The Brazos Performance Preview

[qcmadness]

When I said close to N550, I meant that the perf of bobcat still in the Atom category. It is barely faster then lowest end C2D 1.2GHz celeron, so I don't really understand what AMD meant when said "90% of today's mainstream performance" 1.4GHz DC celeron or 1.6 GHz Athlon is not a "mainstream performance" at least for 4 last years already.
Any way my point was that in all reviews pwr consumption was compared to desktop systems (Atom D-series doesn't support SpeedStep for example). So it worth wait and see an actual netbooks on bobcat before draw a conclusion. 9W-11W at idle seems to me a bit too high for tablets. My Asus T101 (N450) consumes ~4.5W from the wall socket at idle.

40nm Zacate / Ontario is for netbook / nettop.
They are not meant for tablets.

The 28nm refresh will be dealt with tablets in 2012.

[demonkevy666]

Was about time . Performance was expected but power draw numbers are amazing! With the L2 working at the half the CPU clock,having "lowly" 2 issue decoder/front end ,sharing the memory controller and many other power optimizing features,it's actually amazing to see this level of performance. I hope AMD manages their goal of close to 10 hours of resting battery life,there is still time to tweak the platform a bit.

I never seen that mention anywhere
but I that means it alone is already faster clock pre clock
and it's sharing a memory controller lol
yet it's denied to be faster.

[flyck]

When I said close to N550, I meant that the perf of bobcat still in the Atom category. It is barely faster then lowest end C2D 1.2GHz celeron, so I don't really understand what AMD meant when said "90% of today's mainstream performance" 1.4GHz DC celeron or 1.6 GHz Athlon is not a "mainstream performance" at least for 4 last years already.
Any way my point was that in all reviews pwr consumption was compared to desktop systems (Atom D-series doesn't support SpeedStep for example). So it worth wait and see an actual netbooks on bobcat before draw a conclusion. 9W-11W at idle seems to me a bit too high for tablets. My Asus T101 (N450) consumes ~4.5W from the wall socket at idle.

First you need to define idle to talk about idle consumption. idle IE8 window open, idle by closing laptop, idle by typing in word or somewhere else. (also the screen/screensizes should match, as the connected hw. if for example the powersavings didn't shutdown the fan on the testbed this would already make a difference, same with brightness of screen, same with an usb mouse etc etc. Considering all this, the preview pre release platform is already impressive for the zacate. (curious when the gpu throttling software will be optimized and how the lower end parts will perform).

It doesn't need to be alot faster than celeron if it can outdo it in gpu (which is the case) and have a better power profile which is also the case then it is a job done for a starting platform. (and is probably a lot cheaper to make also).

Performance is not in Atom category... performance is near celeron DC performance. Atom is only close in heaviliy multithreaded tasks, but the moment something has to be done single threaded it is not even competition. which is one of the headbreakers of Atom.

[RejZoR]

Idle means on, but not doing anything. Closed laptop lid means standby. It's defined well enough. Either way, it looks great. Out of order design is also welcome. Plus the idle consumption is very low, almost half the Atom platform. Makes me want to have one such netbook

[Hornet331]

Like testing netbook chip in heavily multithreaded applications?The ones that won't be used on this platform in real usage scenario?

You forgot that brazos also targets lowcost notebooks (sub 500$/€), especial the chips in question (E-Series). For that the comperison with Pentiums/Celerons and also multithreaded apps is valid.

The real netbook chips are the C-series.

Its just like with the Atoms-> D for desktops Z/N for Mobile
While noone stops a OEM to put a D or in case of amd a E into a netbook, its not the main target of that cpu.


On a side note:
Kinda funny observation, suddenly you hear form the same guys, that usually proclaim single thread performance has no relevance in todays usage scenarios, are all over the superior single threaded performance of brazos compared to atom...

[qcmadness]

You forgot that brazos also targets lowcost notebooks (sub 500$/€), especial the chips in question (E-Series). For that the comperison with Pentiums/Celerons and also multithreaded apps is valid.

The real netbook chips are the C-series.
Its just like with the Atoms-> D for desktops Z/N for Mobile
While noone stops a OEM to put a D or in case of amd a E into a netbook, its not the main target of that cpu.


On a side note:
Kinda funny observation, suddenly you hear form the same guys, that usually proclaim single thread performance has no relevance in todays usage scenarios, are all over the superior single threaded performance of brazos compared to atom...

Which class of Celeron / Pentium?

[MrMojoZ]

On a side note:
Kinda funny observation, suddenly you hear form the same guys, that usually proclaim single thread performance has no relevance in todays usage scenarios, are all over the superior single threaded performance of brazos compared to atom...

Netbook loads aren't heavily threaded, are you sure you aren't taking things said about desktops loads out of context? Glad I could clear that up for you!

[Mechanical Man]

On a side note:
Kinda funny observation, suddenly you hear form the same guys, that usually proclaim single thread performance has no relevance in todays usage scenarios, are all over the superior single threaded performance of brazos compared to atom...

World is not as black and white you seem to think. Multi/singel performance importance is dependent in usage situation. With netbook/low power laptop, I would not see anyone really using anything that really is multithreaded. Situation is entirely different when we speak of desktop/high performance laptops. There is nothing contradicting in it.

[Hornet331]

Which class of Celeron / Pentium?

All sort off... you get C2 based Pentiums/Celerons or Westmere based Celerons/Pentiums in that price segemnt.
Celeron U and Pentium U comes to mind for el cheapo subnotebooks or if you move to normal sized notebooks you have the Celeron P or Pentium P

The U even have the same TDP as the brazos platform.

So its kind of a tough market where Brazos enters, netbook market we have a winner but the other targeted markets are not a sure victory.

[Hornet331]

Netbook loads aren't heavily threaded, are you sure you aren't taking things said about desktops loads out of context? Glad I could clear that up for you!

Good thing you haven't skipped reading my answer at the beginning of my post... oh wait...

[qcmadness]

All sort off... you get C2 based Pentiums/Celerons or Westmere based Celerons/Pentiums in that price segemnt.
Celeron U and Pentium U comes to mind for el cheapo subnotebooks or if you move to normal sized notebooks you have the Celeron P or Pentium P

The U even have the same TDP as the brazos platform.

So its kind of a tough market where Brazos enters, netbook market we have a winner but the other targeted markets are not a sure victory.

I think Zacate is more of Celeron U / Pentium U market.
Celeron P and Pentium P market will be powered by SandyBridge derivatives and will be addressed with Lynx (mobile Llano).

[Manicdan]

but the other targeted markets are not a sure victory.

that should be filled by llano i think.

as you go into bigger things, the low tdp of a cpu becomes less important. and you might get away with throwing in a cheap cpu to keep costs down (at a major perf cost) the cheapest llano, duel core and slow gpu, should be for those sub 600$ laptops around 13-15"

yes i know its still a little ways off too

[MrMojoZ]

Good thing you haven't skipped reading my answer at the beginning of my post... oh wait...

I did, and you are still mixing things up in order to take jabs at folks. People usually don't buy low end laptops to do heavily multi-threaded work and the higher IPC of Bobcat is a good thing in this segment. Simple truths, I'll leave it at that.

[informal]

Netbook loads aren't heavily threaded, are you sure you aren't taking things said about desktops loads out of context? Glad I could clear that up for you!

Exactly.

[dartaz]

When I said close to N550, I meant that the perf of bobcat still in the Atom category. It is barely faster then lowest end C2D 1.2GHz celeron

What ?

Celeron SU2300 1.2GHz was clearly faster in every CPU bond benchmark.

[dartaz]

Yep, and since its power consumption is lower than a lot of the Atom configs, it's quite impressive

@ reviews
Amd really did some magic with the idle power consumptionn, its really really good. Compared to the Atom platform its needs ~70% less power.
Idel runtime swill be crazy for this platform, I hope the OEM don't use this fact and save on the capacity of the batteries.
.

No, AMD didn't do any magic with the idle power consumption

Atom D510 and all other D series lack speedstep technology . Thats why Zocate had much lower idle power consumption

However, Atom N series (like Atom N550) does support speedstep. So far I didn't see any chart that compares the power consumption of Zocate with N550

[informal]

Here you go,the N series single core Atom based system(with turned off panel for all systems tested) has higher idle power than (un)optimized dual core Zacate ES @ 1.6Ghz :
http://hothardware.com/Reviews/AMD-Z...review/?page=8

[Manicdan]

why no reviews of the 9W system?

[dartaz]

Here you go,the N series single core Atom based system(with turned off panel for all systems tested) has higher idle power than (un)optimized dual core Zacate ES @ 1.6Ghz :
http://hothardware.com/Reviews/AMD-Z...review/?page=8

Atom N270 is very old, and it is not as efficient as Pineview based Atoms (N4xx & N5xx series)

[duploxxx]

No, AMD didn't do any magic with the idle power consumption

Atom D510 and all other D series lack speedstep technology . Thats why Zocate had much lower idle power consumption

However, Atom N series (like Atom N550) does support speedstep. So far I didn't see any chart that compares the power consumption of Zocate with N550

do we have to blame AMD for the fact that Intel doesn't introduce speedstep in there lower end systems... hey it would only create longer battery life, no thx we don't want that intel

The U even have the same TDP as the brazos platform.

TDP means nothing, actual power consumption is what matters check the PC perspective review how much the SU2300 and atom D510 actually consume against there rated TDP

D510 is a 13W rated cpu remember, yet it consumes more then a 18W rated tdp and i will skip the idle compare because of the lack of technology implementation
SU2300 + ion is 10+12

http://ark.intel.com/Product.aspx?id=43098

[informal]

Atom N270 is very old, and it is not as efficient as Pineview based Atoms (N4xx & N5xx series)

The difference is that N450 has a GPU and 2.2x higher rated TDP. The N270 has only 2.5W rated TDP,same core count,same thread count,same process node.

[Lightman]

Atom N270 is very old, and it is not as efficient as Pineview based Atoms (N4xx & N5xx series)

OK! You buy Atom based netbook and I will buy Zacate based one.
You will have very efficient toy which can't play 1080p youtube without dropping frames and I will trade few minutes of my battery to at least get decent experience !

In the end more choice is better for everyone.

[tajoh111]

Intel might just have to make the atom good for once, even if it does gobble of more of their notebook chip sales.

[Particle]

There's no way to win this. If their design is a power saving demon, people would rather it be more powerful. If their design is a performance demon, people would rather it be more frugal with energy. If they strike a balance, people would complain that the platform doesn't shine in a way that is worth any attention.

I also don't know how many of you bothered to read it, but I haven't seen much mention here of AMD's projected idle power in the final platform of about 6W, down from what today's write-up shows.

[-Sweeper_]

AMD's performance target for Bobcat was 90% of the performance of K8 at the same clock speed...

The actual Ontario microprocessor will be able to offer 90% of today’s “mainstream performance” in less than half of die area.

so K8 = today's mainstream performance?

Clock for clock, Bobcat won't be able to do much against anything Core 2 based.

good IGP + incredibly low power comsumption and affordable prices will make this a winner