News - AMD APU: What do consumers think?

[LeProberto]

"shut up and take my money!"

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

@Cat-The-Fifth

Ok I appreciate you've literally done research with these chips.

1) I have read reviews but *not* the Hexus ones that readers such as your good self wrote. Nonetheless I've read enough.
2) No I didn't appreciate the discussion was limited to desktop parts. Obviously laptop APUs exist and I guess those are of primary interest to me.
3) True, I did answer the question selfishly from my own perspective / needs / wants.

At the end of the day, you're right, for 99% of people who just browse, email, use office software, some hi-def video & flash, APUs are perfect. Hell, Brazos would be fine for most. And brazos can decode & output 1080p which is more than enough for future video needs until beyond the life of most laptops so even APUs are overkill for this. But I've read that people perceive brazos as slower with medium-heavy multitasking.

Brazos is comparable to Atom BTW. Regarding multi-tasking I really pushed both the A6 and Core i3 based systems. Dozens of FF tabs,media player in the background,image editing software,etc, all at the same time. In a blind test I would not be able to tell the systems apart for normal usage.

Even something like ripping a CD is actually limited by the speed of the disc drive used.

Also,another thing,make sure you read newer reviews too for the desktop parts. The Anandtech review of the HD4000 had the A8 retested with much newer drivers than the launch reviews last year:

http://www.anandtech.com/show/5771/t...3770k-review/9

The IGP with el-cheapo 1600MHZ DDR3,is around HD5570 to GT440 level. That is around the same performance as a £40 to £50 add-in card for a CPU which costs around £70 to £80.

But I do want some half decent gaming performance (in a laptop) which will last a good few years (5+) for most 'average' games. And for that, I've read *plenty* of reviews where the APUs just don't cut the mustard compared to i3/i5 + discrete gpu (often, not always nvidia). They can often play all but the most demanding games on all but the most detailed settings at ok framerates at best. Which usually means that in 2-4 years' time, they'll be struggling. I accept I'm an enthusiast but this is an enthusiast website.

Time and time again I've seen the intels+discrete convincingly outperform (and I really want AMD to be value kings like in the old days!). Yes the APUs can be cheaper but not by enough when the total laptop price is taken into account. And this is what I meant by AMD not being able to undercut Intel enough - they just can't make a laptop's total price *much* cheaper when the CPU/APU is just one component and there are other fixed costs of screen, hdd, ram, keyboard, chassis, design, marketing etc. The APU may look a lot cheaper than an individual i3 but the total system cost is important.

Your link to the Samsung A10-4600M for £600 is a good example. For the same price (well £608), I can get an Acer Timeline M3 with core i5 and 640M graphics.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B...HKRAWBRJ7QFRQ4

It's very similar in performance and battery life. With an i5 it definitely edges in cpu performance. It's likely very competitive in GPU too. The below charts show the M3 absolutely wasting trinity with A10-4600M + HD7660G (i.e. same as the Sammy). Ok, this one has i7 and my £607 was for an i5 but I'll happily wager that the i5 isn't that far behind in gaming performance.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/5831/a...m-a-new-hope/6

*And* the 640M has the added track record of reliable optimus performance vs some troubles/inefficiencies with the AMD dual graphics configurations that I've read about. Bottom line is that AMD is not *convincingly* beating intel+nvidia in their combined CPU+GPU+value proposition which is what the whole AMD + ATI merger/llano/trinity thing is all about.

I hope they do one day, but I just don't see it now. All just imho of course.

I'm happy to accept I looked a bit foolish for not reading the article properly - my apologies.
Just wanted to explain what I was going on about and hopefully convince that I'm not actually going mad.

I am very aware of what you can get in the market already. The thing is you can even get laptops with HD7690 cards for under £500.

Yep,a single card setup will be more consistent,but as you admit your pricing for the Trinity A10 laptops was £200 off. Moreover,the Samsung has both the HD7660G and HD7670M too. The HD7660G is the name given to the IGP. The thread over on OcUK is a review of it.

I have not done enough research to directly compare the HD7660G and HD7670M combo,but there are indications it can hit GT650M performance. However,I am following that thread over on OcUK,as people with similar Intel CPU laptops will probably start to chime in,knowing OcUK.

However,do remember that the Acer Timeline M3 is known to run very hot and I have used gaming laptops. Its to be expected from Acer though - Samsung are better made laptops. I would probably get a Lenovo over both of them TBH,but this is what I would do. The £607 Acer also has a dual core Core i5 which as opposed to the dual Core i7 used. You are looking at a 25% clockspeed advantage and a 33% increase in amount of cache over the Core i5 in the £607 Acer M3.

Here is a comparison of the Core i5 2450M against the A10-4600M:

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/...r,3202-13.html

Toms Hardware is not perfect,but they do take the time to use modern benchmarking software,which makes sure both the Intel and AMD CPUs tested are put in the best light.

The Core i5 2450M runs at a clockspeed of 2.5GHZ with Turbo upto 3.1GHZ,whereas the Intel Core i5 2467M runs at a base clockspeed of 1.6GHZ and a Turbo of 2.3GHZ,so the part Toms Hardware tested is clocked around 56% higher than the part in the £607 Acer M3.

If you want something to last 5+ years as you state,you need to get something with good build quality which runs cool. That is my experience from loads of laptops myself. Hot running= absolute fail in the long run.

[SineWave]

I'm building a HTPC, and I was considering going with an Intel Atom D2700 or 2800 board. Until I found out that they don't have a working XP VGA drivers for those, and no x64 drivers at all. In other words, I would have to install Win7 x86 version to make it work. That's horrid! And Atom is actually x64 capable, but they don't seem to support it... Then I looked on the "other side" and there she was: an E350 MBO. Cheaper than the Atom one. MUCH better GPU and drivers for all the OSes I would want to install on it. x64, no problemo. I won't install x64 on it, though, but a very cut down version of XP, so I could run some outboard audio hardware and XBMC on it. XBMC works with DirectX, so an Atom CPU with Intel graphics would make the experience rather unpleasant, and the Intel VGA driver sucks big time, in my humblest opinion btw. I would run Linux on this box, but I need Windows for my audio hardware and that's its primary function.

Everybody who hasn't tried XBMC yet, you should, it's quite addictive. LOL www.xbmc.org

Cheers!

[davesom555]

SineWave, I bought an E350 before, in Windows it should be fine. I had trouble with hardware video acceleration in Linux, at the time (about 6 months ago) there wasn't any support, so HD stuff played really choppy. Does anyone know if this has been fixed now?

[agello24]

great for entry level pc's. not good for gamers.

[dangel]

I built my A8 system pretty much as soon as they were out and it's done nothing but impress me - a single chip providing graphics and four processing cores is really easy to cool (quietly too) and very capable for general computing. I'd echo comments that it's good for HTPCs too - i've built one for a friend and if and when I rebuild mine i'd probably look at it. The platform itself was/is great too - I had USB 3.0 way before my intel gear did along with SATA 3 etc. Cracking bit of kit and it's probably ignored in the main because intel clean up on single core performance. A shame because when your encoding MP3's four cores is much better than two (even if the two are marginally faster per core) for example.

[fireicer]

I just received my new Assus FM1A55-V board and the A8 black edition with XMM3 memory. I bought a HD Radeon PCIE card with it so i have no idea what the on-board stand alone graphics are.

I dont use windows and neither does my circles so its Slax and Gentoo. WOW what an awesome system for this. I installed slax current V14 installed the ATI driver no problems and straight out rocket fast all the way. Kernel compile on huge SMP meaning every single kernel driver is either built in or as a module. The whole kernel took just over 10 min to compile and install. I only installed 4gb memory thats 2x 2gb @ 1600mhz. Really really fast.

As far as stunning openGL graphics out the box go its awesome. Video, multitasking apps, kdenlive video rendering, blender are all smooth and crisp with fast processing times and no desktop lag at all. Ok i only been on it for past 12 hours but its a really good 12 hours.

One thing i would say to AMD is. Improve the stock cooler. 48'c is not the best cooling even with 3 90mm case fans lol.

I would have thought without using an add-on graphics card to dual graphics the APU you would be looking at HD3850 type performance typically which is pretty awesome for on chip graphics. Beats Intel HD lol.

My setup: Graphics card HD6450, AMD A8 Black edition, 4gb of XMM3 corsair mem, 250gb sata3 hdd, f1a55v mobo and a cheap case with a 650watt power supply, cost £260GBP so for this kind of out the box linux opengl compiz crazy translucency, video core processing, multitasking, smp linux computer running Slax and Gentoo it is awesome. Cant find a bad thing to say about it.

Put simply: if AMD keep system hardware like this up windows will be finished pretty soon as the linux desktop just loves it. so so smooth and i not even put in any SSD or raid options yet so its bare basics apart from the added 6450 1gb from assus.

Increase the density and core performance of this product line and AMD have an unbeatable product unless Intel come up with something remotely close to the ATI HD graphics arch. Anyone who is not impressed by the performance of a 60 quid ATI HD card has allot of cash to spend on expensive high end tech. For the budget market it really opens the door to people who cant afford the higher priced stuff. It actually enables that entertainment and usability for less.

I should also mention that running games through wine on Slax on this settup runs very well. Fear3 avg around 50fps in wine with this 6450 1gb assus card through the analogue monitor, all set to max and vertical sync disabled. Seemed to play very stable to. Only glitch is the Stock cooler AMD supply with the chip, its for want of a better word "crap".

For less than 300GBP man its awesome. This year has been something quite amazing in a next generation of computing products. Its a real leap forward.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Have you tried the HD6550D on the A8?? Under Windows it is faster than an HD6450,so should be the same under Linux.

[baius]

...an E350 MBO. Cheaper than the Atom one. MUCH better GPU and drivers for all the OSes...

I bought an E350 MoBo too, as a basis for an always-on server. In addition to your reasons, I wanted an 'ultra'-low-power system that could host multiple WD Green HDDs and play back occasional 1080p content.

Asus' E351M1M Pro was perfect for me. I went for mATX over ITX so I could fit a PCIe x1 TV Tuner and a PCIe x4 RAID card. (x8 would have been better, but I couldn't find a supporting E350 mobo.)

The CPU/APU is very SLOW, but I knew that. My main PC 'broke', and so I plugged my monitor into the E350 whilst I fixed my main one. The experience was irksome. However, this exceeded the parameters which it was bought for, so I lived with it.

I can't comment on the normal-energy solutions that AMD have developed recently, as I'm Intel-based atm, but my AMD 30W (with idle disks and TV card) is close to perfect.

[aqua1955]

The thing that always has concerned me on AMD is the warmth that still is out of control.
When I walk into a shop and feel left on laptops they are always warm. It kept me to Intel i5
with 8gb on the laptop and the i5 with 16gb on the desktop. Using my gear for rendering it works smooth. The accelerator from 2.8 upto 3.3 from the i5 processor make them great computers to work with.