AMD A-Series APU Smashes IGP Performance Records

[SubZero.it]

These are nice news

Armed with a Radeon HD 6550D graphics core that has 400 stream processors, 8 ROPs, and full DirectX 11 support, AMD A-Series "Llano" accelerated processing unit (APU) was tested to be the fastest integrated graphics solution to date. The tests was run by a forum-member of TweakTown community with early access to engineering samples. On the test-bed was AMD A8-3850 APU, which has four x86-64 cores clocked at 2.90 GHz, and the Radeon HD 6550D IGP with engine clock of 600 MHz. Standard dual-channel DDR3-1333 MHz memory was used, even though the APU supports faster DDR3-1866 MHz. To seat the test bed, Gigabyte A75M-UD2H was used. It's important to note here that the CPU cores were overclocked to 3.773 GHz (145.13 MHz x 26.0), with an insane core voltage of 1.52V.

The setup was put though three generations of 3DMark benchmark, covering DirectX 9.0c, DirectX 10, and DirectX 11 performance. In 3DMark 06, the setup scores 10,492 points. In 3DMark Vantage, it scored P6160 (performance preset, validation). In 3DMark 11, it scored P1591 (performance preset, validation). More details can be read in the screenshots.

More here

[Mechromancer]

The overclocked voltage is crazy high but we may have a great little APU to get people started off with. Fantastic news! I foresee a lot of a lot of A-series builds for friends and family in my future. Congrats to AMD.





...lets hope B1 Zambezi is a whole helluva lot faster than B0.

[imamage]

Looks like we get a winner from AMD for OEM market
Since the graphic performance is more impressive than I expected

I may start selling out my 905e+880G ITX build and replace it with APU

[informal]

Now what happens when you do Crossfire X with some of the 400SP discrete parts? :-)

[Hornet331]

Nice higher then expected igp frequency, looks very good.
But they forgot to mention that the ram was clocked to 2320mhz to reach the 6,1k points in Vantage.

Stock is 4,4K:
amd-llano-default-3dmark-vantage_169543.jpg

But even that is better then anything right now then any other igp so far.

[Manicdan]

what cards can it be paired up with? are any current 400sp gpus even that fast?

[Hornet331]

You can pair it with either a HD5550 GDDR5 or HD5570 with DDR3 they are in the same range sadly theres no 6-series card with 400sps (oly 480), a HD5570 with GDDR5 score around 5-5,5k in vantage.

I am really impressed how much they got out of the limited bandwidth, looking forward for game benches.

[informal]

Nice higher then expected igp frequency, looks very good.
But they forgot to mention that the ram was clocked to 2320mhz to reach the 6,1k points in Vantage.

Stock is 4,4K

But even that is better then anything right now then any other igp so far.

Radeon 6550M specs here.

Manufacturer AMD
Radeon HD 6500M Series

Radeon HD 6570M 400@650MHz

Radeon HD 6550M 400@600MHz

Radeon HD 6530M 400@500MHz
Codename Capilano-PRO
Pipelines 400 - unified
Core Speed * 600 MHz
Shader Speed * 600 MHz
Memory Speed * 900 MHz
Memory Bus Width 128 Bit
Memory Type DDR3

Radeon 6550M scores from link above(with core i3/i5):
Stock Frequency settings.
3Dmark 11 no data
3Dmark Vantage P3000-P3700 (depending on system used for comparison)
3Dmark 2006 7100-7800 (depending on system used for comparison)

Llano A8-3850 APU:
Stock Frequency settings:
3Dmark 11 P1148
3Dmark Vantage P4400
3Dmark 2006 7650

Llano wins over discrete card that has 128bit dedicated memory controller. Fact: there is no memory bottleneck going on when Llano is in question ;-) (as you may remember our discussion a few months ago :-) )

[Hornet331]

Wait why are we looking at mobile results? isnt that the desktop chip?
The mobile will either have a slower cpu (results lower score) or slower gpu (results in lower score) so they stay in reasonable thermals.

In the desktop segment they are still bandwidht starved. Just look how a HD5570 with gddr5 scores 1k more points and a HD5550 (with only 320 sps and 50mhz less clock but gddr5) is also pretty close.
Of course you can argure the better cpu yields more points, but one of the worse results I found for a HD5570 with ddr3 is ~4400 points on a stock Phenom quadcore (and that is below avarage) a stock GDDR5 HD5570 on the same phenom quad scores ~5200 points.

Again as said they did a good job with llano and I am impressed how they managed the bandwidht bottleneck (because id expected it to be worse then a compareable card with ddr3 who has all the bandwidth for itself).

[SubZero.it]

Llano wins over discrete card that has 128bit dedicated memory controller. Fact: there is no memory bottleneck going on when Llano is in question ;-) (as you may remember our discussion a few months ago :-) )

Yeah I remember that discussion though the performance is really surprising considering most of all that this can fit into a notebook XD

[duploxxx]

vcore in OC should be taken with a grain of salt, it even might be that the SW doesn't see this correct. Mem was way higher and also the GPU clock was increased a lot.

would like to see the score of the baseline (NO OC) with 1866mem settings, afterall that is supported for few SKU

You can pare the APU with many more Graphics BTW then 5500series it has nothing to do with equal radeon cores but once you go over a certain type there will be limitations, just like the mobile configs.

Ilets see how real games will be influenced by the memory bandwidth.

[Sesto Sento]

that's some quite amazing scores, for a integrated gpu

in 3d mark 2006 it scores more or less the same (900 points difference...) as an old machine i have here...

core2 duo E8400 @ 4.1ghz
2 gb ddr2 @ 900 mhz 4-4-3-5
Ati Radeon 3870 @ default

Score: 11381 3D Marks

[Mech0z]

When is it going to be released?

[Hornet331]

I think most games fps will be less influenced by the memory bandwidth.

Actually the RV8xx core love bandwidth, just look at the tomshardware review I linked. With just faster ram (Gddr5 with 1000mhz vs DDR3 900mhz) it yields you 10-15% with no aa and 20% with aa for the HD5550 and 13-22% with no AA 26% with AA for the HD5570.

And I second the request to see it with DDR3 1866.

[informal]

Wait why are we looking at mobile results? isnt that the desktop chip?
The mobile will either have a slower cpu (results lower score) or slower gpu (results in lower score) so they stay in reasonable thermals.

In the desktop segment they are still bandwidht starved. Just look how a HD5570 with gddr5 scores 1k more points and a HD5550 (with only 320 sps and 50mhz less clock but gddr5) is also pretty close.
Of course you can argure the better cpu yields more points, but one of the worse results I found for a HD5570 with ddr3 is ~4400 points on a stock Phenom quadcore (and that is below avarage) a stock GDDR5 HD5570 on the same phenom quad scores ~5200 points.

Again as said they did a good job with llano and I am impressed how they managed the bandwidht bottleneck (because id expected it to be worse then a compareable card with ddr3 who has all the bandwidth for itself).

To save space I already posted the specs of mobile part.Just look at the memory and core clock speed. It performs better than discrete part with same or similar clock speed(DDR3 for memory) and SP count.

[Manicdan]

i think the perf is too good, dare i say hes faking his results! *gasp*
/discuss
(pls dont actually)

[thematrixhazune]

I've read of a Llano launch tomorrow. Is that even remotely possible? Or is that just mobile?

[matose]

Just mobile tommorow, desktop parts will be released on middle of July

[Mech0z]

Hmm wonder if we will see any Thinkpads with Llano or any other business brands

[Sesto Sento]

Actually the RV8xx core love bandwidth, just look at the tomshardware review I linked. With just faster ram (Gddr5 with 1000mhz vs DDR3 900mhz) it yields you 10-15% with no aa and 20% with aa for the HD5550 and 13-22% with no AA 26% with AA for the HD5570.

And I second the request to see it with DDR3 1866.

Off course it gives you better performance... It's not "just faster ram" it's WAY FASTER RAM... how can you compare 900mhz gddr3 (effective clock 1800mhz) against 1000mhz gddr5 (effective clock 4000mhz)... Even taking the ram timmings into account, the 2.2ghz clock advantage will give you WAY better scores...
That comparison to me is more or less the same as comparing ddr2 @ 800mhz with ddr3 @ 2300 mhz...

[PatRaceTin]

voltage scaling on overclock look bad?

[[XC] Synthetickiller]

Hmm wonder if we will see any Thinkpads with Llano or any other business brands

You've read my mind.

My x200 cannot game w/ HD 3000. I was hoping BD would come out so I could move back to an AMD system, but if these take off, I'll eventually get a thinkpad w/ AMD if its the X2xx series stuff.

[n!Cola]

amd_sabine_b.jpg

[Hornet331]

To save space I already posted the specs of mobile part.Just look at the memory and core clock speed. It performs better than discrete part with same or similar clock speed(DDR3 for memory) and SP count.

Yes and I showed you that the desktop (cards) (which are the equivavlent to the A8 series desktop llano part) with the same specs get more points... :p

And for the third time, the performance is impressive, way better then expected for the top end part, but drawing conclusions on how the mobile parts perform form the top end desktop cpu is meh at best.

Off course it gives you better performance... It's not "just faster ram" it's WAY FASTER RAM... how can you compare 900mhz gddr3 (effective clock 1800mhz) against 1000mhz gddr5 (effective clock 4000mhz)... Even taking the ram timmings into account, the 2.2ghz clock advantage will give you WAY better scores...
That comparison to me is more or less the same as comparing ddr2 @ 800mhz with ddr3 @ 2300 mhz...

Yes and thats exactly what i said, the redwood core still hungers for bandwidth.

[JkS]

I'm really impressed by the idle power consumption, it can beat SB with it.
While the CPU part isn't a top performer, it is still impressive and would be perfect for many applications none the less.