# AMD E2-9000e or Intel Celeron N3350



## RejZoR (Dec 24, 2017)

Looking at laptops again, low end ones and I'm wondering something...

Which of these CPU's is more powerful as whole. The dilemma is with quite few things...

E2-9000e is old 28nm, but has a higher base clock and supports more instructions, including both AVX and FMA. It's also from Stoney Ridge range which has single core performance quite optimized compared to old Bulldozers. N3350 is newer 14nm with lower base clock and no support for AVX or FMA. In PassMark, E2 scores significantly higher too despite being older fab and having lower boost clock (rougly 300 points more which is quite significant). E2 is about 100% faster than my current E-450, N3350 is at around 80% faster.

The lack of AVX and FMA instructions is a bit worrying. It's not going to be an encoding factory, but apps use this stuff more and more in general. Lack of support for this on Celeron seems like a big problem and probably reason why it scores so much lower.

Both are passively cooled which is nice (no noise). Price wise they are about the same too, Intel being slightly more expensive. Prices are a bit ridiculous where I live, but I don't want to order laptop from abroad because of keyboards and OS that comes with it (especially Germany). Not in the mood to fiddle with that.

And no, Core i3's are not an option because it's just too expensive for what it'll be used...


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## silentbogo (Dec 24, 2017)

There are trade-offs on both sides.
AMD E1 and E2 APUs die very-very often and have slower I/O (also heat is their biggest problem, even though they are LP), and Celeron N3350 suffers from the same problem as previous dual-core Celeron N models - stuttering on media-rich web pages.

Just last week my cousin bought an ASUS X541NA with N3350 on board (basically an overpriced 15.6" netbook for his father-in-law), and it was OK, but not at all faster than its predecessor N3050.
Windows 10 runs fine, but as soon as you start Chrome w/ 4+ pages, or watch a stream in 1080p, it starts to get annoying.

If  I were you, I'd look for  laptops with an embedded quad-core Carrizo APU or any quad Pentium N (or Q).
Pricewise they are in the same ballpark, but the performance overall is better and user experience is much smoother.


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## 5DVX0130 (Dec 24, 2017)

Try to get a N3540 system. 
They cost about the same as a N3350, but perform much, much better. 

I've got one, and I wouldn't pick anything less than that. While browsing it's occasionally hitting 100% CPU use...
Visit your local Hofer store. Sometimes they have "old" stock Medion laptops for dirt cheap. You might even score an i3, for the same price as a Pentium system.


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## silentbogo (Dec 24, 2017)

BTW, I just looked at my retailer's website, and that stupid ASUS that my cousin bought is $100 more expensive than entry-level Ideapad w/ FHD display, N4200 on board, and even a 128GB SSD....'


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## IceScreamer (Dec 24, 2017)

I currently have a laptop with the N3350, and it's OK, nothing more nothing less.  In windows its pretty smooth, but anything more than a couple of Chrome tabs gets a little stuttery.

Also, is there a need for AVX or FMA on such a low end device, do you have a specific need for it?


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## RejZoR (Dec 24, 2017)

I have an option of going "mad" and picking Quad core Pentium N4200, 4GB RAM, 256GB SSD and GeForce 810 for 480€. But still, that's 100€ more than what this N3350 is and it's just too much imo. Besides, I'm wasting cash on 256GB SSD which I don't need (128GB is plenty enough). And while that standalone GeForce will most likely last longer with better driver support, I'm not sure I really need it. Sometimes I play basic games on it like Bejeweled 3, Plants vs Zombies, Plague Inc and the likes which should run fine even on Intel IGP.

Got the chance to actually test N3350 one right now. Seems reasonably snappy, in Windows at least. At full load it seems to be running at 2,3GHz which is quite alright considering base is just 1.1GHz and Burst at 2.4GHz. It's basically running at peak clock when both cores are at 100% load for extended periods of time which is pretty nice. Windows is just upgrading and even with that, other things open smoothly which is alright.


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## 5DVX0130 (Dec 24, 2017)

That would mean the N3350 is 380€. Thought you were in the 200€ range. 
You've got some interesting prices. 

300-400€ should be able to get you an i3-6006U/4GB/128GB.


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## RejZoR (Dec 24, 2017)

Dream on. This N3350, 4GB RAM, 128GB SSD and Windows 10 is 340€ after rebates I can get. Include the Windows to the price, without it, they do come a lot cheaper... And yeah, like I've said, we have some funky prices. Germany has i3's for 350€ with Windows, but I don't want German keyboard and Windows (although that can be changed) coz it's not gonna be just me using it.

Testing Youtube, CPU is pegged at 100% load and 1080p60 video plays perfectly smoothly. 1440p and 4K do lag terribly. But I don't need more than 1080p anyway.


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## Nokiron (Dec 24, 2017)

RejZoR said:


> Dream on. This N3350, 4GB RAM, 128GB SSD and Windows 10 is 340€ after rebates I can get. Include the Windows to the price, without it, they do come a lot cheaper... And yeah, like I've said, we have some funky prices. Germany has i3's for 350€ with Windows, but I don't want German keyboard and Windows (although that can be changed) coz it's not gonna be just me using it.
> 
> Testing Youtube, CPU is pegged at 100% load and 1080p60 video plays perfectly smoothly. 1440p and 4K do lag terribly. But I don't need more than 1080p anyway.


Have you tried using Edge for Youtube-videos? It handles hardware acceleration much, much better than anything else. 4K ran with no issues when I tested on a N3050.


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## RejZoR (Dec 24, 2017)

I know that. I was testing in Opera. Just not sure why Windows updating to Fall Creators is taking so freaking long. 3 freaking hours! WTF!? Even my crappy E-450 updated it in no time at all. Must be all the stock crap on the laptop...


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## silentbogo (Dec 24, 2017)

5DVX0130 said:


> That would mean the N3350 is 380€. Thought you were in the 200€ range.
> You've got some interesting prices.
> 
> 300-400€ should be able to get you an i3-6006U/4GB/128GB.


That's nothing. That ASUS X541 I was talking about was nearly 350 Euro. My whole family is bad at asking before spending.



RejZoR said:


> I have an option of going "mad" and picking Quad core Pentium N4200, 4GB RAM, 256GB SSD and GeForce 810 for 480€. But still, that's 100€ more than what this N3350 is and it's just too much imo. Besides, I'm wasting cash on 256GB SSD


Look for Lenovo Ideapad 320-15, or Acer Aspire 3. Those are a lot cheaper. Locally I can get one on holiday sale for around €200 w/ normal screen and 500GB HDD, or €250 for a FHD version w/ 128GB SSD (no discrete GPU, though).


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## RejZoR (Dec 24, 2017)

I'm allergic to Lenovo. Had one and don't want to own one ever again. Also, SSD is a must. From the looks of it, E2-9000e is actually more powerful than N3350, despite having lower clock and being made on older 28nm node. Laptop case is a bit more plasticky, but also has more USB ports and having them in better places. Was thinking of pulling on one today, but decided to wait and research it a bit more. So hard to decide when it comes to low end stuff...


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## silentbogo (Dec 24, 2017)

RejZoR said:


> I'm allergic to Lenovo.


Don't worry, the rest are not too far off when it comes to the low-end stuff. 
But if you have a choice between Lenovo, ASUS and Acer, go with Acer. 
Lenovo is crap, ASUS is even worse crap today, Acer is also crap but at least their keyboards and LCD hinges don't break a week after your warranty expires


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## cdawall (Dec 24, 2017)

A cellphone is faster than both of them.


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## silentbogo (Dec 24, 2017)

cdawall said:


> A cellphone is faster than both of them.


But it does not run Crysis!


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## RejZoR (Dec 24, 2017)

Sister had ACER with Athlon X2. It's around 9 years old now. Optical drive is dead and rotating volume button too. I had to bake the GeForce 8400M GS in it too. But it still works. I have HP laptop with E-450. Apart from battery which is totally flat now, everything about it still works. And it's like 6 years old. Had Lenovo netbook (S205 I think) which had shit WiFi module, screen died while it was in RMA service which they had to replace while they were fixing the WiFi and later HDD died. All in 1 year timeframe. That's when I decided to never again buy Lenovo. HP, ASUS and ACER are brands I have trust in and had good experience with them.

I've decided to poke foreign stores too and found a gem. A9-9420 (a 3.6GHz boost Stoney Ridge!), 4GB RAM and 256GB SSD and Windows 10 for 380€. Stoney Ridge at such insane clocks should pack more punch than Core i3's. Might look away regarding German keyboard and take it anyway.


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## newtekie1 (Dec 24, 2017)

I'm pretty sure the E2-9000e scores higher than the N3350 because of the better iGPU, or at least that is a big part of it.



RejZoR said:


> I know that. I was testing in Opera. Just not sure why Windows updating to Fall Creators is taking so freaking long. 3 freaking hours! WTF!? Even my crappy E-450 updated it in no time at all. Must be all the stock crap on the laptop...



Or they just put a stupidly slow SSD in it.  Which wouldn't be surprising since most 128GB class SSDs run noticeably slower these days than the bigger drives because all the NAND channels on the controller aren't being used.  Or they could have but an eMMC drive in it and just called it an SSD, I've caught a few laptops coming through my shop labeled as an SSD and it was really eMMC storage, which is really just a SD Card soldered to the motherboard. The write speeds are absolute shit on eMMC drives because they only have a single NAND flash chip.


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## RejZoR (Dec 24, 2017)

No, it's proper 2,5 inch SATA SSD, from Sandisk. Probably not some top end model, but certainly not eMMC. Also, I don't think PassMark cares about GPU part. It's CPU test afaik.


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## newtekie1 (Dec 24, 2017)

RejZoR said:


> No, it's proper 2,5 inch SATA SSD, from Sandisk. Probably not some top end model, but certainly not eMMC. Also, I don't think PassMark cares about GPU part. It's CPU test afaik.




Probably one of their DRAM-less pieces of crap that only populate 2 NAND channels, resulting in write speeds barely above HDD speeds.

And Passmark is a "comprehensive" test, it has a 2D and 3D Graphics test, a memory test, and a storage test all roled into the final Passmark score.


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## cdawall (Dec 24, 2017)

newtekie1 said:


> Probably one of their DRAM-less pieces of crap that only populate 2 NAND channels, resulting in write speeds barely above HDD speeds.
> 
> And Passmark is a "comprehensive" test, it has a 2D and 3D Graphics test, a memory test, and a storage test all roled into the final Passmark score.



It is I can give you the model number for them if curiosity exists. I use them in my mining rigs. Write is like 120mb/s garbage.


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## newtekie1 (Dec 24, 2017)

cdawall said:


> It is I can give you the model number for them if curiosity exists. I use them in my mining rigs. Write is like 120mb/s garbage.



Z400?


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## cdawall (Dec 25, 2017)

newtekie1 said:


> Z400?



Z400s everyone always misses that s. The CM871 is the samsung version of the garbage, I have a liteon one as well. The liteon I think was the fastest when I tested them oddly enough.


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## RejZoR (Dec 25, 2017)

newtekie1 said:


> Probably one of their DRAM-less pieces of crap that only populate 2 NAND channels, resulting in write speeds barely above HDD speeds.
> 
> And Passmark is a "comprehensive" test, it has a 2D and 3D Graphics test, a memory test, and a storage test all roled into the final Passmark score.



Not the single thread score which is a rough indication of where CPU falls with its raw performance.

I think I'm gonna opt for that Stoney Ridge A9 APU after all. It may be older 28nm node, but that doesn't mean it's bad by any means. It's clocked really high, has raw IPC performance comparable to Intel's recent budget 14nm offerings, has all the instructions available at hand and sports a far superior GPU. In Passmark it has double the single thread performance of N3350 yet costs just a bit more. I just screwed up with purchases with my credit card, meaning it won't fit into my monthly credit card limit for it ugh. I guess in January then... XD


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## silentbogo (Dec 25, 2017)

RejZoR said:


> I think I'm gonna opt for that Stoney Ridge A9 APU after all. It may be older 28nm node, but that doesn't mean it's bad by any means.


It's not bad, it's just expensive. Have you looked at older 35W models yet? Something like HP Envy M6 or Envy x360 costs about the same. I had one w/ A10-4600M in my workshop and that thing could run heavy WebGL demos like it's minesweeper, and even played Fallout 4 on low. 1080p@60Hz playback was also flawless. You could probably get one for under $200 now in a mint condition.


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## RejZoR (Dec 25, 2017)

Gonna stick with higher performance, lower core count options. I think they'll gonna last for longer than slower but more cores. AMD really changed the game in this regard with Stoney Ridge, tweaking old Bulldozer architecture in a whole different way, making them totally comparable with Intel offerings. Even so much that despite 28nm node, they seem to use same TDP as Intel while actually even performing better sometimes. Which is quite an achievement. It's just hard to dismiss the "14nm" is smaller and newer, it must be better "mind trick".


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## Thefumigator (Dec 25, 2017)

RejZoR said:


> Gonna stick with higher performance, lower core count options. I think they'll gonna last for longer than slower but more cores. AMD really changed the game in this regard with Stoney Ridge, tweaking old Bulldozer architecture in a whole different way, making them totally comparable with Intel offerings. Even so much that despite 28nm node, they seem to use same TDP as Intel while actually even performing better sometimes. Which is quite an achievement. It's just hard to dismiss the "14nm" is smaller and newer, it must be better "mind trick".



I would personally go for AMD in this case, 10w TDP is quite impressive. the E2-9000e beats both the Athlon X2 and E450 by a large margin. The R2 radeon iGPU should be enough even for playing 4K videos (but I migh be wrong on this one). Look, my father has a low end llano laptop and the SSD I installed last year made the whole system magically new again.


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## FYFI13 (Dec 25, 2017)

RejZoR said:


> Testing Youtube, CPU is pegged at 100% load and 1080p60 video plays perfectly smoothly. 1440p and 4K do lag terribly. But I don't need more than 1080p anyway.


Since you're using Windows 10, try Youtube in 4k on MS Edge  Runs perfectly smooth on Celeron N2820, ~30% CPU load.


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## RejZoR (Dec 25, 2017)

How is with VP9 decoding? I know Intel supports it through QuickSync. What about A9-9420 in particular? Or the E2-9000e? It just says they support UVD, but I've dropped a bit out of loop with Radeons after owning GeForce for a while now...


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## Thefumigator (Dec 25, 2017)

RejZoR said:


> How is with VP9 decoding? I know Intel supports it through QuickSync. What about A9-9420 in particular? Or the E2-9000e? It just says they support UVD, but I've dropped a bit out of loop with Radeons after owning GeForce for a while now...


Radeons do decoding, but only vega and vega based apus do encoding


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## RejZoR (Dec 25, 2017)

I only need decoding on this system. H.264 and H.265 maybe, here and there. But I have a 12 thread monster just 20m away so I'm not gonna torture it much with that...


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## eidairaman1 (Dec 26, 2017)

As you said the cely lacks instructions, why bother


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## RejZoR (Dec 27, 2017)

Checked the SSD in that one and it's indeed a Sandisk Z400. Checking Passmark scores and it's positioned higher than Crucial M4 which I have now. Or is that just in synthetics...

If it's DRAM-less SSD, how does it cache commands? In system RAM till it's written?


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## newtekie1 (Dec 27, 2017)

RejZoR said:


> If it's DRAM-less SSD, how does it cache commands? In system RAM till it's written?



It doesn't, it writes directly to the NAND, which is why write speeds on DRAM-less SSDs are so terrible.  Plus the data map is also on the NAND instead of stored in the DRAM, which makes things even slower.  Random writes, which is what Windows Updates are, are particularly slow.  Like, sometimes no faster than HDDs slow...


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## RejZoR (Dec 27, 2017)

I don't think it's gonna be an issue regardless. If it's faster than HDD or at worst the same, I'm fine with it. Remember, this will be very low usage system. At worst, I can still drop in a cheap Crucial BX300 which has a superb performance for the price. At 55€, it's almost as fast as 850 Evo.


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## RejZoR (Jan 2, 2018)

Any idea why A9-9420 shows as if it has 2 graphic processors? One is Radeon R5 and the other is Radeon 530. I'm a bit confused why it shows this as 2 separate devices. Even Radeon CP is showing global settings for R5 and 530 as 2 separate GPU's. The laptop in question is not suppose to have a discrete graphics chip... I'm confused now...


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## newtekie1 (Jan 2, 2018)

What laptop did you get specifically?

What does GPU-Z show?


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## Flaky (Jan 2, 2018)

Then you have two gpus. I bet the dedicated one is an ancient gcn 1.0 chip. Would be good to see the gpu-z readout tho.

That's the problem AMD has with almost every OEM regarding almost every new platform.
Even though the chips are decent, the laptops with them have braindead configurations.


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## RejZoR (Jan 4, 2018)

Ok, I've decided to pull a trigger on the following laptop (especially in the wake of Intel security flaws where I scrapped the Celerons as an option)...

HP laptop
AMD A9-9420 3.6 GHz Dual Core APU (with R5 graphics)
4GB RAM
256GB SSD
1080p SVA display
Windows 10 Home

Total with expedition delivery, 410€. All things considered, it's a very good value I think and it should last me for a while. I couldn't find any 1080p laptops for such price in my country at all. And I've tested the A9-9420, the thing is freaking fast even though it's just a dual core. For 50€ less I'd get that E2-9000e which is vastly slower and with half the SSD capacity. So I think I made a right decision.


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## Recca29 (Jan 4, 2018)

RejZoR said:


> Ok, I've decided to pull a trigger on the following laptop (especially in the wake of Intel security flaws where I scrapped the Celerons as an option)...
> 
> HP laptop
> AMD A9-9420 3.6 GHz Dual Core APU (with R5 graphics)
> ...


Congrats on you new laptop.
Just a heads-up, i am not sure if you will have an issue with the latest Radeon drivers but my 2 laptops with AMD APUs had issues with them.


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## RejZoR (Jan 8, 2018)

I think I was also lucky with the SSD. It's not Sandisk Z400 in this laptop. It's a 256GB Samsung SSD. It still seems to be some sort of OEM model, but at least on quick benchmarks I've seen online, it looks like it's about as fast as Samsung 850 Evo.

Exact model is: SAMSUNG MZNLN256HMHQ-000H1

Anyone has any info on it? Does this one have onboard DRAM? Is this model a M.2 SATA one? On paper, it's WAY faster than Sandisk Z400 and it also seems to behave that way. The thing is pretty darn fast. Looks like I won't have to swap it with aftermarket one after all. Was already prepared to sell it and buy a cheap proven stand alone drive...


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## newtekie1 (Jan 8, 2018)

RejZoR said:


> Does this one have onboard DRAM?



Yes, the Samsung is not DRAMless.



RejZoR said:


> Is this model a M.2 SATA one?



It is an M.2 but it is SATA based.  So it won't be any faster than a 2.5" SATA drive.


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## RejZoR (Jan 8, 2018)

I don't need anything more than SATA. It's important that it has SSD. That's all.


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## silentbogo (Jan 8, 2018)

RejZoR said:


> Anyone has any info on it? Does this one have onboard DRAM? Is this model a M.2 SATA one? On paper, it's WAY faster than Sandisk Z400 and it also seems to behave that way. The thing is pretty darn fast. Looks like I won't have to swap it with aftermarket one after all. Was already prepared to sell it and buy a cheap proven stand alone drive...


It's Samsung PM871a - a low-cost version of 850EVO, also uses TLC V-NAND. Specs and speed is pretty much identical in every aspect.  I'd say it's not bad at all.


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## RejZoR (Jan 10, 2018)

God damn it, it just has to be me again... Everything works great, exept "i" key. You have to slam it perfectly 90° otherwise it just doesn't register it. Aaargh. Totally not in the mood for sending it back to Germany. Took of the key and everything seems fine, like other keys. But it just doesn't register key press correctly. Need to figure out why the hell this is happening...


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