The AMD A8-3500M APU Review: Llano Is Unleashed

[phartindust]

Can it play WOW? lol yeah I know, but would like to see the result, especially since Tom already has a bench mark for WOW.

 

[Eleazaros]

Going across the article, it appears there are some driver issues that AMD needs to look into. I'm wondering how extensive those driver issues are with respect to some of the final findings.

Dual vid should default differently yet performed low - driver issue.

Turbo effect not working as expected - hardware only or could this also be a driver issue?

It if's "first gen" driver issues, you can mutter at AMD for shipping it for review but fixing drivers may invalidate a lot of this info.

Perhaps some follow-up will be needed.

 

[Thor]

Conclusion:
Intel can sleep. AMD suck again.

AMD is just better for graphic and it's normal since they acquired ATI which was not AMD.

So after to wait a lot, it's pity to see AMD suck again.
Intel beat them easily and so they continue to make more money.

Like ideas on AMD stop since long long time.

 

[clonazepam]

Im not sure why some folks suggested this would be good hardware for a tablet. It seems too powerful. There would be lots of wasted power waiting for your fingers to do all the touching.

I think, for me personally, this tells me AMD has some real potential here, that's not quite finished, but could be a monster in the coming months.

 

[WR2]

Annual Toshiba Refresh Brings Llano...and Some Style
sheds some light on it's new models expected near the end of the month.
Will be offering Zacate, Llano and Sandy Bridge options.

 

[pelov]

With driver updates the crossfire performance should be significant, hopefully on par with crossfire of the the discrete GPUs. Currently it seems the drivers don't even support/enhance GPU + APU crossfire performance, but that'll be remedied soon (hopefully ;P ).

I've heard that you can grab one of these babies with a discrete mobile GPU inside for ~$700. Maybe the lappies w/o the GPU will sell in the ~$500 range, which is bananas considering the performance. I don't buy a laptop to do heavy computing, and if i did I would be spending well over 2 grand for it. I use it to browse the net, play an occasional game when i'm bored of reading and this is the perfect solution at a great price.

 

[secretxax]

Good job, AMD. You finally made a better cpu/gpu combo than intel in terms of graphics power. Big win there...
______
Agreed! In my view, AMD might soon be the ultimate winner for notebooks/netbooks. But as for desktops, Intel will be the winner (maybe for a long time).

 

[ladril83]

Epic fail AMD. it is known ATI did wonderful graphic cards, so who made a good work??? I remember AMD does CPU and again the winner is ATI. When AMD will be the winner in its concerns, read CPU's? i don't know

 

[Zeh]

[citation][nom]phartindust[/nom]Can it play WOW? lol yeah I know, but would like to see the result, especially since Tom already has a bench mark for WOW.[/citation]

Yeah, it would be intereseting to see how does the iGPU on these APUs fare in WoW, Starcraft 2, MW2. Those games are not so demanding, yet have good visuals and a great fanbase.

 

[Zeh]

(sucks that i cant edit my post above)

I forgot to mention, SC2 and WoW in medium/fair settings, not High. Medium is still very good for SC 2, and you don't really need much eyecandy in WOW anyways.

 

[youssef 2010]

'm not so technically informed as most of the members of this site so, I might be wrong. But, as the article pointed out, AMD can match Nvidia's PhysX if it includes a fixed function logic on its CPUs which is specifically designed to handle physics calculation, much like Intel's QuickSync. This is of course for its desktop and mobile CPUs.

 

[Guest]

everything depends on the price of the A8-3500 if its in the range of 600-650 its a good option else its a bad choice.
AMD's forth generation APU may beat the intel.

 

[Guest]

Most people don't know the implications of this. Look, AMD succeeded in the development of this complex technology. They will now focus on bumping up GHz and optimizations next.

 

[joshyboy82]

I am a big fan of the battery life, as my laptop is relegated to time killing and web surfing when I'm away from my desktop. With the improved GPU, I can finally play some CS:Source on my laptop and still not kill my battery in an hour.

 

[The Halo Don]

The best!

 

[knownballer]

Great article. Finally someone explains what makes this chip really an APU. Two more things: as far as programming is concerned yes initiative like CUDA will be important but from what I've read Amd intends to integrate parts of the GPU into the CPU, which is something else entirely. Because of that the API that software now uses to communicate with the GPU may be useless. Nonetheless llano is a major step, and should be a huge winner for OEMs especially in the Desktop space where they usually lack having any graphics processing.

 

[WR2]

Some insight on the Llano price strategy from HP
This is from the HP Canada website:

Uploaded with ImageShack.us
That AMD Radeon HD 6755G2 is actually the HD 6750M graphics card with the hybrid crossfire option of using the HD 6620 IGP of the APU.
That dv6-6130ca model's price can be modified with $50 & free shipping HP coupons.

 

[WR2]

I can see that strange hybrid Crossfire naming scheme is going to cause some confusion.

Uploaded with ImageShack.us
from: AMD: Llano APUs now official @ Notebookcheck

 

[Guest]

Well it sure looks to me like AMD has the right system strategy for the largest segment of mainstream consumers. Llano is certainly an excellent laptop choice and a cost effective desktop option for many. AMD may actually move ahead of Intel on total system performance when Trinity arrives. I have money in hand waiting for the Llano laptops to show up for sale. Good job AMD!

 

[WR2]

BestBuy is listing a HP dv6-6135dx 15" notebook with A8-3500M/Radeon HD 6750 $800: Status, currently backordered.

A8-3500M APU 1.5Ghz (2.4Ghz turbo), 6GB RAM, 640GB HDD 5400rpm, Blu-Ray combo drive, 15.6" 1366x768 LCD w/ Radeon HD 6750 graphics.
Weighs 6 lbs, measures 1.4" thin with a nice selection of ports including HDMI and USB 3.0. WiFi included but not Bluetooth. Battery lifespan stated as 5.5hrs.

BestBuy is listing the Processsor Speed as 2.4Ghz instead of 1.5Ghz.

Uploaded with ImageShack.us

 

[youssef 2010]

AMD's dual graphics seem to work as regular crossfire in some situations. IMHO, there's something wrong with load distribution. Because, in many scenarios, it seems closer to Xfire using dissimilar GPUs. AMD's All Day Power is useful for somebody who works on monitor's light, perhaps!!!!!

Anyhow, Intel doesn't have anything that can challenge AMD's gaming performance AND AMD consumes less power too. "OUCH" seems to be a good expression to describe Intel's situation.

 

[Guest]

can smo do a test using tri-crossfire to check the performance? interested to knw if llano igp + 2x dgp (2x 6670), how would it be...

 

[Guest]

I'm actually really excited about Llano - particularly in a notebook.

I use and develop a 3D modelling application.
Finally having real graphics in a notebook that also has battery life is really exciting for me - as is having a graphics card that I can develop and test OpenCL rendering on.

My current experience is that raytracing is all about cores and memory speed - so any quad-core Llano will be a good step up (with the current code) from my (beloved) core 2 duo laptop. The 1600 memory will help as well.
And on top of that I can *finally* get into GPU coding and acceleration.

- The future looks awesome!

I can also see Llano desktop being a really attractive option for the 40 architect's CAD workstations I support.

Don't ever underestimate the "tyranny of a large number".

It seems that Llano desktops, when compared to an Intel i-something plus discrete graphics cards, would very likely be:
- price competitive (important when you are buying lots of them)
- be more energy efficient (we noticed the significant power bill change when we went from macs to P4)
- be more thermally efficient (again, important when you have lots of them).

 

[yukijin]

have they updated the drivers to fix the crossfire microstutter/performance problem???

 

[okoto]

I'd like to see the HP offering A8-3530mx with the 6750 to if the CPU is a bottleneck or not .