O/C Tech: Making AMD's Socket AM1 Viable

[Thefullsetup]

Ive really enjoyed my 5350 found a 2.5ghz of was stable for me, but I upgraded to an arctic alpine m1 and upgraded the fan to an arctic f8. Had it running with a gtx 950 and runs battlefront like a dream super cheap super fun build.https://youtu.be/KUyhZq0c0o8

 

[RedJaron]

...
Do you have any numbers of the A4-6300 in similar workloads? It is very close in price, and is a dual-core 3.9GHz CPU.

That might be a good question for Eric Van Der Linden or Jacob Terkelson, two other writers who have looked at some of the AMD systems (and may have most or all of the parts on hand). Since one of my specific goals was low power, it did not occur to me to look at any 65W chip.

The lowest AMD chip I've used is the 860K in my SBM articles. That's a little higher than the A4-6300 so no, I wouldn't have directly comparable numbers.

 

[Onus]

Down to theterk for comparison then...

 

[Sergio Guzman]

Is that also a 5350? What board do you have that can take it that high? The highest setting on mine was 2.4GHz.

A 5350 yes. I use an Asus AM1I-A which for some reason lets me set the multiplier up to x21 (should max at x20.5) and from there change the base clock. This also ramps up the gpu clock which is locked 6 to 1 to the base clock and hits some kind of hard wall (tested 5 chips, all same story) at ~860 MHz with base at ~143MHz. From there errors and glitches explode. So you can max the cores to 143MHz x 21 = ~3GHz (not tested). Also up to 2.4 GHz you can use stock voltage.

 

[Onus]

Interesting. Do you have power consumption numbers?

 

[Virtual_Singularity]

Rather than the article above, which seems to be written in an unnecessarily disparaging light, shedding some light on the newly released Athlon X4 845 (a 65w chip) for the fm2+ platform, might have been better. Seeing as how the chip retails for around the same price, with plenty of fm2+ motherboards available that are considerably cheaper than the one featured above.

But an article focusing on how you've often wondered (srsly?) "how low you could go", and "still have a viable system"... which just happens to feature what is an essentially inconsequential/borderline obsolete AMD chip/platform, despite the fact there are other/newer/better AMD chips/APUS similarly priced that wouldn't pose a potential bottleneck for the 750 ti you also manage to feature in the article... Just kind of seems a tad insincere all in all, tbh, though my apologies if I'm mistaken.

 

[Onus]

"How low can I go," especially in this case (but true before too) is more focused on lowering power used than lowering performance. I had every confidence that the GTX750Ti would offer all the graphics performance needed, but would not use any more power than needed. I could have possibly used a GT740, but I know I would have had to lower settings in GW2.
An alternative could have been a 35W "T" chip from Intel, but I was also trying to keep the budget low on this unsponsored project. I thought some might find the data it generated useful, as I said if only as that bottom edge of performance to which most people would not care to drop. If it's enough though (i.e. no games will be played), it is a viable system. My personal goals for it may have been way too niche for it to be something I could wholeheartedly recommend, but it's still, imho, a useful data point.

 

[Sergio Guzman]

Interesting. Do you have power consumption numbers?

Not at all but Aida showed me the chip toped at 51C with cpu+gpu at 100% usage, and all this with the horrible mini cooler that came with the chip. Motherboard voltage regulators where also finger friendly, only slightly warm.

 

[falchard]

I think when this was released a year or two ago, it had a very compelling buy in certain niche markets. In those markets it was decidedly better.
If you have a number of workers who don't need a demanding system, this made a lot of sense. The entire system is under $100 which is a phenomenal price. Pair this with draining a hair of electricity and the cost is incredibly low. Or if you have an HTPC this fits the bill quite well.
Today, I think the technology is now dated. For that low power office setting, It makes more sense to get the Continuum or Ubuntu supported mobile devices. It makes equipping the employee very simple. For an HTPC, there are cheaper streaming client boxes.

 

[ta152h]

Kind of odd calling the 5350 the highest end AM1 product, when even a simple search should reveal AMD has already released the 5370 (not easy to get yet), and has it listed on their web page. I'm pretty sure this should have been included in the article, since it runs at 2.2 GHz stock, also at 25 watts.

I have the same motherboard and processor (I'm actually using it now), and it's definitely driving in the slow lane. Not nearly as bad as Intel's Atom line, but you'll never confuse these processors with the higher end ones either.

Also, one mistake most of the authors make,and one which was made here, is comparing processor prices and then thinking it's fair to compare those that have the same. No. Even a little thought would tell you the Kabini is an SoC, and can be used in less expensive motherboards by virtue of having more on the die itself. That makes the die more expensive, but the savings come when buying the rest of the platform.

 

[Reynod]

Great maiden article Joe ... well written and humble, with a sense of humour. Crashman ... you have got some competition from this oldtimer mate.

 

[Mike Coberly]

I really want to like the AM1 platform as well, but as far as meeting usage needs, I find that it is surprisingly squeezed between the intel platforms you mentioned and the vastly cheaper/lower wattage raspberry pi 2 (and now 3) systems....or even the Pine 64.

If you're just web browsing, emailing, etc, the pi is adequate. If you need more performance than that, it's likely you need a lot more performance and the AM1 sits in a middle ground there isn't much demand for. It does make a good minimal HTPC for 4K video if you want to run windows on your HTPC, but that's all I can think of. (the just released Pine 64 board supports 4K video playback for much cheaper, but only runs android).

Pine64 will run more than Android. http://wiki.pine64.org/index.php/Main_Page#Linux_Kernel
I'm currently waiting on my 2GB model. I look forward to putting it through it's paces next to the Pi 3.
With a full desktop experience, the 4xA53 cores of the Pine64/Broadcom will basically be a wash (they will be operating at the same speed), the deciding factor then will be the GPUs, Mail400MP2 or VideoCore IV ?

 

[Crashman]

But an article focusing on how you've often wondered (srsly?) "how low you could go", and "still have a viable system"... which just happens to feature what is an essentially inconsequential/borderline obsolete AMD chip/platform... Just kind of seems a tad insincere all in all, tbh, though my apologies if I'm mistaken.

Dude bought his own parts, paid for them with his own cash. This might not make sense to you, but he certainly took it seriously enough to lay out the money.

 

[Crashman]

Great maiden article Joe ... well written and humble, with a sense of humour. Crashman ... you have got some competition from this oldtimer mate.

But I can always write a pointed comeback

 

[Onus]

Great maiden article Joe ... well written and humble, with a sense of humour. Crashman ... you have got some competition from this oldtimer mate.

But I can always write a pointed comeback

True, and I for one am inclined to let them go, since you've usually been trolled to get it (sometimes really hard, too).
As to being a "maiden" article, well, I suppose it was the first that wasn't strictly a review, but I've done a number of motherboard reviews. Thanks for the complement though. Hopefully you'll see some more reviews soon.
Oh, and Scrooge's replacement is awake now. Igor is a Skylake G4400 on one of the H170 review samples. I will know by Saturday if Scrooge was bottlenecking my new LAN speed test. Scrooge got its name for being frugal with power, Igor's comes from its job description as my lab assistant.

 

[Sirius_Blaque]

I originally installed Ubuntu and Steam and tried out Half Life 2. It was probably playable, but I wasn't impressed. I ended up installing Windows 7 after Ubuntu would not get along with the TV. Might my bad experience with HL2 be related to Linux drivers, or is this hardware just not up to the task? Is it worth another shot on Windows?
[/quote]

 

[Sirius_Blaque]

You got Steam running? I'm impressed. I have had multiple issues with Ubuntu and AMD components over many years. They just don't seem to get along all that well. I use my system strictly for browsing and entertainment purposes but I imagine that I'd get better performance from Windows.

 

[wiyosaya]

Paired with an Adaptec raid controller on an Asus AM1M-A, the 5350 works just fine for me as a firewall and internet gateway. I'm running openSuSE Leap 42.1 and booting UEFI, from the raid controller and it boots up (once the raid controller is initialized) in a matter of a few seconds.

I can understand that because of its low price and very low power consumption that people would like to get more from this platform for gaming, but I don't think this platform is aimed at gamers.

I could envision this platform used for an HTPC, too.

I assume that there are other appropriate uses of this platform, too, which for me, begs the question is the platform appropriate for the intended application?

It is obvious from the article that the platform can be pushed, but personally, I don't think that anyone should expect amazing performance in all applications. The platform will perform well if you pick it appropriately for the application.

 

[Onus]

^Agreed. It is not aimed at gamers. I did want to see how it would manage the few "lighter" games I do play; some ran well, but others did not.
For other things, I do believe the platform is viable. It may not have been enough for a specific use in my case, but there are plenty of others for which I'm sure it is decently suited, like HTPCs, network appliances, and (possibly with an add-on controller) NAS boxes.

 

[Rookie_MIB]

It's use as a NAS/fileserver would probably be pretty good if you added a RAID card to it, but if you ever wanted to add 10GbE to it you'd be out of luck with the lack of a secondary PCIe slot (as the RAID would stay).

Even those who might say that the PCIe x4 slot would limit the performance of the RAIDed drives, thats not the limiting factor - the 1GbE network is the bottleneck.

As a network appliance (router), it would be great if a board was made with a dual or quad GbE setup - it would hardly break a sweat running something like pfSense...

 

[Reynod]

Great maiden article Joe ... well written and humble, with a sense of humour. Crashman ... you have got some competition from this oldtimer mate.

But I can always write a pointed comeback

Its a great first article.

Hey crash ..have you got a link for your very first article ?

 

[BadActor]

I wonder how a cheap laptop with a Skylake U processor and HD 510 graphics would stack against the AM1 build? Another alternative for a low power HTPC?

 

[Crashman]

Great maiden article Joe ... well written and humble, with a sense of humour. Crashman ... you have got some competition from this oldtimer mate.

But I can always write a pointed comeback

Its a great first article.

Hey crash ..have you got a link for your very first article ?

Not a chance, the company removed its content after redirecting the homepage to user forums.

 

[Clive_2]

I have an older E-350 HTPC and another with an Intel d525 plus a tablet with with a z3740, the old E350 may be slow but it runs circles around the Intels playing Netflix and YouTube, AMD drivers are more up to date and work far better than Intel drivers .
I have no problem loading a blu ray into the e-350...it plays video like a champ...don't ask it to do anything else, but then again that's what I built it for , both the E350 and the D525 run win 10, E-350 ran like a charm...D525 had driver issues with video and networking..Maybe AMD does have a point a point about user experience not just numbers...I am going to replace the D525 with an AM1