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i wish we could get clarification on whether the four-core llano's have 480 or just 400 shaders...........?
resolution? settings? It's meaningless without any of these, just a picture of a pretty graph....
Hope it is as good as they say though.
Be great if Intel were on the back foot, and they finally had to start cutting their costs to compete!
Intel's IGP has always been pretty dreadful for actual gaming though. AMDs has generally been a little stronger (whilst still no match for a dedicated gpu). Sounds great for a HTPC though, I wonder what the power draw will be like...
World + Dog has already guessed that they will be faster for games than an Intel chip, but much slower on CPU tasks...
The unanswered questions for me are:
- Power consumption - very important for HTPC, especially idle & H264 playback?
- How fast, fast enough to really game or not and fast enough for video IQ enhancements?
- Compared to Core iX & discrete card with same graphics power & what the bang per ££ is on that.
I reckon it's quite likely a Core i3/i5 + Radeon 6570 (or higher) could end up being faster CPU wise, faster on games and have a similar power budget, which could make Llano a bit of a dud unless it comes in at a much lower price.
Considering Llano is aimed at the current Athlon II performance area, I assume a system would be far cheaper than anything i3/i5 based, not to mention when combined with a discrete GPU. No-one is making any extravagant claims about CPU performance, Llano still uses K10 based cores, albeit improved and with a lower TDP. You can get some idea of TDP here - so you're getting a quad core CPU paid with a 6550 @ 65w, pretty impressive considering either of the former usually carry a ~60w TDP alone.
Fast enough to really game? I think that depends on what you consider really gaming, for enthusiasts I can't see it replacing 6870s any time soon but I think something like this would be ideal for most of my friends i.e. not hardcore PC gamers but like to play some older games from time to time but normal IGP limits them to rock-bottom settings.
The CPU component of Llano has twice the L2 cache of an Athlon II X4,second generation Turbo Core which runs across all cores in lower states and improved power gating. On top of this it is 32NM.
In fact even my Core i3 2100 is beaten by a similarly clocked Athlon II X4 in applications like video encoding.
The IGP has UVD3 which is used in AMD HTPC cards so it will be good enough for HTPC use.
The Intel HD2000 IGP in my Core i3 2100 still has the a few bugs with video playback:
http://www.anandtech.com/show/4083/t...-2100-tested/7
However,I use an HD5670 so it does not bother and even though the IGP is not too bad for gaming it is still slow in anything more GPU dependent.
The Llano quad cores have a TDP of between 65W to 100W. This figure is for the CPU,IGP and northbridge(previous AMD processors used a separate northbridge).
The fastest Llano IGP is branded the HD6550 and has 400 shaders(although it could be 480 since it could be used in Crossfire with an HD6570) and has Turbo Core too. It will probably be around the same speed as an HD4650 GDDR3/DDR3. I know a few people who have the slightly faster HD4670 GDDR3/DDR3 and you can play quite a few modern games with it.
According to AMD the HD6570 and HD6670 can be used in Crossfire with an HD6550.
Llano is replacing the existing Athlon II and low end Phenom II processors. Bulldozer is replacing the higher Phenom II processors.
This would mean that the highest Llano is going to priced around the same as a Core i3 and will probably have slightly cheaper motherboards too.
Last edited by CAT-THE-FIFTH; 12-05-2011 at 06:20 PM.
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