AMD Llano - THE great HTPC chip? - Page 28

Great chart!

Speeds are disappointing

http://www.anandtech.com/show/5411/a...ing-in-mid2012

Surprised the notebook ones increased in performance more than the desktop ones...

gpu performance is surprisingly good:
http://www.legitreviews.com/article/1829/1/

Oops damn andriod

This is going to be awesomefor mid range laptops.

I'm not sure what you mean. The CPU increase is 25% and that's basically the same as the Desktop units. 50% increase in GPU puts it near Mid-range discrete performance (with speedy memory).

For laptops/notebooks means no more GPU limitations especially if you have 1366x768 display (720p) with all but the most demanding games.

For low cost Desktops, it means casual gaming is a snap. Most people aren't doing serious number crunching or editing video.

For HTPC's, it means low TDP, less power wasted. No need to run a video card. Frees up slot for tuner(s).

I hear you! going to get one right now to run my Ceton PCIe card!!

I'm looking forward to trying it.

Hope AMD gets their video drivers together though for HTPC.

I'm sorting out my zacate to llano upgrade (a75, a6-3500) and I'm happy with it so far. It's not powerful enough to do much with madvr but it plays my kid's games well enough. Better yet, downvolted to 1.1v (the lowest I've gone so far, it might do better) it idles at 51 watts (total system by kill-a-watt).

Hmm, there must be something wrong in your setup. HD 6530D is powerful enough to do the high quality madVR upscaling.

As for Trinity,

Q2 2012

- A10-5800 with HD 7660D
- A10-5700 with HD 7660D
- A8-5600 with HD 7560D
- A8-5500 with HD 7560D

Q3 2012

- A6-5400 with HD 7540D
- A4-5300 with HD 7480D

The performance of HD 7660D is supposed to be close to Radeon HD 6670.

After some tweaking, I seem to have it smooth in 3 tap madVR. I think I'm maxxed out though, 80-90% on both the GPU and CPU cores on 1080i. Yadif pushes it over the edge, as does copy back accel in LAV. This is running OCed to 1866 and 580 gpu core.

Table of Contents

- Llano Lineup
- Configuration
- Clips
- Results
- Conclusion

Llano Lineup

First, the current lineup of Llano APU is:

APU	Cores	Clock	L2 Cache	GPU	Radeon Cores	GPU Clock	TDP	Price
A4-3300	2	2.5GHz	1MB	HD 6410D	160	443MHz	65W	$66
A4-3400	2	2.7GHz	1MB	HD 6410D	160	600MHz	65W	$71
A6-3500	3	2.1/2.4GHz	3MB	HD 6530D	320	443MHz	65W	$80
A6-3650	4	2.6GHz	4MB	HD 6530D	320	443MHz	100W	$115
A6-3670K	4	2.7GHz	4MB	HD 6530D	320	443MHz	100W	$115
A8-3850	4	2.9GHz	4MB	HD 6550D	400	600MHz	100W	$135
A8-3870K	4	3.0GHz	4MB	HD 6550D	400	600MHz	100W	$135

A4-3300/3400 is a dual-core processor with 160 Radeon cores. So both processor and graphics are pretty weak. A5-3500 is a triple core processor with 320 Radeon cores, the same as the discrete Radeon HD 5550. The processor frequency is low (2.1GHz) and the power consumption is low (max 65W). A6-3650 is quad-core with the same graphics as A6-3500. TDP 100W looks pretty high, but it operates at voltage 1.250V with no problem, with much lower TDP. A8-3850 has 400 Radeon cores.

Configuration

I used:

- APU: A4-3400, A6-3500, A6-3650, A8-3850
- Memory: DDR3-1600 2 x 2GB. Memory is used as a system memory as well as video memory. You can use DDR3-1866, but the difference is very small in video playback.
- A75 chipset mb
- OS: Windows 7 x64 SP1
- Driver: 12.1. In CCC > Video, all video post-processors are disabled except for the following three:
+ Color > Advanced Video Color > Dynamic Range: Limited (16-235)
+ Quality > Use automatic deinterlacing
+ Quality > Pulldown detection
- Player: MPC HomeCinema
- Video decoder: LAV Video Decoder 0.45 (the latest is 0.46). This version implemented DXVA2 (copy-back) support. I also used ffmpeg decoder of LAV Video Decoder.
- Deinterlacer: DXVA2 deinterlacing via madVR (the default setting)
- Video Renderer: madVR 0.80, in the full-screen exclusive mode, with one of the following quality settings:
+ medium: Bilinear/Bicubic 50/Bicubic 50
+ high*: SoftCubic (softness: 100)/Lanczos (3 taps)/Lanczos (3 taps)
+ high: SoftCubic (softness: 100)/Lanczos (4 taps)/Lanczos (4 taps)

Clips

There are five major video formats in NTSC countries:

	Origin	Format	Output to renderer	Frame interval
SD film	film	480i60	480p24	41.708 ms
SD video	video	480i60	480p60	16.683 ms
HD film	film	1080p24	1080p24	41.708 ms
HD interalced video	video	1080i60	1080p60	16.683 ms
HD progressive video	video	1080p60	1080p60	16.683 ms

I used the following clip for each of them:

- SD film: Ratatouille (2007) (480i60, MPEG-2, AC3)
- SD video: Die Zauberflote (2003) (480i60, MPEG-2, AC3)
- HD film: Iron Man (2008) (1080p24, AVC, TrueHD/AC3)
- HD i video: La Traviata (2010) (1080i60, AVC, DTS-HD MA)
- HD i video (VC-1): Life - Plants (2010) (1080i60, VC-1, DTS-HD HRA)
- HD p video: La Traviata (2010) (1080p60, AVC, DTS-HD MA)

Edit: All moved here. I added HD i video (VC-1) because 1080i60 VC-1, although rare, is often hard to play back using FOSS codecs or Windows built-in codec. The desktop refresh rate used is:

- 23Hz for film
- 59Hz for video

Results

I measured during the playback of each clip:

- Number of dropped frames ("DF"; shown in the screen when pressing Ctrl+J). This should be 0, of course.
- Average CPU usage ("CPU"; I used Performance Monitor built in Windows). Higher CPU usage may result in dropped frames.
- Average GPU usage ("GPU"; I used GPU-Z and Excel to calculate average). Higher GPU usage may result in dropped frames.
- Average rendering time ("RT"; shown in the screen when pressing Ctrl+J). This should be well lower than 41.708 ms for film and 16.683 ms for video.

Here is a summary:

Conclusion

DXVA2 (copy-back) can't handle HD p video = 60fps contents well (as sated in the release note). Somehow there are occasional dropped frames with ffmpeg decoder implemented in LAV Video Decoder. Using ffdshow Video Decoder (also ffmepg) fixes the problem, but that requires A6-3650 or higher (as decoding AVC at 60fps is pretty CPU-intensive). The only major source of HD p video is commercial camcorder right now anyway and perhaps you will use Media Foundation in WMC to play them back. Any Llano APU can handle HD p video pretty easily under DXVA2/EVR.

As for the formats found in DVD and BD (all except for HD p video), A4-3400 can handle medium quality with DXVA2 (copy-back) pretty easily. All APUs, A6-3500 and higher, can handle high quality setting with either DXVA2 (copy-back) or ffmpeg. (ffmpeg does not support interlaced VC-1 yet.) My recommendation goes to:

- A6-3500, $75, that can handle all video formats in DVD, BD and broadcast smoothly at madVR's highest quality settings. It also supports HD p video (= 1080p60 AVC) and BR 3D excellently under DXVA2/EVR.
- A6-3650, $110, or higher. If you think the triple core at 2.1GHz of A6-3500 is weak, any of A6-3650 and higher is recommended. GPU-intensive AMD's own video post-processors (notably Mosquito Noise Reduction and De-blocking) will work only in these models (if you are interested).

Edited by renethx - 2/11/13 at 10:24am

Trinity (2nd Gen APU, 2012)

Common features

- Socket FM2 (not compatible with FM1)
- 32 nm
- Piledriver module (the successor to Bulldozer module) x 2 or x 1
- DDR3-1866, except for A4-5300
- VLIW4 graphics architecture (the same as HD 6950)
- DirectX 11
- GPU can access CPU memory as a HSA (Heterogeneous System Architecture) feature
- Dual Graphics (with a discrete graphics), except for A4-5300

Models

APU	Modules/Cores	Clock	L2 Cache	GPU	Radeon Cores	GPU Clock	TDP	Release
A10-5800K	2/4	3.8/4.2GHz	4MB	HD 7660D	384	800MHz	100W	Q2 2012
A10-5700	2/4	3.4/4.0GHz	4MB	HD 7660D	384	760MHz	65W	Q2 2012
A8-5600K	2/4	3.6/3.9GHz	4MB	HD 7560D	256	760MHz	100W	Q2 2012
A8-5500	2/4	3.2/3.7GHz	4MB	HD 7560D	256	760MHz	65W	Q2 2012
A6-5400K	1/2	TBD	1MB	HD 7540D	192	TBD	65W	Q3 2012
A4-5300	1/2	TBD	1MB	HD 7480D	128	TBD	65W	Q3 2012

Kaveri (3rd Gen APU, 2013)

Common features

- 28 nm
- Steamroller module (the successor to Piledriver module)
- GCN (Graphics Core Next) graphics architecture (the same as HD 7900/7700 Series)
- DirectX 11.1
- Unified memory for CPU and GPU as a HSA (Heterogeneous System Architecture) feature

G--,

I noticed you mentioned overclocking the A6-3500 to 3.4mhz... may I ask what your settings are within the bios to enable that speed? Any issues or instability?

THANKS!

Dave

Are you sure it's really overclocked? I believe the multiplier of these A6-3500's are locked. I tried it on my ASRock A75 motherboard with the multiplier set to 35 and even though CPU-Z shows the increased speed and multiplier, running a benchmark showed no difference. What does work to overclock these is to increase the buss speed from 100mhz to 125mhz or higher and doing so will show the appropriate increase and Turbo mode still works.

That would be strange for sure. Running benchmarks as we speak...

Holy ****, your right!!! Well..........crap. I will be deleting my previous posts and enabling turbo. Thx. BTW Passmark CPU went from 2154 to 2892 by enabling turbo and upping the bus to 125.

Yes, only the K chips can be overclocked via the multiplier.
Also, something I gleaned in research about llano (bus) overclocking,
D-sub output and AHCI won't work.

New trinity article

http://www.fudzilla.com/home/item/25...ineup-detailed

"The lonely A6-5400K and A4-5300 dual-core Trinity parts will both feature 1MB of L2 cache and the same 65W TDP. The A6-5400K Black Edition packs HD 7540D GPU part with 192 GCN stream processors while the A4-5300 will feature HD 7480D GPU with 128 GCN stream processors"

I wonder with the performance bump over llano if the dual core chips will now be able to handle madvr since this was the main reason people wanted 3 or 4 core llano chips right?

192 stream processors should be more than adequate but not sure about the 20% cpu speed bump up over llano.

so far the new graphics architecture is scaling very well, you don't need as many steam processors and you get better performance plus lot lower power consumption.

i think trinity (at least the a10) will be my next upgrade, i'll be going from a amd athlonII x3 and a hd4830...it will be a step up in performance and a huge decrease in power requirements!

can't wait!

A summary in my previous post.

Haven't you tried madVR yet? CPU processing power is irrelevant, GPU is everything due to DXVA2 (copy-back) (to AMD; CUVID to NVIDIA, Intel QuickSync to Intel) in LAV Video Decoder. For example, look at this table. At HD i video playback (high*, DXVA2), CPU of A4-3400 is only lightly loaded (27.5% in average), but GPU is heavy loaded (92.9% in average), that resulted in 15.4 ms average rendering time, too close to the threshold value of 16.683 ms, and there were many dropped frames.

A6-5400K's VLIW4 192 cores =~ VLIW5 240 cores, that is roughly 1.5 times better than A4-3400, that may (or may not) be able to handle the high (not just high*) quality setting of madVR.

I´m looking to upgrade later in spring but what motherboard to buy ?

You can't upgrade Llano to Trinity without buying a new Socket FM2 mb. Either Llano + a Socket FM1 A55/A75 chipset mb or Trinity + a Socket FM2 A55/A75/A85X chipset mb.

Sorry!
I have a HD5670 and a Asus M4A88TD-M EVO/USB3 at the moment
I´m going for a new platform, jumpt first generation!

I still get dropped frames when turning copy-back on in LAV on my a6-3500. Suggestions?

You mentioned yadif in this post. You will see dropped frames with yadif even if CPU/GPU usage is not high because of weak memory architecture of Llano (frames buffers have to go back and forth between "system memory" and "video memory" although both use the same physical memory). Try DXVA2 deinterlacing of madVR 0.80. If the problem persists, please post a short clip of the file somewhere, e.g. at 4shared.com (how to make a clip).

Hmm... I config two diff builds (i3-2125 vs A6-3500), of course the AMD one is about 75$ less. So... if I will also use my HTPC for web-browsing too, would the 75$ extra for the i3-2125 be a better choice? I dont do anything but web-browsing, netflix, and watch movies.

PS. That pink chart is great.

As far as playing back videos (streamed from the Internet or local) and web browsing, there is no difference between them in DXVA2 + EVR, and A6-3500 is much better than SNB in DXVA2 (copy-back), Intel Quick Sync + madVR. The only advantage of Core i3 is that it supports dual audio stream, that makes it possible to use a HDMI 1.3 AVR for BR 3D playback (this chart). A workaround for this issue with Llano is add a cheap Radon HD 5450 card ($20 AR) just for audio.

Just getting back to my copy-back problem:
yadif is off, test clip is h264, 1080i, soft cubic 100, 3 tap, 3 tap
Using Madvr .80, so dxva2 should be on by default and ctrl-J confirms interlacing is on. I'll work on a clip.