. Heck, if Apple used it, I might actually consider buying one.

x-bit labs - AMD to Start Production of Desktop "Trinity" APU in March - Document

Mass production in March: 65W part of Trinity

- A10-5700
- A8-5500
- A6-5400
- A4-5300

Mass production in May: 100W part of Trinity

- A10-5800
- A8-5600

Thanks for that info.

Has there been any updates on the next gen FCH? Dioes it still have RAID5 and EIGHT SATA ports?

- A75: No
- A85X: Yes

Well, the same as before.

Thanks.

One of the ChipHell Trinity slides mentions "3 dedicated display outputs".

Do we have any information if that means 3 "discrete clock" display outputs, i.e. 3 HDMI and/or DVI-D?

Or does one of them have to be DP (embedded clock)?

No explicit information on this, but perhaps it supports HDMI + DVI + DP (not DP++).

Trinity yields are good

http://www.fudzilla.com/processors/i...ields-are-good

Looks like AMD isn't having the production problems with trinity that it did with Llano

Q1 2012 is pretty close. Feb/March?

2 new unlocked llanos (A8-3870K and A6-3670K ) coming as well. Placeholders for Trinity?

A8-3870K (3.0GHz, $135) and A6-3670K (2.7GHz, $115) will be released on December 21 (source).

Perhaps there will be downstream price drops.

i am wondering does a8-3850 do dtshdma & DD-hd through the receiver? cause i try all and i cannot able todo it?

http://techreport.com/discussions.x/22197

Llano lineup updates more extensive than previously leaked. Trinity may be delayed.

This is precisely why I'm looking at cheap llano laptops right now, slim line, built in battery backup, much lower TDP.

People always knock laptops on these threads as "you are stuck with what you get", when was the last time you upgraded a $400 specialty device (the htpc I consider specialty). I have storage on my nas, and I'll be using an Ethernet based HD tv tuner. The only thing I may plug into this will be an IR receiver.

The llano based laptops (even the $300 dollar ones) beat the pants off of what it takes to buy a system with the case, ram, hd..etc. Even beats the super cheap E-350 based boxes and out performs them.

I'm no HTPC expert..but am I missing something here? I guess if you are reusing the same case you save about $100.

So I splurged a little and picked up a 6670 to augment the A8's 6550D on my HTPC.

Configured my BIOS' NB configuration to 'Integrated Graphics Multi-Monitor' (ASUS F1A75-V PRO motherboard).

Installed the 6670 and enabled CrossFire, however nothing in the Vision Control Panel refers specifically Dual Graphics.

The Vision Control Center, Under Information -> Hardware, shows the Primary Adapter being the 6550D and the Linked Adapter as the 6670.

Just wondering if Vision should show 'Dual Graphics' and the name of the combined GPUs, such as 6630D2, or will I only see that within AMD System Monitor (which I haven't installed yet, will do that tonite).

Thanks!

Specs:
Asus F1A75-V Pro
A8-3850
8 GB 1866
Diamond 6670 1 GB GDDR5

BTW 6670 is better than 6670+6550D CFX in many cases in video playback (6550D could be the bottleneck in 6670+6550D CFX).

Good info as always renethx !

I was looking at the A6-3800 but seems that was hard to find inside the US at the usually places anyway.

Now with the recent announcement of the refreshed lineup, I am looking at the A6-3820. But I have read that it might only been shipped as an OEM Desktop APU.

So now I'm considering a cheap upgrade of the HTPC which I really don't have to do, but I do want to reduce energy usage as I might leave the country for a long period of time and will be continuing to record shows, send them to the server.

In any event I can move this to the server later for Trinity.

Anyway I was looking at the triple core A6-3500 and cheap A4 APU's. Is anybody running the A4 and how do you like it? I currently have a 5000+ Black Edition (Brisbane) and while overall number crunching won't increase, I can drop the HD4670 video card and still play some DX9 games in HD + the emulators I have (GameBrowser!).

Just looking for some feedback.

I see passmark has some numbers for the a8 3870. I don't know how accurate passmark is but I have to wonder how it got over 1500 points more then the a8 3850..

This upgrade itch might get me yet!

I'm 'itchy' as well: hold on to this Zacate, which works using out-of-the box MPC-HC and TMT or upgrade to play with LAV/MadVR and get better gaming? LLano now or hold out til Trinity?
Or go Blue/Green with a Celeron/Pentium and standalone NV card?

A quick chart:

	E-350	A4-3300	A6-3500	A6-3650 or higher	Core i3-2105+Z68+DDR3-2133	G530+GT 430
madVR HQ : SD film (MPEG-2)	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
madVR HQ : SD video (MPEG-2)	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
madVR HQ : HD film (AVC, VC-1, MPEG-2)	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
madVR HQ : HD i-video (AVC, MPEG-2)	No	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
madVR HQ : HD i-video (VC-1)	No	No	No	No	Yes	Yes
madVR HQ : HD p-video (AVC)	No	No	No	Yes	Yes	Yes
BR 3D MVC decode by GPU	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
2D-3D conversion by CPU	No	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	No
HDMI 1.4a video output (Frame Packing)	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
HDMI 1.4a video output + HDMI 1.3 AVR	No	No	No	No	Yes	Yes

Actually madVR HQ by Core i3-2105 (or any processor with Intel HD Graphics 3k) is limited to "Lanczos 3 taps" instead of "Lanczos 4 taps" (the default HQ setting).