AMD Llano (desktop) reviews

[FlanK3r]

http://www.anandtech.com/show/4478/a...overclocking/1
http://www.anandtech.com/show/4476/amd-a83850-review/1
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/...lano,2975.html
http://www.computerbase.de/artikel/g...rafikleistung/
http://www.computerbase.de/artikel/p...-cpu-leistung/
http://www.guru3d.com/article/amd-a8-3850-apu-review/1
http://pctuning.tyden.cz/hardware/pr...chitektury-1-2
http://www.bjorn3d.com/articles/AMD_...ream/2079.html
http://www.bjorn3d.com/articles/Llan...ance/2087.html
http://www.neoseeker.com/Articles/Ha..._ga_a75m-ud2h/
http://www.pcper.com/reviews/Graphic...e-Sandy-Bridge

next 3:
http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/forum...s-desktop.html
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu...d-a8-3800.html
http://www.hardware.fr/articles/837-...-pari-apu.html

updating from 1.7.2011

http://www.legitreviews.com/article/1649/1/
http://www.techspot.com/review/418-amd-a8-3850-apu/
http://pctuning.tyden.cz/hardware/pr...vykon-spotreba
http://translate.google.com/translat...apu-echilibrat
http://www.overclockersclub.com/revi...850_llano_apu/
http://www.overclockers.com/amd-llan...?utm_source=pr
http://www.pureoverclock.com/article1309.html
http://techreport.com/articles.x/21208
http://www.eteknix.com/motherboards/...d-review-1414/
http://www.planet3dnow.de/vbulletin/...d.php?t=396129
http://www.techwarelabs.com/amd-llano-a8-3850-apu/
http://www.tweakpc.de/hardware/tests...no_apu/s01.php
http://www.nordichardware.se/testlab...marknaden.html

[bamtan2]

it is frustrating that amd's new highest end fusion chip performs like intel's i3-2100 with a $50 graphics card. but if they cost the same price, I guess that makes it sort of a deal. and you're right about the power. PCPER:

"And if you take a look at the AMD A8-3850 compared to the Sandy Bridge based Core i7-2600K, it uses nearly as much power and it does not have a discrete GPU installed while the 2600K does. Despite the poor x86 performance of the A8-3850 APU it seems to be using a lot of power while falling behind."

it remains to be seen if the price : cpu performance : gpu performance will work out so that a bunch of vendors buy this chip. It doesn't have much place with enthusiasts, even ones looking for an HTPC because of the power load. but maybe a niche will be found for it. maybe the price will be irresistible. "The AMD APUs are dirt cheap"

PCPER: "Remember that we are talking about processors that cost a grand total of $135 or so and that includes your [quad core] x86 and GPU processing technology. For that dollar amount, the amount of gaming horsepower in the A8-3850 is truly an impressive feat."

"I think in the coming months we will see much more success for Llano in the notebook market than in the desktop market with the exception of those budget minded users that like a little gaming on the site. "

The only thing I can't swallow is the power load. How does that fit in with laptops. Urg.

[Motiv]

looks like a pretty versatile chip. Cheap, runs games and does the everyday tasks that are required. It looks like it comes down to the simple question. Do you want to run games on this or 3D apps?

If the question is yes, then it's an absolute steal. Intels option can't touch it at all. However, if you're just after encoding stuff, Intels wipes the floor with it.

[freeloader]

Are the chips in stock anywhere yet? (North America)

[duron]

Are the chips in stock anywhere yet? (North America)

will start tomorrow here in HK but korea is already selling them

[eric66]

İnsane gpu power nearly 300 mhz oc thats damn impressive cpu part is sucky but that was no suprise lol

[chuchnit]

Bravo to Hardware Canucks for having a wide array of processors in the charts. Anandtech's preview was a disaster and the review isn't very impressive either.

[Spectrobozo]

overall it looks quite positive as expected... power consumption on the 3850 seems a bit high, but for a HTPC the 3800 would make more sense and fix most of that I think, but even so, considering the IGP performance I think the power consumption is low enough (idle power consumption looks very hard to be beaten by something like a i3 2100 + discrete graphics card, which would achieve the same performance)...
what worries me so far are motherboards price... this platform needs some cheaper MBs, I'm talking about 60-70 USD.

overclocking seems good, some 900MHz core + 2200Mhz+ memory clock IGP action must be quite interesting.

but it's always a bit disappointing to see a newly released quad core being beaten even in heavily multi-threaded softwares in some cases by a dual core... but at the end what matters is the price/perf anyway.

[generics_user]

Great review from Hardwarecanucks, while i was slightly disappointed with their latest tests their Llano review takes care of every advantage and disadvantage you get with and leaves no open questions

overall it looks quite positive as expected... power consumption on the 3850 seems a bit high, but for a HTPC the 3800 would make more sense and fix most of that I think, but even so, considering the IGP performance I think the power consumption is low enough (idle power consumption looks very hard to be beaten by something like a i3 2100 + discrete graphics card, which would achieve the same performance)...
what worries me so far are motherboards price... this platform needs some cheaper MBs, I'm talking about 60-70 USD.

overclocking seems good, some 900MHz core + 2200Mhz+ memory clock IGP action must be quite interesting.

but it's always a bit disappointing to see a newly released quad core being beaten even in heavily multi-threaded softwares in some cases by a dual core... but at the end what matters is the price/perf anyway.

Boards are reatiling for 60€ in central europe, fully featured boards start @70€ which is similar to 1155 boards

i'm sure that A55 boards are going to start at 40€ once they arrive with the cheaper Llano models

[PatRaceTin]

How far overclocking

[XRL8]

Why in the hell anands boy put 16GB of 1866 slow cas ram in there ?! Anand is a joke .They start the article by saying that cpu is a disappointment , then the guy whines because he doesnt know how to overclock it.
4x4Gb jesus, and they benchmarked it with it ,and power consumption too.

Ian Cutrasses review on anand is beyond fail.He didnt even state which intel cpu he uses, (probablu 2500k).Gaming benchmarks are run on 5850 for some odd reason, even in crossfire.Therea are only two data points, two memory sets, but not described which used wehre and on which platform.Disaster.

[chuchnit]

Anandtech quality of articles suck nowadays. All of them.

[slaveondope]

OEM dream chip, agree Anand was -, Canucks did a very level headed review.

[Motiv]

Why in the hell anands boy put 16GB of 1866 slow cas ram in there ?! Anand is a joke .They start the article by saying that cpu is a disappointment , then the guy whines because he doesnt know how to overclock it.
4x4Gb jesus, and they benchmarked it with it ,and power consumption too.

Ian Cutrasses review on anand is beyond fail.He didnt even state which intel cpu he uses, (probablu 2500k).Gaming benchmarks are run on 5850 for some odd reason, even in crossfire.Therea are only two data points, two memory sets, but not described which used wehre and on which platform.Disaster.

To be fair, I thought anands review was pretty decent. It's showing the same results as everyone else and well written. Not sure who Ian Cutrasse is, who you mention, or where that review is on Anands site. So I can't help there. I know anand's review the cpu was a 2105.

[ajaidev]

I am plenty confused about pcper review in power consumption matters:



power-load.jpg

These say that the difference between 2100 and A3850 in GPU burn is 42w and in CPU burn its 50W. Now the review of bjorn3d which states the difference of 19w and 7w respectively.

http://www.bjorn3d.com/read.php?cID=2079&pageID=10742

Yep something weird indeed. Also i have noticed a lot of reviewers using the old GTX 2xx series for the review lol whats up with that.

The cpu seems good enough based on the reviews but its still more expensive for what it offers. I will wait to get it for the HTPC after the turbo cores also come why are they so late anyways? I hate AMD when they delay something without a real reason?

I will however go ahead and get a llano based laptop asap that is if it shows up before Aug otherwise its 14r based i3 + 5650m for me "I know but its on sale"

[XRL8]

There are 3 Llano reviews on anand today, the one i was talking about is about asrock a75 mobo with llano and overclocking.
its this one:
http://www.anandtech.com/show/4478/a...o-overclocking
Anands article while ok, still was missing alot.Like memory overclocking and more results.Im especially interested in IMC analysis+gpu performance scaling from the memory clock and latency side.

overclocking Llano definitely boosts up performance in spite of the thing that asrock artictle on anand says (they claim theres a tdp wall)

[undone]

This is damn interesting.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/...o,2975-18.html

More interesting is the fact that AMD’s Llano-based APU finishes the test before the Core i3 (despite the fact that Futuremark awards Intel a higher score), and only averages 4 W higher average power use. See? Those TDP numbers can be a little tricky when vendors don’t use the same methodology for rating their parts.

[SKYMTL]

Great review from Hardwarecanucks, while i was slightly disappointed with their latest tests their Llano review takes care of every advantage and disadvantage you get with and leaves no open questions

Thanks for that and yes, I take full responsibility for a very small slide in the content within some of our reviews. The details of why this happened begin and end with my professional (no the site isn't my primary source of employment) and personal life taking up more time than I thought possible. I won't bore you with the details.

I can however promise you that the hammer is back down.

[-Boris-]

It would be nice if it had a bit higher clocks and a nice turbo. A Phenom 965 is cheaper. And as it looks now with motherboard prices you can get an Athlon II 4X with a cheap mATX AM3 board and an external GPU for roughly the same money. And that's alot more flexible. And for a few bucks more it's even much faster.

[SKYMTL]

The cpu seems good enough based on the reviews but its still more expensive for what it offers. I will wait to get it for the HTPC after the turbo cores also come why are they so late anyways? I hate AMD when they delay something without a real reason?

From my understanding, there is no delay. The A6 3600 and A8 3800 should be released in parallel (or very close to) the non-turbo chips but I will admit that I've seen roadmaps placing them in Q3 2011. So there is some conflicting info out there.

Im especially interested in IMC analysis+gpu performance scaling from the memory clock and latency side.

Ask and you shall receive:

Quick GPU analysis

Latency & Memory Speed Effect on IGP Performance

Dual Graphics Performance

[Motiv]

Thanks for that and yes, I take full responsibility for a very small slide in the content within some of our reviews. The details of why this happened begin and end with my professional (no the site isn't my primary source of employment) and personal life taking up more time than I thought possible. I won't bore you with the details.

I can however promise you that the hammer is back down.

I must say I'm waiting for the part on overclocking on your review. You seemed to indicate that there is some terrific gains from overclocking the memory and cpu quite aggressively.

[-Boris-]

It would be nice if it had a bit higher clocks and a nice turbo. A Phenom 965 is cheaper. And as it looks now with motherboard prices you can get an Athlon II 4X with a cheap mATX AM3 board and an external GPU for roughly the same money. And that's alot more flexible. And for a few bucks more it's even much faster.

[kl0012]

It seems like only xbitlabs authors put some effort to bench GPGPU. This is strange since according to AMD the GPGPU is one of the major selling points of Llano.
Any way, surprisingly good idle power. Hybrid CF disappoints at this point. Good value - 135$ price points looks just right.

[repman]

Why in the hell anands boy put 16GB of 1866 slow cas ram in there ?! Anand is a joke .They start the article by saying that cpu is a disappointment , then the guy whines because he doesnt know how to overclock it.
4x4Gb jesus, and they benchmarked it with it ,and power consumption too.

Ian Cutrasses review on anand is beyond fail.He didnt even state which intel cpu he uses, (probablu 2500k).Gaming benchmarks are run on 5850 for some odd reason, even in crossfire.Therea are only two data points, two memory sets, but not described which used wehre and on which platform.Disaster.

I think they used i3-2105, but I agree that review is horrible, the power consumption doesn't even state if it's CPU only or is it system power consumption.


BTW did anyone compare the IQ in games? I've seen a post about Intel's GPU having lower IQ for better FPS.

[XRL8]

From my understanding, there is no delay. The A6 3600 and A8 3800 should be released in parallel (or very close to) the non-turbo chips but I will admit that I've seen roadmaps placing them in Q3 2011. So there is some conflicting info out there.



Ask and you shall receive:

Quick GPU analysis

Latency & Memory Speed Effect on IGP Performance

Dual Graphics Performance

Yes your review seems to be more detailed , im eagearly awaiting OC results plus some analysis ,seems like llano overclocking is a harder one, IMC and memory OC would be welcome too .From what ive seen llano is capable of very fast memory speeds.

Taking into account that llanos gpu is capable of very high oc from stock.Its reasonable to think that it becomes more memory starved too.So Doing a memory speed analysis at OCed cpu+gpu +some high mem speeds would be great too :P