AM1 Testing

[Lt_JWS]

As the title says I picked up an AM1 combo to play with.... I ended up with the 5350, Asrock AM1B-ITX, and 4Gigs of ADATA DDR3-1600Mhz.Here are some "very rough" numbers so far.

CPU usage during 3D Bluray playback 10-40% with an average of 20%( The Hobbit )
- Playback using PowerDVD 10 was smooth @ 1080p

Games:
Battlefield 4
-DX11, All low setting withTextures set to medium @720P
>20-30avg with some shuddering
-Mantle, All low setting with Textures set to medium @720P
>25-35avg with some shuddering
>>>Will handle 64 players fine! Reducing the render scale to 80% resulted in 40+FPS!

Crysis(with benching tool)
-DX9 medium settings no AA or AF
720P-->22.59 1080P-->13.11
DX10 medium settings no AA or AF
720P-->24.55 1080P--->14.09
** DX10 showed some texture issues and screen tearing

Skyrim
-Medium settings no AA or AF
720P-->15-25avg 1080P--> SLIDESHOW

Counter Strike Source
-All high settings, no AA, 4xAF, HDR
720P-->109 1080P-->64

Problems so far: The Asrock board has 2 additional SATA ports. I had to end up disabling them in bios, they would crash the system when installing drivers or whatever was connected to them would randomly disappear!

This board doesn't appear to support overclocking

All in all im pleased with the performance, in general usage the system feels very quick!

 

[errupin]

Hi! I'm very interested in this post. I want to upgrade my htcp, I would use it only for music and movies, specially 3D blurays, but no gaming. I was planning to use an AMD 6700T but after reading your post it seems too much, what do you think?. I am impressed when you say there is no problem with 3D bluray playback. Some more questions:

- Would you suggest me to choose a different motherboard due to SATA problems in this asrock?
-What about the noise? did you use the stock cooler? can it be done with a passive heatsink? My case is an old psile (http://www.psile.com/).

Thank you very much for your help.

errupin

 

[Tatty_Two]

If you have a lack of Bios options for overclocking Asrock's "A Tuning" utility might give you something to play with, the link is for your board, see bottom of page....
http://www.asrock.com/mb/AMD/AM1B-ITX/?cat=Download&os=Win764

 

[Lt_JWS]

Hi! I'm very interested in this post. I want to upgrade my htcp, I would use it only for music and movies, specially 3D blurays, but no gaming. I was planning to use an AMD 6700T but after reading your post it seems too much, what do you think?. I am impressed when you say there is no problem with 3D bluray playback. Some more questions:

- Would you suggest me to choose a different motherboard due to SATA problems in this asrock?
-What about the noise? did you use the stock cooler? can it be done with a passive heatsink? My case is an old psile (http://www.psile.com/).

Thank you very much for your help.

errupin

I think it would handle what you want to do just fine. I built another am1 system for a friend using the same motherboard and haven't had any issues. The stock heatsink/fan and quiet and cool well. Good luck!

 

[TRWOV]

There isn't much OC to do with AM1 since the base clock is tied with everything (AHCI, PCIe, etc). You'd run into a wall at 107Mhz or so.

 

[newtekie1]

There isn't much OC to do with AM1 since the base clock is tied with everything (AHCI, PCIe, etc). You'd run into a wall at 107Mhz or so.

With the ASUS boards, they allow you to raise the multiplier on the 5350 from 20.5 to 21. Not a major leap, but it helps.

 

[errupin]

Thank you for your help. Should I need to worry about OC if all I want to do is play 3D blurays, dvd and music? And what about the asrock AM1H-ITX board, is it better than AM1B-ITX?

 

[newtekie1]

No need to worry about overclocking if all you are doing is media. These things make perfect HTPCs.

The AM1H-ITX is the better board, but so far the AM1I-A has been the best AM1 ITX motherboard I've used.

 

[TRWOV]

Looking around it seems that if you set the SATA ports to IDE mode you can go farther with the base clock. The only things to prove that are CPU-Z shots though, haven't seen an OC guide or something.