AMD APU owners, whats the verdict?

[bpgt64]

As per title, are you enjoying your new APU based systems? Are you finding it lacking in performance anywhere especially?

[insane 360]

i too am interested...

[de.das.dude]

im going to vote on behalf of a friend. he is very excited with his 3850. infact he sold his previous Phenom X4(unclocked from 555) setup

[TheLaughingMan]

The AMD APUs are the truth. The Athlon II quads with no L3 don't stand a chance at the same clock rate or 200 to 400 MHz higher clock rate. Even with the L3, processors with the same core count and close speeds are beaten badly in a lot of stuff due to the memory controller which is 40% more throughput at stock and almost 70% better OCed.

They are great for low power builds or HTPCs as well since the one chip is the only think you really have to use and cool. Compared to Intel chips in the same price and/or configuration usually ends with the GPU being just too much to handle without a $50 to $60 dedicated card. And the usual use for those chips leaves the CPU advantage Intel has a moot point.

Can you game with one and a "real" GPU, yes you can. The memory bandwidth will actually give you better performance in memory intensive games.

[HTC]

By any chance, has anyone went from a dual core processor (Intel or AMD) with ... say ... a Radeon 67x0 or nVidia equivalent to one of these APUs? If so, how's the change, both processor and graphics wise?

[TheLaughingMan]

I have not. I have had the A8-3850 and A6-3650. They were paired with a 6670 to test the card independently and in CrossfireX.

What are you playing to do?

[HTC]

Originally Posted by TheLaughingMan

I have not. I have had the A8-3850 and A6-3650. They were paired with a 6670 to test the card independently and in CrossfireX.

What are you playing to do?

You mean planning, i assume. Since the electric bill here is gonna suffer a small 30% increase, if i plan on keep using the PC, i'm gonna have to find a way to cut the energy bill. Simply reducing the time the PC is on wont cut it, i think, and since i have no idea how long we're gonna be raped by our politicians, i have to take steps sooner, rather then later.

[cadaveca]

Originally Posted by HTC

Since the electric bill here is gonna suffer a small 30% increase

I have one PC that is running the majority of the day. I turn nearly every light off. I sitll have $300 power bills. We have had a near 50% increase in eletricity costs since May of this year alone. Of course, I pay more when it rains more, and waste removal and such is part of my electric bill.

I'm enjoying my APU, when I use it. I put it in my son's rig, paired with a 4870, and he says he really likes it. He "downgraded" from a Core i5 760, to an A8-3850. He says it boots faster, loads games slightly better, and feels smoother.

Of course, keep in mind that he is 10...and he's noticed these things.

I dunno that power consumption actually went down from his other rig very much. What i do know, is that paired with an SSD, you'd be hardpressed to notice any real difference in daily usage, unless encoding, which can be offloaded to discrete GPUs anyway.


The IGP is a bit...well...I tried to get my son gaming on the rig without a discrete card, but he lasted all of about 60 minutes before he was asking if we could put the VGA back in.

[HTC]

Originally Posted by cadaveca

I have one PC that is running the majority of the day. I turn nearly every light off. I sitll have $300 power bills. We have had a near 50% increase in eletricity costs since May of this year alone. Of course, I pay more when it rains more, and waste removal and such is part of my electric bill.

Same here. This latest increase is the 3rd one this year, and that includes an increase in the tax percentage from 6 to 23 within the bill.

Originally Posted by cadaveca

I'm enjoying my APU, when I use it. I put it in my son's rig, paired with a 4870, and he says he really likes it. He "downgraded" from a Core i5 760, to an A8-3850. He says it boots faster, loads games slightly better, and feels smoother.
Of course, keep in mind that he is 10...and he's noticed these things.

Did he have an SSD before the downgrade and does he have one now? If he moved into an SSD, then that's an unfair comparison, IMO.

Originally Posted by cadaveca

I dunno that power consumption actually went down from his other rig very much. What i do know, is that paired with an SSD, you'd be hardpressed to notice any real difference in daily usage, unless encoding, which can be offloaded to discrete GPUs anyway.

That's the most crucial detail and you're missing it

Originally Posted by cadaveca

The IGP is a bit...well...I tried to get my son gaming on the rig without a discrete card, but he lasted all of about 60 minutes before he was asking if we could put the VGA back in.

Good to know: thanks.

[RejZoR]

I'm planning to buy Lenovo S205. Will tell how it works then.

[cadaveca]

Originally Posted by HTC

Did he have an SSD before the downgrade and does he have one now? If he moved into an SSD, then that's an unfair comparison, IMO.

Yes, SSD on both rigs.

That's the most crucial detail and you're missing it

Power is reduced, but not in a large way, maybe 15w total. Part of this is because the only thing that really changed in his rig was the board and CPU, and I'm sure part of that is because the APU boards are really "simple" by way of features and design.

Keep in mind that most of my "user" feedback is based on me asking my son questions. He built the rig himself, but he doesn't really know too much about PCs. He likes it...alot...but his rig is well matched in colors of components and stuff, so I think that's part of his opinion, too.

Benching and testing for reviews, I gotta say, I was impressed. this is entry-levle parts, ricalling high-end parts from previous platforms, with less clockspeed. That's a nice treat.

[RejZoR]

Has anyone tried running game Defense Grid: The Awakening on any low power APU like AMD Fusion C-50 or E-350 ? I've tried running it on my Intel GMA950 and sisters GeForce 8400GS and on both it was running really slow. I hope it will be at least playable on the integrated HD6310...

[de.das.dude]

if i am not wrong, AMD will concentrate its APU line more on the mobile computing area right? which means no more crappy intel laptops. intels mobile processors are very scary :P

[PVTCaboose1337]

I bought one for my grandfather. After overcoming some driver issues with the poor GPU drivers and screen flickering, it does what he needs at a very cheap power cost. TBH it is a tad overkill for him, but he seems to love it. Great speed for him, and having everything integrated on a Micro-ATX board makes it a good choice. For the money, a good processor. He has the A8-3850.

[Jstn7477]

As an owner of an E-350 APU, I will say that the CPU component is terribly weak compared to the GPU. The CPU is maybe as fast as a top end single core socket 754 Athlon 64, but the graphics are very good. The E-350 heavily relies on memory bandwidth, which it doesn't seem to have enough of, but fortunately my board has an unofficial 1333MHz setting and it really helps. The graphics score about 9500 3DMarks in 3DMark '01 (lol, I know, I need to bench with a newer one) but that score beats an overclocked GeForce 7300 LE 128MB DDR2. Most I got was 10,600 but I guess my APU wore our after a few days and it won't go over 105MHz on the PCIe without crashing anymore (I was at 116 before). A 6670 in the same rig with the IGP disabled gets 12,500 marks, which tells you a lot about how powerful the CPU isn't. Overclocking the IGP makes no difference with the lack of memory bandwidth.

[bpgt64]

I am not trying to match the APU set of chips against discrete graphics. That's a fools errand. So often I get friends and customers that do bargain basement building. That is when I ask them to set a budget, they ask me to go as cheap as possible. Something I really hate doing, because frankly, skimping out on a power supply or some other core component can really wind up biting you in the arse. Additionally, even the low end i5/i3 lineup is overkill for most of this "group" of users. They do light gaming, and browsing. If I can simplify a cheapo build and give them more savings at the same time. It's a no brainier. Some of the gaming benchmarks from the higher end desktop APU's interest me in terms of a true budget gamer build. Where I deal with something who literally only has 100-300 dollars to spend.

[cadaveca]

Ah, so without the discrete card, yeah, the APUs are pretty good, for sure. You're not gonna be playing @ 1080p, but htey do do a decent job, for sure, and better than INtel's iGP currently.


I paid $139 for my A8-3850. Considering most boards are ~$80, that's $219 for board and APU, and that's very possible to pick up for $199 on sale. That's a killer deal, for sure. Dunno about building a complete system for such little cost, but it's definitely an upgrade possibility. Say complete for $500 is 100% possible, including all hardware and OS, for sure.

I'm actually going to be building a bunch of similar systems for Christmas sales. Worked out config so that if needed, add in a second card, and you can get decent gaming on the cheap, with just a $250 VGA upgrade.

As a system builder, this is a platform that can make for good profits, for sure.

[HalfAHertz]

how's the 3850 in overclocking? Can you get it to ~3,5-3,6 GhZ easily enough?

[cadaveca]

Originally Posted by HalfAHertz

how's the 3850 in overclocking? Can you get it to ~3,5-3,6 GhZ easily enough?

Mine, sure, with the right board no problems at all.

[FishHead69]

Originally Posted by RejZoR

Has anyone tried running game Defense Grid: The Awakening on any low power APU like AMD Fusion C-50 or E-350 ? I've tried running it on my Intel GMA950 and sisters GeForce 8400GS and on both it was running really slow. I hope it will be at least playable on the integrated HD6310...

That game runs great on AMD240x2 HD4250IGP 1280x1024LCD rig I built for my brother , so it should run even better on the APU's

[TheLaughingMan]

Originally Posted by HalfAHertz

how's the 3850 in overclocking? Can you get it to ~3,5-3,6 GhZ easily enough?

With the Gigabyte UD2H and UD4H is is scary easy. I had the UD2H and all I did was change the FSB from 100 MHz to 128 MHz assuming it was crash, but it didn't. Then I crept up to 132 MHz before I hit a snag with the A6-3650. That was a clock rate of 3.43 GHz with next to no effort and no voltage changes (left on auto). I had similar results with the A8-3850.

3.43 GHz was the sweet spot for me board as more than that would gradually get worse and worse. 3.5ish it would boot, play games, but would not survive any stress tests. 3.77 GHz was the highest clock I could get to boot, but it would not even switch to 3D mode without crashing.

[MxPhenom 216]

ive got a laptop with a AMD A6 3400m in it and its awesome! i get nearly 5 hours of battery life on it, better then any intel system

AMD's Trinity APU is looking good too. Will hold a HD7xxx GPU in it.

[HTC]

How about underclocking? Because of the GPU part, i would imagine this is tricky, no?

Is there a way to underclock the CPU but not the GPU with stability?

[TRWOV]

Originally Posted by nvidiaintelftw

AMD's Trinity APU is looking good too. Will hold a HD7xxx GPU in it.

I'm waiting for it to move into a 2 system setup: a powerful PD or IB machine for gaming and encoding and a Trinity DEVASTATOR ITX rig for everyday tasks and some light gaming.

[Horrux]

Originally Posted by HTC

How about underclocking? Because of the GPU part, i would imagine this is tricky, no?

Is there a way to underclock the CPU but not the GPU with stability?

Why? To run pretty screensavers?