AMD Llano (desktop) reviews

[Stevethegreat]

The 3800 will show up later.

No word about ITX huh?

http://motherboardnews.com/2011/06/0...get-previewed/

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...o-FM1-mini-ITX

Yeah but when "later". Is it August, October? I'd wish if AMD was more clear about her roadmaps, A8-3800 was supposed to be released simultaneously (or close to) a8-3850. I have to have a system ready within July, the 1st of July release for Llano made me hopeful but I guess I'll have to look for alternatives...

[lowfat]

I have an A6-3650 and some cheap $50 (after MIR) ECS board coming to me to upgrade my server. The combo should serve me perfectly.

[hokiealumnus]

Wheres the in depth article about llano overclocking that was supposed to come out this week ?

I'm working on one of those too. Well, not too awfully in-depth, just some tips for doing it and showing results.

One thing that seriously impressed me was RAM scaling. AMD warned reviewers they shouldn't use high-latency RAM, so I went with an DDR3-1866/CL8 kit. Overclocked, I dropped the divider so it was running pretty close to there. Currently I'm running benches with a stronger kit; timings are about the same (8-10-8-24 as opposed to initial 8-9-8-24), but it's running at ~DDR3-2200 and the difference was palpable.

One example - just changing the RAM gained 76 points in 3DMark11. That doesn't sound like much, but considering the relatively low 3DMark11 score to start with, the small increase in RAM frequency gained 5.2%.

Published: Overclocking AMD’s A8-3850 Llano APU Enjoy!

[Manicdan]

Published: Overclocking AMD’s A8-3850 Llano APU Enjoy!

i think we need a price/perf OC review soon. more expensive ram really helps, but then it might make it too expensive to justify

[hokiealumnus]

Well, part of the problem with that is they don't make memory like that any more. Heh. That kit is rated DDR3-2400 / 9-11-9-24 and will (obviously from the article) run DDR3-2200 plus at 8-10-8-24. The closest thing on newegg right now is a DDR3-2200 / 7-10-10-27 G.Skill kit. Thus, it's pretty moot. I was just showing what the difference would be, not necessarily suggesting people go out and buy extremely high-performance RAM for their APU system.

[vitaminc]

Interesting processor for very low end HTPCs...

[mattkosem]

Interesting processor for very low end HTPCs...

Erm, I believe the "very low-end HTPC" market is mostly Ion/Atom or Zacate. This isn't even a close comparison to those. I suppose mid-range would be more accurate? Once BD comes out, this chip and mobo that I'm playing with now will definitely replace the 785G/Athlon II 620/Geforce G210 in my Media Center. I have no performance issues to speak of with that box, but the added graphics performance and smaller power envelope make it a great fit!

Purely out of curiosity, if quad-core and low-midrange graphics spell "very low end" for HTPC to you, what is high end? 6 cores and any greater graphics capabilities would be completely wasted on an HTPC, in general HTPC terms (TV, Movies, Web Content, etc.) at least. Frankly, you could easily get by with far less than this in 90% of HTPC setups.

--Matt

[XRL8]

Published: Overclocking AMD’s A8-3850 Llano APU Enjoy!

Thanks, just like i thought.When CPU+Gpu i OC`d ,ram makes a big difference even beyond 1866 (which is not always the case with stock).