AMD A8-3850 Review: Llano Rocks Entry-Level Desktops

[lradunovic77]

As I said earlier this chip doesn't do good at CPU or GPU level and i am not sure what is it for because for same amount of money you will be paying for this you can get better system.

 

[the_krasno]

I want a llano netbook D:

 

[Guest]

On page 2 (Dual Graphics: How Does Is (

 

[rflynn88]

Comparing the $140 Core i3-2105 with a cheap discrete card to Llano with a descrete card based on price alone is a bit dumb. If you are buying a Core i3 and plan to buy a dedicated card with it you would buy the $125 Core i3-2100.

 

[Guest]

Heh, I love these comments - for $150 more than a $135 AMD CPU you can get a better Intel CPU and AMD GPU!

No shit, really? I wouldn't have thought so, it's just twice the price!

 

[wrazor]

So, firstly great review.But I wont say the name of other site, but they also tested this cpu with powerful gpu(6970). Just to show, if it were paired with a very powerful gpu. Nevertheless, I am very much interested to see how this A8-3850(150$?) will fair vs an intel pentium G840 + amd 5670(85$+70$=155$). Simply because these are the 2 options one would have when picking up a system with same money yeah?

 

[wrazor]

Also, wont this system would make so much more sense, if mobo makers came out with a 20$ motherboard w\o pci-e, hell no old school pci slots either. One 4gb ram slot of speeds upto 1866. Hmmm, that will bring AMD into the win for ultra cheap desktops. Or I am just crazy maybe.

 

[waffleinc]

In the text under the SiSoftware Sandra 2011 chart for processor arithmetic you state that GIPS and GFLOPS stand for millions of instructions per second and millions of floating point operations per second. Just wanted to clearify that the G stands for Giga, as in billion. The text should say billions of instructions per second and billions of floating point operations per second.

Otherwise, a good review. This would be a great processor for my mom, if she ever lets me build her a new computer, or even my wife. The most demanding game she plays is The Sims 3.

 

[tecmo34]

[citation][nom]cknobman[/nom]Do you not understand the target market for these and can take the review in context????? Not everything should be looked at as though you are a custom power cpu/game builder.Great review Chris. For the target market AMD is doing a pretty good job here with an old CPU architecture and once they pair this with Bulldozer they should have a killer product.[/citation]
You hit the nail on the head! AMD is going after a target market, which is not the "PC Enthusiast" / Gamer.

 

[someguynamedmatt]

[citation][nom]jdwii[/nom]not bad but can you overclock the graphics core[/citation]
It wont matter to the people who are using these.

 

[someguynamedmatt]

[citation][nom]Tetrahydrofuran[/nom]Heh, I love these comments - for $150 more than a $135 AMD CPU you can get a better Intel CPU and AMD GPU!No shit, really? I wouldn't have thought so, it's just twice the price![/citation]
Hah! Exactly.
And why can't you people see that these are designed specifically to use as little power as possible? No shit, if you put a quad core and 5670 in there it will be faster. It will also use about six times more power than this.

 

[flong]

I appreciate the review also. It is interesting to see the different CPU options.

That being said, taking gaming out of the equation, why would anyone not want a far more powerful and faster computer for a mere $150 more - i.e. the 2500K and a cheap GPU?

Today, even a teenager will spend $25 to go to a movie or $4.00 on a cafe mocha. $150 is pocket change in today's computer market. People are spending $30 - $90 on a CPU cooler - forget the CPU itself. So we are not talking about "rich" people or "computer enthusiasts." For a common man (or woman), they will get 10 times the computing power for $70 more and a cheap GPU.

If budget were an issue, wouldn't you still go with the 2100K which is about the same price? But I really don't understand going with the 2100K when the 2500K is available for a few dollars more and it will do so much more (gaming aside).

And yes I do get that some people just want a $500 computer and they are happy with it and that is OK - Ive been there. I am not trying to put anyone down or impune someone who chooses this CPU - email doesn't communicate well sometimes

 

[Soma42]

[citation][nom]flong[/nom]That being said, taking gaming out of the equation, why would anyone not want a far more powerful and faster computer for a mere $150 more - i.e. the 2500K and a cheap GPU? [/citation]

What you don't understand is that the majority of people aren't enthusiasts who build their own rig and most people use their computers to facebook and check their emails. That's it.

For most people, they probably won't even know what they're missing because they don't care and don't need the extra horsepower, especially for another $150 or more. All they care about is the price point and this performs nicely at a much lower offering than Intel does.

This isn't an enthusiast build, I don't know why this is such a difficult concept for everyone posting like this...

 

[flong]

I don't think that you read my post carefully - I specifically say twice to ignore the gaming aspect and "enthusiast" builds. So try to read posts more carefully.

I get that a lot of people are not heavy users, but having (painfully) used under powered computers just for business correspondence (I am not a gamer) it is not a great experience. When I went from a Pentium 4 to a I-7 920, I could not believe how EVERYTHING that I did was so much faster and easier.

For the average joe (or Jane) it would make a huge difference in their computing experience to take their $25 for four movie theater trips and $75 from eating out and put it towards a better CPU.

This has nothing to do with gaming, though a lot of average Joes and Janes do game casually also.

 

[ChromeTusk]

[citation][nom]wrazor[/nom]So, firstly great review.But I wont say the name of other site, but they also tested this cpu with powerful gpu(6970). Just to show, if it were paired with a very powerful gpu. Nevertheless, I am very much interested to see how this A8-3850(150$?) will fair vs an intel pentium G840 + amd 5670(85$+70$=155$). Simply because these are the 2 options one would have when picking up a system with same money yeah?[/citation]
Why would you use a $300+ (USD) graphics card with a $135 proccessor? They have totally different target users.

 

[grody]

I'm with flong. This doesn't have a target market. The person buying a $300 computer isn't going to bother trying to read that graph on page 2, let alone go through that set up process. He'd buy an HP and be done with it.

 

[cknobman]

[citation][nom]grody[/nom]I'm with flong. This doesn't have a target market. The person buying a $300 computer isn't going to bother trying to read that graph on page 2, let alone go through that set up process. He'd buy an HP and be done with it.[/citation]

Your right about the average person but guess what?? Vendors (like HP, Dell, Toshiba) are going to be the ones building these $300-$500 dollar computers and its going to be very likely that they start incorporating quite a few of the Llano APU's in them due to the integration and cheap aspects.

Do you have any idea how many mindless drones sit at their computer and play crap like Farmville/Cityville on Facebook or hundreds of other kinds of games through their browser??? Do you realize how crappy those things run on integrated graphics? I do because I have to go over to my in-laws all the time and listen to them b!tch about it. Cheap APU's (like AMD's) are perfect for those types of scenarios.

 

[Soma42]

I read it don't worry, but if you ignore gaming/productivity then why do you need an i7-2500k? That is total overkill for anything less than a power user.

I would bet that you can't tell the difference between a Llano setup and i7-2500k for just email and web browsing, which is the market segment AMD is targeting with this. Once you include gaming or any sort of CPU/GPU intensive software then you can notice a difference.

The point is with this you can buy a cheap PC for grandma or your kids or you mom/dad etc. Hell, this would be perfect for a HTPC and would run nice and quiet.

Going from a Pentium 4 (2003 release...) to an i7-920 is like going from a Ford Fiesta to a Ferrari, of course it's going to be faster.

I think you are just missing the point of who AMD is trying to sell this to.

 

[flong]

I read it don't worry, but if you ignore gaming/productivity then why do you need an i7-2500k? That is total overkill for anything less than a power user.

I would bet that you can't tell the difference between a Llano setup and i7-2500k for just email and web browsing, which is the market segment AMD is targeting with this. Once you include gaming or any sort of CPU/GPU intensive software then you can notice a difference.

The point is with this you can buy a cheap PC for grandma or your kids or you mom/dad etc. Hell, this would be perfect for a HTPC and would run nice and quiet.

Going from a Pentium 4 (2003 release...) to an i7-920 is like going from a Ford Fiesta to a Ferrari, of course it's going to be faster.

I think you are just missing the point of who AMD is trying to sell this to.

I say this respectfully, but you couldn't be more wrong. I am not a gamer but I have my own business and run a lot of software (like MS Office). Having a powerful computer is in no way "total overkill." There will be a huge difference in the OVERALL computing experience between a llano and the 2500K. The difference from going from a llano to a 2500K would be MORE dramatic than from a Pentium 4 to a 920 because the 2500 K is faster than the 920 and the llano is probably not much faster than a Pentium 4 with a good graphics card.

The difference between having a powerful computer like the 2500K and the subpar CPUs being discussed is huge - I repeat huge. I can say this with some authority because I have first-hand experience.

You have to remember that everyone hates to wait and everyone feels that their time is valuable (even if it isn't ha, ha). A more powerful computer will do everything faster and better and so the main benefit is that they save you time. Time is money for most people. We haven't even touched on that aspect.

Even Grandma doesn't like to wait on a computer. Sure she will put up with it but she will sense frustration. Besides, whose grandma is not worth an extra $150 ha, ha.

I doubt that the llano chips are aimed at the retirement community because they would not even know where to begin to build a computer - many don't even know how to use a computer.

 

[jdwii]

I say this respectfully, but you couldn't be more wrong. I am not a gamer but I have my own business and run a lot of software (like MS Office). Having a powerful computer is in no way "total overkill." There will be a huge difference in the OVERALL computing experience between a llano and the 2500K. The difference from going from a llano to a 2500K would be MORE dramatic than from a Pentium 4 to a 920 because the 2500 K is faster than the 920 and the llano is probably not much faster than a Pentium 4 with a good graphics card.


uh you own a business...you make no sense at all!!! maybe business people need CPU power but the common human needs more gpu power for HD videos web casting, farm ville, sims 3, pictures....you know common stuff that would be more enjoyable on a llano system

 

[jdwii]

I have a Athlon II x4 and i must say i don't have to wait for nothing on my PC because i have a AMD Radeon 6850..so all the graphically things i do are fast gaming,videos,music,web,pictures...the bottleneck in PC's today is you Graphics or your hard drive(not ssd). most processors are fast enough for the normal person.

this is were llano we sell not to a business guy who needs a better processor such as a 2500K or better. but by all means llano we not make IE9 take longer to open then a 2500K in fact normal people well wait longer on the 2500K because the like to do gaming not spreadsheets

 

[dalethepcman]

This was a great article, but I would of loved to see benchmark results from the overclocking work that was done. =(

 

[flong]

[citation][nom]dalethepcman[/nom]This was a great article, but I would of loved to see benchmark results from the overclocking work that was done. =([/citation]
The llano is a very poor gaming CPU according to the review and so I am not sure what you are talking about.

The X4 with a 6850 is a reasonably fast setup. Imagine if you had spent the extra $60 bucks to move up to a 2500K - whoosh you would be in a whole new world of performance. Wow that $60 is a lot of money.

 

[Guest]

"llano is probably not much faster than a Pentium 4 with a good graphics card."

Average joe has an antivirus, a browser and a messenger opened most of the time. That applies to corporate users too. That is multitasking. For that there is multithreading. 4T >= 256% 1T at the same freq and IPC. K8 IPC > P4 IPC and llano is better than K8 => Llano > P4.

Llano is for budget desktops, for the people who want a $400-$500 PC. These people can't spend $300 on an i5 and a gfx card. Add $150+ for a mobo and $50 for a HDD and $20 for a case and 80$ for a decent power supply and the result is a $600 PC not including a LCD, optical drive and the list continues. Adding these means at least $800. Oh look that's just double for something about which the people buying a $400-$500 PC don't even CARE.

 

[flong]

[citation][nom]jdwii[/nom]I have a Athlon II x4 and i must say i don't have to wait for nothing on my PC because i have a AMD Radeon 6850..so all the graphically things i do are fast gaming,videos,music,web,pictures...the bottleneck in PC's today is you Graphics or your hard drive(not ssd). most processors are fast enough for the normal person. this is were llano we sell not to a business guy who needs a better processor such as a 2500K or better. but by all means llano we not make IE9 take longer to open then a 2500K in fact normal people well wait longer on the 2500K because the like to do gaming not spreadsheets[/citation]

You are right, I wasn't very clear. I should have made the point that most business applications do not require a powerful CPU, but having one makes operating them much quicker. Most business applications are the light use type of applications that you are talking about.

Think of it like moving from an HDD to a good SSD. Both work and the HDD does move reasonably quickly. However, the SSD will make working with most applications 3-4 times faster and to the overall experience is improved.

This is the same thing that happens when a better CPU is used. I would agree with the many posters that the 2500K would be overkill if we were talking about a significant amount of money between the two options, but we are not.

Frankly for the money involved there really is no comparison. That being said, I am not putting anyone down who buys cheaper CPUs. Like I said before, I have been in that place before and I have worked with more than my share of cheaper computers.

I think the real truth is, some people just don't think that they should spend more than $500 on a computer, even if they have the money to spend because they think that should be enough for a good computer.

I had a friend who wanted to do a 2600K build and he felt he should not spend more than $1000 for everything. I politely told him that probably would not be possible with the components he was choosing (the CPU and the mobo were $500 alone). Anyway, he came in around $1300 which is pretty good because he had to buy a copy of Windows 7.

The point is, it wasn't that he could not afford more than $1000, he just had a preconceived notion that $1000 was the absolute most he should spend on a computer (it was his first build). I think a lot of people have this mindset.

It doesn't matter that the 2500K if five times faster than the llano and only costs $70 more. They have a certain cost in their head and they are going to shape their computer accordingly. I am not condemning or judging them; I just don't understand them.