[Alexko]

Originally Posted by swaaye

3450 can run some games ok. It will run UT3 alright at reduced settings. But then you try KOTOR and it's not entirely smooth. It really reminded me of a Radeon 9600 with support for more shader features.

The inability to accelerate flash is really a problem though when you are on a system with a wimpy CPU. It can accelerate H.264 and VC-1 but its UVD lacks something to allow flash accel.

To be fair, KOTOR's engine was pretty buggy and would go from running fine to lagging badly for no apparent reason. You had to close the game and relaunch it. Of course, on current high-end graphics cards, even when it switches to "super-slow mode" you don't notice it because it's still above 60 FPS, but on a 3450 I can imagine how it might be noticeable.

[ToTTenTranz]

Originally Posted by swaaye

3450 can run some games ok. It will run UT3 alright at reduced settings. But then you try KOTOR and it's not entirely smooth. It really reminded me of a Radeon 9600 with support for more shader features.

The inability to accelerate flash is really a problem though when you are on a system with a wimpy CPU. It can accelerate H.264 and VC-1 but its UVD lacks something to allow flash accel.

Wut? The HD3200 IGP (RV610 as well) in my Ferrari One accelerates Flash video and all kinds of browser acceleration just fine.
It's probably the one thing that's holding that dual-core 1.2GHz Athlon Neo together for a very decent web browsing experience.

I've also tried KOTOR in it and it played fine with 1024*768 medium-ish settings @ ~30fps.
I even played Mass Effect 1 in a 960*540 custom resolution with all settings low, at some ~24fps.

Perhaps you used an old driver?

[mczak]

Originally Posted by Lightman

3D Mark numbers are very good for integrated solution for laptop, and that is with low clocked 4 core APU where we all know 3DMark 06 loves fast cores.

I doubt it would make a lot of difference for the gpu class we're talking here.

Originally Posted by ToTTenTranz

And as AMD doesn't have anything to compete with nVidia's Optimus for Intel yet, I'd say a Llano with the discrete GPU turned off should be more power efficient than an i5+HD66xx.

There are some hybrid notebooks on the market with AMD graphics without the display mux which have the display outputs just on the IGP. Looks to me AMD introduced its own Optimus solution rather quietly without anyone noticing yet .

[ToTTenTranz]

Originally Posted by mczak

There are some hybrid notebooks on the market with AMD graphics without the display mux which have the display outputs just on the IGP. Looks to me AMD introduced its own Optimus solution rather quietly without anyone noticing yet .

For Intel CPUs and IGPs?

Really? Could you point out a model or two? (Honest question, I really thought AMD's switchable graphics only supported AMD IGPs so far.)

[swaaye]

Originally Posted by ToTTenTranz

Wut? The HD3200 IGP (RV610 as well) in my Ferrari One accelerates Flash video and all kinds of browser acceleration just fine.
It's probably the one thing that's holding that dual-core 1.2GHz Athlon Neo together for a very decent web browsing experience.

780G does accelerate flash but most if not all of the discrete 3xxx GPUs do not for some reason.

Originally Posted by ToTTenTranz

I've also tried KOTOR in it and it played fine with 1024*768 medium-ish settings @ ~30fps.

Yes it's similar to a Radeon 9600 Pro (or X600 or X1300). Not exciting but is expected for a part with a tiny transistor budget and yet full DX10.1 featureset. I've messed with 780G too but on the desktop. I got the IGP up to 930 MHz. It's too bandwidth constrained to really benefit though.

The modern stuff like 6450 is more interesting because it has far more ALU power and often GDDR5. They've also improved the texturing performance since the olden R600 times.

32nm Llano could make for some interesting notebooks....

[mczak]

Originally Posted by ToTTenTranz

For Intel CPUs and IGPs?

Really? Could you point out a model or two? (Honest question, I really thought AMD's switchable graphics only supported AMD IGPs so far.)

Dell Vostro 3550 for example.
http://www.notebookcheck.net/AMD-Pow...s.55204.0.html

edit: there are others, at least other Vostro's, I thought I saw some non-dell notebook as well. Since AMD doesn't really have a name for it yet though it's sort of hard to search notebooks specifically which support it .
Judging by a bug filed against the linux kernel (can't switch gpu...), there's also at least HP notebooks out which support this though I don't know the exact model (recent dv7).

[Dave Baumann]

Originally Posted by ToTTenTranz

Really? Could you point out a model or two? (Honest question, I really thought AMD's switchable graphics only supported AMD IGPs so far.)

Switchable graphics is actually for non-AMD solutions.

[Psycho]

There's also the MBP: http://www.apple.com/macbookpro/features.html

Originally Posted by apple

The integrated Intel HD Graphics 3000 processor — now included across the MacBook Pro lineup — handles the things you do every day. It encodes video quickly, making HD video calls with FaceTime possible. And it decodes efficiently, so you get long playback time for DVDs and iTunes movies. For graphics-intensive applications, the 15- and 17-inch MacBook Pro models automatically switch to new high-performance AMD Radeon graphics processors.

[liem107]

I haven't seen it mentionned but anandtech previews are up.
as expected K10.X gen cpu performances don't exactly shine vs corei3....yep AMD really n eeds to push strong on APU programming to try bridge the gap with SDB cpu perfs.
but GPU perf is quite enough for low end gaming.
http://www.anandtech.com/show/4448/a...rmance-preview
http://www.anandtech.com/show/4444/a...n-apu-a8-3500m

[AnarchX]

Nearly 1 billion transistors for a 32nm SOI Redwood (627M @ 40nm bulk)?

This chip weighs in at 1.45 billion transistors, nearly 50% more than Sandy Bridge. Around half of the chip is dedicated to the GPU however, so those are tightly packed transistors resulting in a die size that's only 5% larger than Sandy Bridge.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/4444/a...apu-a8-3500m/2

btw.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/4444/a...pu-a8-3500m/13
~900 GFLOPs for Trinity.

[Blazkowicz]

Originally Posted by ninelven

I hate being pedantic, but the constant misuse of this word is annoying.

niche - a distinct segment of a market.

Of course x86 is a niche of the market... niche != small.

I disagree. x86 on phone/PDA-like devices such as UMPC is a niche, but you can't say that for mainstream computers, servers and the like.

if a niche is a subset of a market, then if 100% of all computing was all x86, it would be a niche as the full set is a subset of itself

more seriously, x86 is present in many markets including tablets (anecdotal), industrial, embedded, and dominates the desktop, laptops and servers.
a niche instruction set or technology would have significant presence in one market (or dominate it) and be mostly irrelevant in others.

it was even put in consoles (twice) and in a nokia smartphone back when the word smartphone didn't exist.

[Florin]

Originally Posted by liem107

I haven't seen it mentionned but anandtech previews are up.
as expected K10.X gen cpu performances don't exactly shine vs corei3....yep AMD really n eeds to push strong on APU programming to try bridge the gap with SDB cpu perfs.
but GPU perf is quite enough for low end gaming.
http://www.anandtech.com/show/4448/a...rmance-preview
http://www.anandtech.com/show/4444/a...n-apu-a8-3500m

Yeah looking good. Definitely either comparable to or better than the Core 2 Q6600, and dangerously close to beating the GT220 in some of the gaming benches.

[Silent_Buddha]

Originally Posted by liem107

I haven't seen it mentionned but anandtech previews are up.
as expected K10.X gen cpu performances don't exactly shine vs corei3....yep AMD really n eeds to push strong on APU programming to try bridge the gap with SDB cpu perfs.
but GPU perf is quite enough for low end gaming.
http://www.anandtech.com/show/4448/a...rmance-preview
http://www.anandtech.com/show/4444/a...n-apu-a8-3500m

And right about where I expected it to land. Around entry level discrete graphics performance (6450) versus the somewhat exaggerated expectations of some that were hoping for midrange performance (x5xx/x6xx) from it.

Still a pretty good first step and with an, IMO, better balance between GPU/CPU than Sandy Bridge. Sandy Bridge still has far better pure CPU power. But Llano strikes a better balance if a user does occasional gaming.

Wish they had been able to indicate power consumption however.

Regards,
SB

[rpg.314]

Originally Posted by AnarchX

Nearly 1 billion transistors for a 32nm SOI Redwood (627M @ 40nm bulk)?

SOI is generally a bit denser than bulk at the same node.

Custom logic has more density than synthesized logic.

Caches also increase density. There's not much of it in GPUs.

~900 GFLOPs for Trinity.

I hope we'll get to see this sometime in 2012.

[Zaphod]

Originally Posted by Silent_Buddha

Wish they had been able to indicate power consumption however.

One can do some back of napkin calculations based on the notebook preview. I.e. looping 3DMark06, the system used sin the neighborhood of 21W.

[ToTTenTranz]

http://www.anandtech.com/show/4444/a...pu-a8-3500m/10

It's such a shame that AMD screwed up with the drivers for Hybrid Crossfire at launch!

Just look at those 3DMark Vantage & 11 results, and they're not even using the best APU nor the best dGPU available, far from it. I bet the "HD6775G2" combination could turn out faster than some of those GTX460M results, even with the CPU advantage.

There's a huge potential in there, but the games aren´t using it at all... It seems the driver team just rushed the Crossfire profiles for 3DMark and that's it..

And what's up with the "DX10\11 only" crossfire support?! It's such a shot in the foot... so there won't be any Crossfire for Skyrim, Bioshock 2, Unreal 3, and previous games?
Dave, please tell us DX9 will be supported for "G2" combinations!


And I wonder why send laptopts with DDR3-1333MHz, if the platform supports DDR3-1600? Llano should be pretty much bandwidth-hungry, right?

[Alexko]

Originally Posted by Silent_Buddha

And right about where I expected it to land. Around entry level discrete graphics performance (6450) versus the somewhat exaggerated expectations of some that were hoping for midrange performance (x5xx/x6xx) from it.

Still a pretty good first step and with an, IMO, better balance between GPU/CPU than Sandy Bridge. Sandy Bridge still has far better pure CPU power. But Llano strikes a better balance if a user does occasional gaming.

Wish they had been able to indicate power consumption however.

Regards,
SB

Anand tested his APU with DDR3-1333, while Llano officially supports DDR3-1600 and 1866.

That's almost 40% more bandwidth left on the table.

[Lightman]

Originally Posted by Alexko

Anand tested his APU with DDR3-1333, while Llano officially supports DDR3-1600 and 1866.

That's almost 40% more bandwidth left on the table.

Not mentioning this in article was unfair.
Also comparing hd6450 + 2500k to APU bias results even more thanks to much faster CPU.
If they would put Athlon Ii X4 + 6450 we could draw better conclusions.

At least Anand is going to do prpoer review in coming weeks.

[ToTTenTranz]

Originally Posted by Alexko

Anand tested his APU with DDR3-1333, while Llano officially supports DDR3-1600 and 1866.

That's almost 40% more bandwidth left on the table.

In a system where memory bandwidth definitely makes some difference, and with DDR3-1600 being pretty much the "minimum standard" nowadays (equally priced to DDR3-1333, at least), it's just odd that he's decided to couple the system with slow memory.

[Albuquerque]

Originally Posted by ToTTenTranz

In a system where memory bandwidth definitely makes some difference, and with DDR3-1600 being pretty much the "minimum standard" nowadays (equally priced to DDR3-1333, at least), it's just odd that he's decided to couple the system with slow memory.

Are we sure that he chose that configuration, or is it more likely that this configuration was provided to him somehow? I don't know, just asking...

[ninelven]

Originally Posted by Blazkowicz

I disagree.

It does not matter if you disagree. That is how it is defined. Using the word niche to imply size or significance is using it incorrectly, period.

[Lightman]

Originally Posted by Albuquerque

Are we sure that he chose that configuration, or is it more likely that this configuration was provided to him somehow? I don't know, just asking...

In this case we are talking about Desktop Llano and Anand has several boards from manufactures, so this implies he is deciding which components to build it around.
In case of SB memory support is limited to 1333 (officially), but Llano Desktop officially supports DDR3 1833.
It's like testing SB platform with DDR3 800, does it make sense from performance point of view? No! Can it be done when comparing performance impact of faster/slower memory on different tasks? Yes!

[Alexko]

Originally Posted by ninelven

It does not matter if you disagree. That is how it is defined. Using the word niche to imply size or significance is using it incorrectly, period.

This is a little bit off-topic but here is Oxford's definition:

a specialized but profitable segment of the market:
[as modifier] :
a niche market for quality food

http://oxforddictionaries.com/definition/niche

To me, specialized => small.

[swaaye]

It looks like Llano performs similar to a M5650 in games and that's nice. Maybe that 35W variant will end up in some interesting little notebooks.

But wow the CPU tech is looking really poor up against recent Intel hardware. There are a few tests at Anandtech that show Intel more than doubling CPU performance. It's interesting that they dumped the Phenom shared L3 design and stuck with the Athlon II design. Tom's shows a Phenom II really beating up Llano (they think it might have to do with TDP limitation).

Regarding DDR3 speed, 1066 and 1333 are common in notebooks and that's where this chip is most interesting I think.

[Gipsel]

Originally Posted by rpg.314

Caches also increase density. There's not much of it in GPUs.

But as the register files are done with SRAM, there is more than roughly nothing of it in Llano (256 kB register files + 32kB local memory per SIMD). That alone amounts to ~1.4 MB SRAM arrays. Add the texture L1-caches (40kB), the (probably) 256 kB texture- L2, 64 kB GDS, the ROP caches (color and Z) and a few buffers here and there and I would be surprised if the Llano GPU has a lot less than 2 MB SRAM (roughly 100 Million transistors?). It's less than on the CPU side though (4.5 MB L1 + L2 cache).

I would guess a part of the high density of the GPU part also results from the somewhat relaxed latency and frequency requirements of the GPU. 600 MHz of the GPU part in the desktop versions in 32nm SOI does not appear very challenging when one considers a HD6870 runs at 900 MHz in 40nm bulk from TSMC (and has even a higher transistor density as the whole Llano).

edit: Llano die shot (each of the groups with 4 VLIW-units are accompanied by 32 small blocks of SRAM [each 2kB in size]):



What looks a bit confusing to me is that the upper part of the SIMDs are slightly different from the lower half.