AMD A8-3850 Fusion GPU Performance Analysis

[Casecutter]

i seriously doubt that for the forseeable future, processor integrated graphics can be faster than a low-end card.

igps will get better, but so will discrete gpus. both are using the same technology, architecture and production process. heat density limits will always limit IGP performance.

i see the big advantage in massive cost savings. why should a 250 mm² silicon die with cpu+gpu cost significantly more than a 250 mm² silicon die with just a cpu?

Working from the hypostasis... that it's about gaming or fast CPU computations is the misnomer.

First will AMD still be developing/offering IGP motherboards? Will they necessarily offer low-end discrete cards that are intended to compete with their APU line. While could Nvidia make any money offering what will become low-end discrete (approx GT430) that betters APU performance (that will improve)?

IGP’s will get better?... I think that boat sailed. Nvidia would need to get serious at building a competitive IGP mobo and then price that package competitively; it wasn’t happening before this, why would the picture be any rosier going forward? Intel is behind offering less competitive (siamese) on-chip graphic’s. It appears they have yet to find that path over at least the next two years to offer anything more than GMA. They could catch-up; although they’ll need a (new) graphic architecture, which they’d need to totally integrate that onto an ever smaller die to be a challenger.

Is it priced competitively… no, as that would hurt only AMD. They’ll need to work down stock of CPU’s and IGP motherboards before they start really turning up the heat in the aftermarket, but you can bet they are hyper-aggressively working the OEM’s. If they hit the 250 mm² and have the process/foundry in full swing before Intel get on the tracks the low end computer market will be AMD.

 

[[H]@RD5TUFF]

Yawn weak performance I expected more for that price, great review as always though.

 

[_JP_]

Great review.
My conclusion is that the IGP desperately needs side-port memory, to gain some of the extra performance it is lacking right now..

 

[Casecutter]

Yawn weak performance I expected more for that price, great review as always though.

"Weak" how do you sumise that from his review? Weak where?

Sure other reviews that cover more CPU related tasks I agree, but for CPU/GPU chip performance only on the gaming titles provided it would appear better than a 880G and comperable AMD CPU, though that costs much less as of right now.

Here an A6-3650 2.6Ghz against i3-2105 Sandy Bridge Z68 platform on a good mix of CPU/GPU testing, but the Intel set-up is $30 more.
http://www.legitreviews.com/article/1655/1/

 

[yogurt_21]

looks promising, far more performance than other igp's. Cost could still be better but it just launched so that could change.

 

[newtekie1]

Really, it isn't surprising, AMD/ATI IGPs have always been more powerful than Intel's.

But an IGP doesn't need to be powerful. Can it run HD Video? Can it run office apps? and Intel's IGPs can do both of those tasks, so people will be happy with them. The users looking to do anything more will use a descrete graphics card.

The sad thing is how you see people saying how much more powerful this APU is than Intel's IGP offerings. Big deal. It still isn't powerful enough to play any recent game with reasonable settings at a reasonable resolution. I guess if you like playing games at 800x600 it is good, but I don't really enjoy that. 100% better than 10FPS is still unplayable, and that is basically what this amounts to...

 

[Casecutter]

I guess if you like playing games at 800x600 it is good, but I don't really enjoy that. 100% better than 10FPS is still unplayable, and that is basically what this amounts to...

So why spend time doing this review?

 

[swaaye]

Great review.
My conclusion is that the IGP desperately needs side-port memory, to gain some of the extra performance it is lacking right now..

Sideport was actually used to reduce power consumption. By accessing that memory instead of going through the CPU, the CPU could idle more. It was super slow memory though (32-bit bus I think) and did not improve performance much at all.

 

[Pestilence]

Why such expensive boards? You can get an H67 and an A75 board starting at 69.99

 

[[H]@RD5TUFF]

"Weak" how do you sumise that from his review? Weak where?

Sure other reviews that cover more CPU related tasks I agree, but for CPU/GPU chip performance only on the gaming titles provided it would appear better than a 880G and comperable AMD CPU, though that costs much less as of right now.

Here an A6-3650 2.6Ghz against i3-2105 Sandy Bridge Z68 platform on a good mix of CPU/GPU testing, but the Intel set-up is $30 more.
http://www.legitreviews.com/article/1655/1/

I expected more simple as that, and the CPU is too weak.

 

[_JP_]

Sideport was actually used to reduce power consumption. By accessing that memory instead of going through the CPU, the CPU could idle more. It was super slow memory though (32-bit bus I think) and did not improve performance much at all.

It was a dedicated frame-buffer that could come in th from of GDDR3 chips (there was regular DDR2 too, IIRC). I'm sure there was a performance increase in vRAM I/O. Not that it would matter much on the HD3xxx/4xxx IGPs, but I could perdict an improvement in these new ones, after all, their discrete counterparts were designed to use GDDR3 and GDDR5.
Oh, and the bus width for the side-port was 16-bit, BTW.

 

[wiak]

If you can live with the absolute minimum in graphics performance you could even consider an Athlon II motherboard with integrated graphics and save another $50. But consider that these options might not even have DVI/HDMI output and can barely handle Windows Aero effects.

btw this is more true for atom/older intel chipset that can bearly run aero


hehe, well i have a 780G mb and a athlon II 240e, and my aero runs fine, and the mb also has DVI and HDMI
the Radeon HD 3200 has 40 shaders mind you and decoding of blur-ray in hardware to boot


btw nice review
alot more informative than other sites

 

[DrunkenMafia]

I think this w1zzard guy haven't done the review honestly.
1. A motherboard for AMD Athlon X4 640 has its own integrated graphics, so why we need a HD 6450 for internet browsing?
2. I didn't see any HD5770 in the review, then I saw HD5770 stated in the conclusion. why HD5770, not HD6670?
3. A8-3850 iGP is equivalent to a HD5550 DDR3. For entry level gaming, it is more than enough to play while other two systems need HD 5550s to match its speed.
4. Electricity bills

And the award for "Biggest fail on your very first post on a forum" goes to.................... aBigRat...

 

[seronx]

There is couple issues in this review but most of those issues have been touched already

thanks for the great review

 

[Pestilence]

I think this w1zzard guy haven't done the review honestly.
1. A motherboard for AMD Athlon X4 640 has its own integrated graphics, so why we need a HD 6450 for internet browsing?
2. I didn't see any HD5770 in the review, then I saw HD5770 stated in the conclusion. why HD5770, not HD6670?
3. A8-3850 iGP is equivalent to a HD5550 DDR3. For entry level gaming, it is more than enough to play while other two systems need HD 5550s to match its speed.
4. Electricity bills

I pay 60 dollars a month for electricity and it's 90 degrees out everyday.

 

[jamsbong]

For me, if I was to build a cheap gaming system that is the price of a console. I might as well get a console.

PC gaming has always been expensive especially compared to console. But with the money spent, you get to overclock your hardware, spend a lot of sweet DIY time building your PC, run games with Max details ON; full HD; Vsync on and enjoy this high maintenance machine for the next 3 years.

In an PC enthusiast point of view the following example is a good investment. I've bought the Zalman Reserator in 2004 and use it for to watercooled my CPU and GPU. Today, that watercooling system is still 100% working and completely dust and noise free. So my investment $550/8 years = $68.75/yr and getting cheaper the longer I use it.

I know we all need to work within a budget but I think cheapest price isn't always the best choice.

 

[HalfAHertz]

Awesome job as alwaysW1z.Tho to be honest I expected a tad better clocks from the 32nm process. Stillyou've got to hand it to the AMD team - it's no easy task to fit together a fully fledged DX11 GPU and 4 CPU cores on a single die. Let's just hope we start seeing the benefits sooner than later with some nice OpenCL programs.

 

[Casecutter]

Stillyou've got to hand it to the AMD team - it's no easy task to fit together a fully fledged DX11 GPU and 4 CPU cores on a single die.

Amen...
Who else will have all that any time in the next two years? It’s been a desired ambition to achieve, fully integrate the two and AMD has provided that realization. While sure it's not the zenith, as a starting point it’s a job that should be commend and not sloughed off. Look back like 4 years ago, a hot P4 and 8800GS was considered a decent gaming machine… this one chip bests' that and on substantially less power, that’s progress! Finally at the end W1zzard did in an almost a commiserate tone, concluded with that.

It’s almost is like some folks are be happy with slot CPU and RIVA 128 on AGP... :shadedshu

 

[Disparia]

Thank you Wizzy for the review, especially with the Crossfire numbers! Out of all the other sites with reviews, I've only seen one other with them.

My wife's Athlon II 250 / HD 5670 combo plays whats she wants at 1650x1050. If the A8-3850 was out when I put her system together 8 months ago, I would have certainly gone this route. Smaller case, less power, less noise. But since the perf is so similar, will just have to wait for Trinity.

 

[madseven]

1. A3850 + mobo + 6670 : $290++
2. 2100K + mobo + 6670 : $250++

(2) is cheaper and faster for daily application, but for graphic performances, (2) is not far enough behind (2) configuration.

first i dont believe this review. but now, i think i get your conclusion

Your prices are way too high for the AMD platform. It's cheaper than the Intel platform and has better/more features.

 

[madseven]

i seriously doubt that for the forseeable future, processor integrated graphics can be faster than a low-end card.

igps will get better, but so will discrete gpus. both are using the same technology, architecture and production process. heat density limits will always limit IGP performance.

i see the big advantage in massive cost savings. why should a 250 mm² silicon die with cpu+gpu cost significantly more than a 250 mm² silicon die with just a cpu?

It's not when you consider the platform cost. cpu+mb+ram+video card vs apu+ram+mb to get the same amount of performance. The price is justified.

 

[madseven]

Really, it isn't surprising, AMD/ATI IGPs have always been more powerful than Intel's.

But an IGP doesn't need to be powerful. Can it run HD Video? Can it run office apps? and Intel's IGPs can do both of those tasks, so people will be happy with them. The users looking to do anything more will use a descrete graphics card.

The sad thing is how you see people saying how much more powerful this APU is than Intel's IGP offerings. Big deal. It still isn't powerful enough to play any recent game with reasonable settings at a reasonable resolution. I guess if you like playing games at 800x600 it is good, but I don't really enjoy that. 100% better than 10FPS is still unplayable, and that is basically what this amounts to...

Read up on some other reviews and you'll see AMD's APU is in a class of it's own. No Intel cpu and mb can touch it

 

[madseven]

Just to point something out. Llano is a 10 year old architecture cpu with a modern gpu. It's a stop gap for Trinity (Bulldozer CPU and modern GPU).

People love to knock down AMD and expected so much more. To a point I did too (expect a lot) seeing this as a new product, but realistically, when you look at what's inside their APU you shouldn't knock them but instead praise them for what they're offering compared to Intel...Old CPU with modern graphics that beats the crap out of Intel in everything (graphics wise).

If Trinity is what I think it will be, Intel will be in a wolrd of hurt

 

[Jonap_1st]

Your prices are way too high for the AMD platform. It's cheaper than the Intel platform and has better/more features.

way too high from what?

A3850 : $140
cheapest FM1 mobo : $70
cheapest HD6670 : $80
total : $290

2100K : $110
cheapest 1155 mobo : $60
cheapest HD6670 : $80
total : $250

even when A3850 being crossfired with 6670, it wont give much improvement on graphic performance over 2100K setup beside it got $40 more expensives. to make it even worse dual core 2100K still faster than A3850 on daily application such a calculating, editing, and decoding.

next time read the review carefully and do some research for it. its not about "the class of its own", but for how much your money will worth for the best setup you can buy..

 

[Casecutter]

even when A3850 being crossfired with 6670, it wont give much improvement on graphic performance over 2100K setup beside it got $40 more expensives...

But again that whole hypostasis of buying an APU platform to add a 6670 is just stupid. Sure it’s a feature, but right today it's not the premise most intelligent folks intend to build around. (AMD marketing has some blame on that)

Today you're buying into an APU as you don't intend to use a discrete card. While the choices are; 880G with Phenom II X4 840 3.2GHz (very cost effective ~$180), or Intel GMA on a 1155 H61 (yea they're are cheap boards, but exceptionally dated IMO). However if you pick an "as good quality equivalent manufacture" with some features to the FM1 mobo you're looking at minimum $70. While today a more evenhanded preference would be the Z68 if you're buying/building an i3 today. I find that CPU is $125, while mobo’s start at $100). Not working with the Z68 is like saying there’s still 760G motherboards... for contrast.

So, you have $195 for the i3/H61 with "on chip" GMA (adequate) graphics, while the APU/mobo (class leading graphic functions) for from what you show $210. Use the latest Z68 mobo and you're at $225.

That's the true picture.