Reviews - AMD Llano A8-3500M APU review: redefining mainstream computing

[Jimbo75]

I understand what Llano is about but I would of liked to see more CPU performance, Intel have managed it; why is that?

Llano has increased IPC over Propus by about 5%, SB increased IPC by about 11% over Nehalem.

I don't believe the GPU trade off is worth crippling CPU performance for, general laptop users were fine with the performance of integrated graphics. All AMD need to do was Integrate a low powered GPU with an updated feature set.

General laptop users are fine with a dual core from 5 years ago, except the battery life is pretty bad. You can't talk about "general laptop users" not needing extra graphics horsepower while claiming they need extra cpu horsepower. They don't. General laptop users don't even know which cpu they have.

I can't wait to see the desktop version and how much more headroom you'll be able to get with GPU disabled. Intel CPUs gain massively with the GPU Disabled. AMD could of had made mobile bulldozer CPU's but they don't plan too why.

They do plan too. And funnily enough one got demo'd today. Expect that in 9-12 months.

http://semiaccurate.com/2011/06/14/a...rinity-laptop/

I know tons of people who have replaced a desktop PC with a laptop and want good performance.

And thats what they will get. Llano is far more powerful than what the vast majority of pc users have and need. AMD is on the right track with this, the mainstream does not need more IPC improvements. Web browsing and media and some gaming with good battery life - that's what the mainstream is all about and for that there is no better Laptop available today than what you see reviewed here.

[Biscuit]

I dont understand the 'the CPU isnt powerful enough' arguments at all. At the price point they are likely to be put it, if you need something more powerful then what Llano has to offer then your better off with a desktop anyway. AMDs problem hasnt been a lack in performance as such for quite a while now. They are not as powerful as intel, granted, but for 99.9% of tasks you would never notice the difference. As has already been mentioned, a lot of software comes with GPU optimization and if this kind of platform kicks off (as i suspect it probably will) the approach to development will do nothing but grow.

What makes the GPGPU approach really appealing in llano is the fact that even whilst running benchmarks which stress the GPU, the computer draws less power and gives you better battery life. In a world where laptops are starting to fight for their ground against mobile OS systems which are more angled at power saving from the beginning, i think this the correct path for AMD to take!

I still use a 4 year old macbook pro with 2.2Ghz C2D and 8600GT and its pretty much good enough for my needs, infact i have been looking at downgrading to a E350 based netbook purely for the battery life and mobility. I dont think that would have any problems with future tasks for the next few years given the drift towards more energy efficient systems. If these chips land in a smaller size platform (11-13") i may end up changing my mind as they seem to offer a pretty damn near perfect blend of performance and battery life. Slam it in a decent looking case and what more could you want.

Personally i think people need to stop getting all tied up in benchmarks, if your doing anything other than gaming they are barely even relevant to 99% of people.

[Blackmage]

Well may'be you guys are right, may'be I'm looking at the concept all wrong. I Just don't understand why AMD will release "Fusion", Fusion shows that AMD see there is still a clear demand for RAW Computing performance even in the Notebook Market. I'm yet to see Open CL take off, I don't see an up take in gaming for the general user. The first question someone asks me when they want me to recommend a notebook is " I don't want it to be slow". For guys on this forum Llano is great as you'll be able to play your games on the GO but for my sister/mother/father/aunt etc for example who doesn't really care about gaming the GPU will never get used for more than flash video. My sister is more likely to encode a video or rip a CD to Itunes or do some picture editing in photoshop for facebook.

Yes the GPU can be used to encode video's but unless she understand that; she won't be going into the CCC to use it. Can you even enable Open CL in the windows 7 Operating system? Nope, until it's implemented there isn't a great benefit the simple user. Where as the CPU performance will be more beneficial NOW, CPU computing is not dead and won't be for a long while to come. One point I won't question is the battery life, it's an excellent platform in the sense of efficiency.

or then again may'be i'm getting it all wrong...

Anyway white Flag as I've said all that I need to on this topic.

[Biscuit]

I don't see an up take in gaming for the general user. The first question someone asks me when they want me to recommend a notebook is " I don't want it to be slow".

This seems to be your most important point, and its irrelevant because as stated, a 4-5 year old C2D wouldn't be slow for them given the usages your have suggested never mind a quad core llano.

Given you have already suggested that llano might have limited proofing for the future, my argument would be; if the CPU is good enough then rather than just throwing an even more powerful CPU in there which will probably never get utilized more than 60-70%, why not give them something which has the facility to run a decent amount of GPGPU tasks aswell as this is something which will probably start being facilitated better in the near future?

[Blackmage]

This seems to be your most important point, and its irrelevant because as stated, a 4-5 year old C2D wouldn't be slow for them given the usages your have suggested never mind a quad core llano.

Given you have already suggested that llano might have limited proofing for the future, my argument would be; if the CPU is good enough then rather than just throwing an even more powerful CPU in there which will probably never get utilized more than 60-70%, why not give them something which has the facility to run a decent amount of GPGPU tasks aswell as this is something which will probably start being facilitated better in the near future?

Valid point, but it has to be implemented at an OS level first. Which Apple have done, but Microsoft haven't, Yet.

Then what happens to all the other users who don't have a GPU capable of Open CL, does Microsoft push Open CL on a platform that doesn't have a hardware standard? I don't buy a laptop for now I expect it to last for a while; who's to say that openCL will take off? It's been here since for a while and it's uptake has been slow.

[Jedibeeftrix]

i want one.

just need to know who can stick the 35W 400 shader version into the smallest chassis.

12.5" please................?

[scaryjim]

... I Just don't understand why AMD will release "Fusion", Fusion shows that AMD see there is still a clear demand for RAW Computing performance ...

No, Fusion shows that AMD realise there is a need for balance between CPU compute ability and GPU compute ability / graphics. And given that web browsers are moving towards GPU rendering, flash can be GPU accelerated (and casual flash gaming is one of the biggest growth gaming markets), and a number of applications are moving onto GPU compute, they might have a point

Valid point, but it has to be implemented at an OS level first. Which Apple have done, but Microsoft haven't, Yet.

Erm... DX11 compute shader? There's more than one solution to GPU computing. It will be a while yet before mainstream tasks are shunted onto a GPU compute paradigm, but as I highlighted above there are still plenty of mainstream tasks that *will* benefit from improved GPUs now. Word processing, web browsing, watching flash videos / DVDs / blurays: these will *not* benefit significantly from as faster CPU in the future, as more of the work will be shunted off onto the GPU...

Anyway white Flag as I've said all that I need to on this topic.

Yet you came back for more...? But fair enough: there will always be the difference of opinion on the balance between CPU and GPU in a processor. The simple fact is that Llano was never going to be revolutionary and I don't understand why you're disappointed / surprised that a processor that is architecturally identical to the existing generation has the same performance. The evolution here is the massively enhanced graphical capability: and I think that will appeal to a lot of people.

[watercooled]

Valid point, but it has to be implemented at an OS level first. Which Apple have done, but Microsoft haven't, Yet.

Then what happens to all the other users who don't have a GPU capable of Open CL, does Microsoft push Open CL on a platform that doesn't have a hardware standard? I don't buy a laptop for now I expect it to last for a while; who's to say that openCL will take off? It's been here since for a while and it's uptake has been slow.

You seem to be hell-bent on saying the CPU in Llano is slow? I really don't understand that and much like Biscuit, I use an AMD 5050e for most of my tasks and it's plenty fast enough. Fusion is just a marketing name, and all it really tells me is the CPU and GPU are on the same die. If you encode videos more then watch them then you should probably have a desktop for doing it, but encoding on a Llano is faster than an i3 anyway. And for those people asking for a laptop to be not slow, I really can't see them finding Llano as a bottleneck, stick an SSD in there if you want to make a difference beyond benchmark numbers.

Windows can make use of GPGPU computing already. Now for example, with Windows 7, did you know that if you drag/drop a video onto a media player, Windows will transcode the video on the GPU? You can use OpenCL apps on Windows now.

There are standards for OpenCL hardware, and basically any Unified Shader GPU can run it (read: pretty much any recent GPU), whether that's Nvidia, AMD or Intel (Sandy bridge onwards).

[Irien]

It may be worth re-iterating that for the "general user" who "doesn't want their laptop to be slow", then single biggest performance upgrade is going to be moving to an SSD. If AMD can ensure that Llano laptops are priced at a point where adding a 150ukp SSD still keeps the price under (say) 900ukp, then the best advice we geeks can give family members is to offer to install an SSD for them.

If you ask most (laptop) users what feels slow about their computers, they invariably talk about how long it takes to start up, how long programs take to load (esp web browsers). It is rarely about how long a video takes to encode, because people know that's going to be slow. 10mins or 15mins, it is still a long time! If you can halve the time it takes for their computer to start up, then they'll think it is Christmas.

This really applies to intel or amd laptops. And for AMD/llano, the important thing is that battery life is no longer dreadful, and video/graphics tasks can be offloaded onto the GPU effectively.

The problem is that the big laptop suppliers (Acer, Dell, HP) aren't prepared to stick their necks out and ship SSD-equipped laptops "out of the box" through the main channels. All this needs is a slick marketing campaign, jingle and catchphrase, and off we go!

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

You forget - everyone renders with their £500 laptop and people who own laptops never will play any sort of games. Only rich people are allowed to play games on their laptops as cheap laptops should never be allowed to run any modern game! Intel has NOT made any efforts to massively improve the speed of their IGPs and Ivy Bridge is NOT going have 33% more shaders than Sandy Bridge.

[Zhaoman]

I understand what Blackmage is saying in that, while I am impressed with the design intentions of AMD's Llano, I would probably still be looking to get a laptop with an Intel Sandy Bridge CPU and a discreet GPU because I need to use some semi-demanding applications and the extra processor power of SB is attractive. I would go out on a limb and say a lot of people who read tech reviews like these probably need (or want ) a bit of extra firepower. And for someone like my mum who just needs a laptop to browse the web and use Word then she really doesn't need any GPU power at all.

However Llano seems perfectly suited to recommend to my uni friends who insist that they have no money and must buy an integrated GPU laptop and then go on to complain that it's too slow for playing World of Warcraft that they've somehow gotten into out of nowhere... (true story :/) So Llano would definitely suit a demographic that wants some light gaming but does not need any extra processing power beyond Microsoft Excel. Whether that demographic is 'mainstream' or not, I don't know.

[pp05]

Llano seems ideal if your want to go IGP route. Intel graphics are lacking big time.

Llano appears (I haven't seen benchmark numbers, just demos) to give a similar performace (near enough) of Athlon X2 250 in my main machine. That is more than good enough for general everyday computing on a laptop.