Battle At $140: Can An APU Beat An Intel CPU And Add-In Graphics?

[cleeve]

Hey Don could you add this chip and graphics combo and benchmark again?

A6-3500 Triple Core @ $80

6570 @ $50 after shipping and rebate

That's a little bit cheaper and has two freebies. I think if you run the games in dual graphics then you will get interesting results.

That's a nifty idea, although we don't include rebates in our price calculations. but I'm sure there's a Radeon card we can find on sale for $50 that would fit the bill.

A8-3870K/DDR3 1866 (stock, and overclocked with mem controller)
vs
A6-3500/DDR3 1866 plus $50 Radeon (stock, and overclocked with mem controller and graphics card)
vs
G620 plus $70 Radeon (stock, and overclocked with FSB and graphics card)

I like the idea, but I suspect we won't learn a single thing compared to what we've already tested here. And I doubt it's something we'll pursue right now because the review covers it.

Having said that, trinity is around the corner, and when it arrives I'll revive this idea and include trinity, llano, trinity and llano hybrid Xfire, and Pentiums with discrete. Maybe even with multiple price points to see if adding hybrid Xfire is worth it compared to money sank into a discrete card.

 

[blazorthon]

@Cleeve

Would you add a Celeron too? The Celeron G530 is right behind the Pentium G620, but is $20 cheaper and that's enough for a 6750 instead of a 6670. I'm pretty sure that the differences between the Celeron G530 and the Pentium G620 are just 2.4GHz 2MB L3 vs 2.6GHz dual core 3MB L3 so it might be no more than five or so percent slower, but is almost 35% cheaper.

 

[shin0bi272]

Can An APU Beat An Intel CPU And Add-In Graphics?

so the answer is no unless you overclock the apu quite a bit and even then in game it still wont win clearly. The bigger issue here isnt the apu vs discrete graphics (cause we all should have seen this result coming) its that someone would try to game on a cpu/gpu combo that they paid 140 bucks for. In the pc world if you pay that much for your cpu and graphics you pretty much dont care about gaming. Hell for the extra 50 bucks that the intel motherboard cost you could have just bought a ps3 or xbox. So the entire point of this article is moot.

On the other hand though... If you like the performance in games that you see here you'll be happy because microsoft and sony have agreed to us amd's APU in their next consoles. So we are going to have another 10 years of crappy console ports to pc games for the sake of money.

 

[Chip in a box]

The problem isn't the APU, it's the price of this APU. It's $140 because it's new while the graphics card is quite old and is cheaper now.

There won't be much difference between the 3850 and 3870 in gaming, but the 3850 is $20 cheaper.

If the article was based at $120 or $130 then the 3850 would have won vs the G620 and a 5550. If it was based at $145 then I'm sure the A6-3500 and 6570 would beat the G620 and 6670. It's just unfortunate that the article is based right at the sweet spot for the pentium and discrete graphics combination.

 

[blazorthon]

@owlx

The Radeon 6670 can't do tri Crossfire and I'm not sure if they really do regular Crossfire with another 6670. That would be pointless anyway because the 6850 could be had for the same price and the 6850 would always win. The cheapest card that can reasonably do more than dual crossfire in the Radeon 6000 family is the dual Crossfire dongle 6770, unless there are dual dongle 6750s too and I'm not sure about that.

Of course, the 6670 might not need a Crossfire dongle because it probably can just do Crossfire through the PCIe interface anyway since it can do this with the integrated 6550D.

I'm not sure about triple Crossfire working too well with Trinity because as the Trinity APUs and the Radeons get faster, they might need more bandwidth to do Crossfire. It will probably be okay to do dual Crossfire so long as the video card has full PCIe 2.0 16 lanes or 8 lanes of PCIe 3.0 (when AMD adopts it), but I don't think that a triple Crossfire setup is practical with less than 24 lanes of PCIe 2.0 or 12 3.0 lanes.

It would probably help to have a third card even in a system with only 16 2.0 lanes, but it could impact performance scaling.

Even if there is support for it, PCIe 2.0 might become a bottleneck with three mid-range GPUs in triple crossfire and one of the GPUs is on an APU and there is only 16 lanes of 2.0 bandwidth to go around.

However, you can look into triple Crossfire 6770s if you want to get an idea of the performance level it could achieve. Three 6770s can fight it out with a GTX 580 and two 6770s can fight it out with the 6970, albeit the dual 6770 setup would probably have more micro-stuttering and similar problems than the 6970.

 

[peroludiarom]

[citation][nom]tourist[/nom]http://www.hardwareheaven.com/revi [...] ction.html[/citation]

What i see is 3D mark score - more than 10% increase in performance ))) So after all there is some reason to use 1866mhz ram???? And this puts APU in lead of Pentium. And i'm sure that mem controller is not touched too....

I expect some excuses..

p.s.: in my country 4gb 2000mhz corsair kit is just 65$. make the calculations

 

[ojas]

OTish, why does it seem like AMD & Intel measure their TDP's so differently? Intel always seems to over-state it's power draw, while AMD under-estimates theirs? Or am I imagining things?

from what i've seen, intel seem to specify an average value for their higher end chips. Lower end models seem to have worst case TDPs specified.

>ALSO: The integrated graphics of the G620 count towards the TDP.
If you don't use it, the real TDP will be lower!

Yeah actually you're right, i totally forgot about that....65w seems to be pretty standard for their dual core models, i assume they keep it that way because of their binning process...

 

[blazorthon]

What i see is 3D mark score - more than 10% increase in performance ))) So after all there is some reason to use 1866mhz ram???? And this puts APU in lead of Pentium. And i'm sure that mem controller is not touched too....

I expect some excuses..

p.s.: in my country 4gb 2000mhz corsair kit is just 65$. make the calculations

The performance increase over 1866MHz with 2000MHz would be even smaller than the difference between 1600MHz and 1866MHz memory. 1600 to 1866 is a ~16.6% increase in bandwidth, going from 1866 to 2000 is only a ~7% increase. It probably wouldn't be a noticeable difference in performance. The absolute best possible increase in performance between 1600MHz and 2000MHz with similar latencies is 25%. The increase in price to get that increase is enough to get a much faster video card instead so it won't help the APU to beat the Intel system, but I won't deny that it will help the APU system increase in performance, albeit not in a very cost-effective way.

8GB of G.Skill 1866MHz can be had at $50-60 here in the USA on Newegg, so I think it is the better buy unless there is a difference in $ between where I live and where you live.

 

[beavermml]

waaaa... im surprise that this topic is still alive

 

[blazorthon]

The Pentium G620 and Radeon 6670 together are about $130-$140 so the A6 needs to cost $70 to $80 to compensate or it can't have a Radeon 6670 for the comparison at the same budget. You can fit a Radeon 6450, maybe a 6570 into the budget allowed by the A6-3670K if it's current price is what you cited.

Then we have to find out if a 6530D+ whatever Radeon we can fit into the budget can beat the Pentium + Radeon 6670. If it does, then like I said, we move to the Celeron G530 and get a Radeon 6750 instead of 6670 and run circles around the AMD setup anyway, or we just overclock the Pentium and 6670 system. It would probably still be more power efficient than the AMD.

However, I would like to see the comparison and it is interesting, so I thumbed you up anyway. Also however, I agree that we will have to wait for Trinity. At that, we might have Ivy out around the same time or so too and hopefully have another Pentium/i3/Celeron to test out too.

 

[peroludiarom]

[citation][nom]tourist[/nom]Toms covered it herehttp://www.tomshardware.com/review [...] 975-6.htmlalthough 1866 will see a slight increase good cas 7 1600mem is the sweet spoti paid $104. for my 3670k and @39 A/R for a ecs a55 fm1 mb and that = $143.Add the 1 gb 6670 from the test in crossfire against the 620 and i believe you will see a different outcome even using the A6 6530D.Looking at cleeve's above post we will have to wait until trinity to come out[/citation]

How you calculate where is the sweet spot ??? Another talks in the air ... Go there and learn how to tweak all components on your APU first. 1600mhz ram is bottleneck for well optimized APU with memory controller cpu and gpu overclock. And when you say somthing, please post at least one evidence, and i hope its not this article.

 

[beavermml]

not many people likes to tweak their machine.. they just want it to works.. besides.. not all parts are created equal... some can be tweaked higher while others may not.. i understand that u want to have a thoroughly tested APU here, but no matter how much u tweaked the APU, intel+discreet just perform effortlessly and cheaper too..

if u insisted that the APU should be tweaked to its max.. then Tom should also tweak intel+discreet to its max also.. im curious too about the result and then we can see clearly which is better at $140 price point

 

[Chip in a box]

not many people likes to tweak their machine.. they just want it to works.. besides.. not all parts are created equal... some can be tweaked higher while others may not.. i understand that u want to have a thoroughly tested APU here, but no matter how much u tweaked the APU, intel+discreet just perform effortlessly and cheaper too..

if u insisted that the APU should be tweaked to its max.. then Tom should also tweak intel+discreet to its max also.. im curious too about the result and then we can see clearly which is better at $140 price point

The pentium can barely be overclocked at all because of its locked multiplier.

 

[blazorthon]

@Chip in a Box

The Pentium can't get too big of an overclock, but it's Radeon can.

 

[Chip in a box]

That wouldn't change much - the A8 would still be well ahead in apps and the pentium would still be well ahead in games.

To be fair the memory would need to be overclocked too, and that would increase the A8's gaming performance more than it would the pentiums.

 

[blazorthon]

True, but the point of this article is gaming so if the Pentium is ahead in gaming, then it wins the competition we were looking at.

Overclocking the memory will help the A8 and it won't increase the budget so okay, but there is no way it can beat the Pentium. I think that as of yet, that is the conclusion we have. The Pentium can't win in general work and the A8 can't win in gaming, the A6 probably won't.

Considering just how low end this system is, maybe the owner wouldn't care about general work being up to twice as fast on the A8 and somewhat faster on the A6. At that point, the owner probably doesn't do anything that would take too much time on either system and would prefer the better gaming performance over the better application performance that probably isn't as high of a priority.

Honestly, I think that the Pentium would simply be fast enough for most work that an owner of a low end system does. I do quite a lot on my old laptop and that Pentium is probably over twice as fast as my Turion 64 x2 TL-60 @ 2.00GHz. That is a slower mobile version of an Athlon 64, for those who don't know.

My laptop (only 2GB DDR2 667 too) lets me run a 512MB VM while I have Firefox open with several dozen tabs and a large download and a large archive being extracted. I think that the Pentium would simply be enough for most work at this end low end of performance.

 

[shin0bi272]

I find it funny that whenever you point out something truthful about an amd product that doesnt measure up you instantly get voted down. Fanboyism at its finest/worst.

 

[Chip in a box]

Well the reason why it was allowed to be overclocked is why it costs $140. Like I said earlier they could have used the $20 cheaper 3850, non-k and held the contests at $120 instead - which would mean the pentium would be stuck with a 5550. The A8-3850 would be much closer in gaming then while still a long way ahead in apps.

 

[Chip in a box]

I find it funny that whenever you point out something truthful about an amd product that doesnt measure up you instantly get voted down. Fanboyism at its finest/worst.

I think it's hilarious that you voted down my post which was true, then deleted your comment about all Sandy Bridge chips being multiplier unlocked. Fanboyism at it's finest/worst.

 

[blazorthon]

@Chip in a Box

We would have used the 6570, not the 5550. Besides that, we would have then included overclock values and the Intel would have still won. Overclocking the IGP of Llano probably doesn't help much just because of it's memory bottleneck, the same won't be true for a video card with that big of an overclock. However, video cards usually don't get 50-80% overclocks so it depends on how far the 6570 can be pushed.

Even if the 5550 was necessary, the same is still true. However, the A8 might have a chance at that point, but it still shouldn't win if the 5550 in the Intel system is overclocked.

 

[Wisecracker]

Thanks to the crew at Tom's for the article.

Hopefully (for all of us-and AMD) soon we will get a serious peek at Trinity for comparison.

@Chip in a Box

We would have used the 6570 . . .

Rumahs on the internets have Trinity with the Turks HD 6570 being a killer dual-graphics rig.

 

[Chip in a box]

@Chip in a Box

We would have used the 6570, not the 5550.

Not for $120 though - the cheapest that can be done on newegg is $130.

Besides that, we would have then included overclock values and the Intel would have still won. Overclocking the IGP of Llano probably doesn't help much just because of it's memory bottleneck, the same won't be true for a video card with that big of an overclock. However, video cards usually don't get 50-80% overclocks so it depends on how far the 6570 can be pushed.

Even if the 5550 was necessary, the same is still true. However, the A8 might have a chance at that point, but it won't still shouldn't win if the 5550 in the Intel system is overclocked.

But there wouldn't be overclocking then because the A8-3850 isn't an unlocked chip. The whole reason the 3870 was allowed the overclock was because it was multiplier unlocked - you pay $20 for that otherwise you really might as well just have the 3850. It's the same graphics speed and only 100 Mhz less on the cores - using the 3870K in this review just hurt the AMD platform in gaming because it allowed the Pentium to get a much faster graphics card for the same money.

 

[shin0bi272]

Not for $120 though - the cheapest that can be done on newegg is $130.

Besides that, we would have then included overclock values and the Intel would have still won. Overclocking the IGP of Llano probably doesn't help much just because of it's memory bottleneck, the same won't be true for a video card with that big of an overclock. However, video cards usually don't get 50-80% overclocks so it depends on how far the 6570 can be pushed.

Even if the 5550 was necessary, the same is still true. However, the A8 might have a chance at that point, but it won't still shouldn't win if the 5550 in the Intel system is overclocked.

But there wouldn't be overclocking then because the A8-3850 isn't an unlocked chip. The whole reason the 3870 was allowed the overclock was because it was multiplier unlocked - you pay $20 for that otherwise you really might as well just have the 3850. It's the same graphics speed and only 100 Mhz less - using the 3870K in this review just hurt the AMD platform in gaming because it allowed the Pentium to get a much faster graphics card for the same money.

I think what he was saying was that to do a straight up head to head match up with amd cpu/gpu vs amd apu you shouldnt worry about the price. That way you isolate the tested item to which is best a cpu/gpu or an apu of the same make. When you compare intel and amd vs amd you are comparing apples with oranges vs oranges with oranges.

 

[blazorthon]

@shin0bi272

Well said. At any exact price point this low, even within a few $, AMD or Intel could win depending on how you set it up and what is on sale that day. We are looking at very exact budgets and with prices always changing, the better choice could change DAILY. One day the 6670 goes on sale for $10 cheaper, Intel wins. One day an A8 or A6 goes on sale for a little cheaper, AMD wins.

No matter what, Intel will be more power efficient so over time it could end up being cheaper, but that isn't quite what we seem to be looking at.

@Chip in the Box

I don't think that it matters that the A8-3850 can't overclock. If the Intel can then it shouldn't be crippled just because the AMD chip at the same price doesn't offer something. Same goes for memory overclocking. If possible, we should overclock the memory of the AMD system because it grants a tangible benefit without increasing initial price. If we want a perfect comparison, it will take a lot of work.

Besides, can't the GPU on the non-K A8s and A6s be overclocked anyway? I thought it was unlocked. Even if it isn't, there is BLCK overclocking on the AMD system anyway. The problem with overclocking the IGP of AMD is that it doesn't help much despite increase power usage greatly. I don't think that the 700MHz jump from the A8-3850 to the overclocked A8-3870K makes a difference outside of general application work, the 3850 should be fast enough to not bottleneck it's IGP.

 

[Chip in a box]

It can overclock yeah and should reach 3.6 GHz.

If you had a $120 article with the 3850 vs the G620 and 5550 and overclocked everything to the max all that would happen would be the 3850 won by even more in apps because it can overclock the cpu cores by 25% while the G620 barely can by 2% or 3%. Overclocking the graphics on each would just end up with a similar result - not sure who would win it I think they would both be very close to each other.