Previews - AMD Athlon 5350 (28nm Kabini)

[wasabi]

Finally. APUs at the right price and TDP.

[HalloweenJack]

Cheap yes, cheerful maybe, can I find a use for one unlikely.

As they say you get what you pay for and you don't get much cpu grunt in that, would be interested to see how it fairs to the latest arm and atom cores, not good i'm suspecting

it kills an atom.....

[mack_5991]

if only they would make their IPC higher on non APU units. How hard is it to switch to smaller manufacturing size ?

[bluevaping]

Athlon 5350+750TI > than A10 7850k and about the same price in a build!
Looking at 3D Mark on Hexus.net default. A10 7850k =1490, Athlon 5350+750TI= 3359

I didn't have to use the same amount or faster ram in Athlon build because 750Ti has good VRAM and Speed. This build may not work for everyone because they want their gaming computer to be their main computer and do work with it. I have a work laptop not built for gaming. And I am not a huge gamer. I would just fire this up to play a game and that's it.

[Brewster0101]

ASRock AM1B-ITX still has ps2 socket. Would have thought it would have been better for two more usb ports.

[shaithis]

Good for streaming and video, then? Wonder if it'll support 3D output for blu-rays...

I'll be testing that myself tonight once I've built my system.

[kompukare]

ASRock AM1B-ITX still has ps2 socket. Would have thought it would have been better for two more usb ports.

Nah, I like me some PS/2 ports. Never have driver support issues, are (theoretically) capable of proper n-key rollover and pretty much guaranteed to supported by all OS and any bootdisc and so on. Plus, on some motherboards a PS/2 keyboard can be set to act as a power button.

[Biscuit]

I was looking at that ASRock with the 19v input. Usually if you are powering your PC from a brick you would use a PicoPSU to split the power off to the hard drives, how would you do that with the ASRock? Are you going to end up needing a separate brick for distribution?

[DanceswithUnix]

I was looking at that ASRock with the 19v input. Usually if you are powering your PC from a brick you would use a PicoPSU to split the power off to the hard drives, how would you do that with the ASRock? Are you going to end up needing a separate brick for distribution?

I believe you can pull a few watts from the motherboard, enough to power a laptop drive. Given cost is everything and the cheapest new drives you can buy are 2.5" 320G or 500G drives, that seems enough.

Edit to add: Asrock site lists among the internal connectors:

- 1 x SATA Power Connector

and in accessories:

- 1 x SATA Power Cable

And another edit to further add:

The downloadable manual isn't clear what is included or how much power you can draw, but under the bit describing the use of a 19v power brick it says "please use the onboard SATA power connector to get the power for HDDs". So plural, but still no exact figure.

[billybear]

Yep, I'm thinking HTPC/NAS build with Plex. Any chance of that Windows with Bing to run on this or for some OEM to make a sub £120/£150 build?

[Biscuit]

I believe you can pull a few watts from the motherboard, enough to power a laptop drive. Given cost is everything and the cheapest new drives you can buy are 2.5" 320G or 500G drives, that seems enough.

Edit to add: Asrock site lists among the internal connectors:

- 1 x SATA Power Connector

and in accessories:

- 1 x SATA Power Cable

And another edit to further add:

The downloadable manual isn't clear what is included or how much power you can draw, but under the bit describing the use of a 19v power brick it says "please use the onboard SATA power connector to get the power for HDDs". So plural, but still no exact figure.

Thanks for that. Given there is 4 SATA ports it would be interesting if you could drive 4 hard drives from that SATA power port. I would still be hesitant given ASRocks reputation with power circuitry on some of its FM2 boards, definitely let someone else be the guinea pig methinks!

[watercooled]

@Hexus: Cheers for running those discrete card benchmarks; they're really interesting yet no-one else seems to have done them yet!

Quick note though - I only spotted that review by chance, since it's been added on to the preview page. An in-forum news-bar bump might get it some more views?

Something else which caught my attention in that review is how well it compares to the uber-expensive i5-Y, in terms of both performance and power efficiency!

[DanceswithUnix]

Thanks for that. Given there is 4 SATA ports it would be interesting if you could drive 4 hard drives from that SATA power port. I would still be hesitant given ASRocks reputation with power circuitry on some of its FM2 boards, definitely let someone else be the guinea pig methinks!

Knew I read it somewhere. From Ian Cutress, the Anandtech motherboard reviewer:

"ASRock have told me that the SATA power should power one device, maybe two depending on power draw. So if you need an ODD, that limits storage to PCIe or mini-PCIe cards."

Quote from the comments section of http://www.anandtech.com/show/7869/a...19v-dcin-model

[Biscuit]

Well thats a bit of a bummer, guess a picoPSU is still the way to go!

[DanceswithUnix]

Well thats a bit of a bummer, guess a picoPSU is still the way to go!

PicoPSU seems a very expensive way of powering such a cheap system.

Something like this http://www.silverstonetek.com/produc...id=458&area=en where the fan only spins if things get rather hot would seem a good way forward. About £60 cheaper, probably less efficient but if it burns through an extra 5W how low would it take to get through £60 of leccy?

That one only comes with 3 sata power plugs, would have to use one of the Molex plugs to do the last HDD.

Edit to add: Yes I am considering building a new server with one of these, so just putting out my thoughts so far. My current box sits there with all 4 cores of the FM1 cpu at 800MHz and loaded about 20%, so I think one of these would do fine.

[Rob_B]

...About £60 cheaper, probably less efficient but if it burns through an extra 5W how low would it take to get through £60 of leccy?

5W/day ~ 90p/month so 5.5yrs!