| AMD A8-3850 Lynx APU Processor |  |
| Reviews - Featured Reviews: Processors | |||||||||||||||||
| Written by Hank Tolman | |||||||||||||||||
| Thursday, 30 June 2011 | |||||||||||||||||
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Page 13 of 15
A8-3850 OverclockingOverclocking the Lynx platform is quite a bit more difficult than it was on the previous generation of AMD platforms. The Athlon-II and Phenom-II series of CPUs were excellent overclockers, and it was easy to do. With Black Edition Processors, the CPU multiplier was unlocked and you could crank it up as high as it would go and still boot. This is the best way to overclock the CPU alone, as increasing the reference clock ends up overclocking the RAM and GPU (if one is onboard) as well. On the A-Series APUs, however, the reference clock is the only way to overclock. Overclocking enthusiasts were dismayed when the Sandy Bridge CPUs were locked down tight on the H67 boards and severely limited on the P67 boards. Luckily, the AMD A-Series APUs are not limited to Turbo overclocking only, but, as I said, the only way to overclock them is through increasing the reference clock. The CPU and GPU are completely locked. With the ASUS F1A75-M PRO motherboard, even overclocking with just the reference clock was a breeze. With the voltage set to AUTO, it automatically increased based on where the reference clock was at. The only tweaking I really had to do was playing around with the numbers to get the highest overclock possible. I also had to tune down the RAM settings because the reference clock hits everything, so the RAM was out of its league while the CPU and GPU were still cooking. I started off the overclocking by increasing the reference clock from 100MHz to 125MHz. Everything ran solid at that level, so I continued on. At 133MHz I was able to boot into Windows fine, but the stress testing failed. I scaled back 1MHz at a time to 130MHz, where everything past the testing. I had to scale back the RAM a little as well. The RAM I am using is rated for 1600MHz, so overclocked it got a little too high. I scaled back to what would normally be 1333MHz on the RAM so it sat at 1733MHz after the overclock. Here are the results.
3DMark 11 shows a dramatic 51% increase after the overclock. The 3DMark Vantage shows a much lower 18% increase, but that is still quite respectable.
The Sandra Whetstone tests a 32% increase in performance after the overclock, while the Dhrystone tests improve by almost 30%.
The Cinebench Single CPU test performance increased by 30% while the multi-core CPU test increased by 32%. Overall, the overclocking of the A8-3850, while severly gimped, was still extremely successful in improving the performance of both the CPU and GPU functions of the APU. TemperatureThe A8-3850 runs very cool. This seems to be a trend with 32nm processors and is one that I look forward to the industry enhancing in the future. When testing the temperature of the A8-3850, the ambient temperature stayed at a constant 22 degrees Celsius.
Power ConsumptionPower Consumption was very impressive as well. With discrete level graphics, I would have expected a much higher pull from the system. The following is a measure of the power consumption of the complete system at certain points during operation. Measurements were taking with a P3 Kill-A-Watt meter. While these wattages are somewhat low, it is important to note that they are definitely higher than the Sandy Bridge H67 platform with an i5-2500K CPU.
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Comments
Great review, would of liked it more if you gave more details about your overclocking e.g. multipliers of cpu gpu RAM and how the reference clock affects them etc
-Hank
My 920 is running at 3.8Ghz.
ZLib 237.7
Queen 42591
PhotoWorxx 52680
AES 44529
Julia 12480
Mandel 6069
Sin Julia 5171
Cinebench 5.68 All Cores (Reported 3.62Ghz for some strange reason)
So if I understand correctly, even if the onboard APU isn't powerful enough, you can now add a cheaper card on top of that and the GPU power increases overall? So you could buy an all in one CPU/APU and then add a cheap vid card and perhaps nearly high end graphics capability (Or more modestly, that's the trend)? That's pretty impressive. I will not be sorry to see the days of the must have 500.00USD video card gone.
It's a great idea (in theory) to have integrated graphics on a cpu these days, since modern tower heatsinks provide so much cooling oomph.
Though I know you were talking about cheap cards and cheap graphics, so that's all irrelevant. APU's may see some interesting Overclocking profiles, especially if the Bios options become more developed later on. I think people will be most concerned with overclocking with the purpose of improving memory bandwidth to the GPU, as that seems to be the biggest bottleneck on these chips currently.
It's not for no reason that many tower heatsinks advertise the ability to handle 200-250W.
Pared with a 6570 the 3DMark 11 score nearly doubles which puts it pretty close to a 6770. I am hoping to try it with a 66770 before the show Sunday.
With at least an i7-920 almost everyone can breath silently today and more, it's a solid anchor/pov for everything new on performance side.
And i'm always happy when the monopol spectre fades away.
my last 4 CPU's were 4400x2, FX60, i7-950 and now i7-990X (i'm a little gearslut, i know). My point: don't be an absolute fan of one brand no matter what. Depend of your needs, don't ignore the alternative.
I'm building my own and others PC for maybe 15 years and with a few gaps,i offer both intel and amd solutions, except high end workstations/ultragaming rigs.
if u choose wise, one platform could be trusful for more than 4 years.
For example u need to know two thing to stay in the line: CPU and GPU.
- For CPU, first pick one middle, in the budget, and in one year or more seek for the top CPU of the platform which ussualy cost u less than new mainstream CPU and will perform better than next-gen middle for another 1-2 years.
- for GPU, pick the mainboard with BOTH SLI and XFire. buy 1st one card u can afford, than go dual. Even if u'll choose the second step to go with one more powerfull card from the copmetition, u'll eventually can go dual with 2 top GPU across 2 generation. sometimes 3. And it works.
- Yeah, the RAM, don't go under 6Gs today and PSU, at least 750W GOOOOD brand.
so i really hope AMD will be ok in high end CPU's new generaton.
more the choices, better for us.
BTW, good review.
most sites show that a8-3850 is a bit slower than the 5570 so have something in mind
what a joke release??
an envelod of 100watt??? clearly it eliminates it as an htpc solution.
and since the scores are somewhere the athlon II x4 640
you can use the previous plattform with athlon II x4 620e with an envelop of 45 wat leaving you 55 watt for a gpu. thus not needing to buy a mobo if you are already a holder of an mad system.
a cpu of 45 and a gpu of 55 will means you can go to entirely passive solutions to both. or a an almost silent for the cpu.
so why to have one item that you have to upgraqde both when you can have 2 diferent to upgrade????
so far the assymetric crossfire apu +gpu works unter dx11 and dx10
and dx9 you get worse score than the apu alone!!!!! (maybe amd should look at this and fix it with some new drivers????)
it is a product that is not having any space to breath
since you can go to better alternates even at the amd side
mobo+apu=200 dollars more or less
now there is i3-2100 junior out there 2core/4 thread with a tdp35 watt so how a8-3850 can beat that contestor??? paired with a discrete card??
tdp suks, perfomanse something we have seen nothing spectacular
a product we could do without
as an amd user the last system was from amd i can say i am really disapointed for the outcome of amd is that what amd offer to hit intel?!?!!?!?
what is the market this product aims for??
the a8-3800 with 65 tdp could be discuseed for the lower tdp but i see it will be blown away with intel copmpinations both in tdp and perfomanse :-(
A8 3850's CPU part is faster than Athlon IIx4, clock to clock, by at least 6%.
Athlon IIx4 640+ Radeon HD5570 = 95W+39W = 134W,Llano A8 3850 = 100W with much lower idle power consumption(~44W). No one buys those 'e' or 'T' suffixed under performing parts simply for one obvious reason - PRICE! That junior i3 you mentioned, has a tag of $134 and has the abysmal GPU (HD2000) performance as usual. There is a huge market for entry level budget constrained gaming boxes, Llano will sale like hot-cakes there with a little price-drop. You want a silent, ULV HTPC solution? Go buy a Bobcat system!
well lets see i3 2100 junior 134$ mobo as low as 40$= 174$
a8 115$ mobo 100$+ = 215$ so that leaves you room to buy a gpu 40$
the mobo manufacters got it wrong you do not make 100-150$ mobo for the low end you make 50$ mobo for that cpu and maybe a model at 100$ for the more enthusiast who do not mind to pay some extra so liano need cheaper mobo and a price drop if it wants a share of the market
but the problem remains a8 needs it is own mobo due to his socket
why entrap yourself to a socket of midle to low powered machines when you can go to an am3 solution or am3+ solution now and be ready for bulldozer??? a matx mobo for amd can be found for 40-50$ thus freeing you with some money for the cpu so you can have the mobo and the energy efficient athlon at the same cost you will get today the a8 and his mobo. if you already had a system you can moove you gpu or pay 50-60$ more to get a 5570 and you have the same system as perfomanse with better options. to upgrade.
bobcat is nice but zotac has a mobo out with su2300 thus making it a better option than bobcat.
ion2 is more or less equal to bocat igpu
but su2300 is superion to bobcat in power
power consumption small diferense not that huge and even at idle su2300 wins. so bobcat!?!?!? again it will play role if amd or mobo manufacters drop the price so the bobcat will be more attractive due price only.
thats the only thing left to amd nowdays the complete cheaper but intel is hammering amd hard even at that sector nowdays.
if amd had released liano before intel cpus now we would talk what a failure the intel launch is
but now intel beat amd and he compare her to intel and she looses badly :-(
But as you point out in terms of socket compatibility, this chip is not marketed to people who have an existing AM3 platform, its for new consumers. The socket is a necessary evil at this point, since the AM3 socket is not designed for the extra data needed to deal with the GPU. That said, I would definitely not pay $150 for a Llano motherboard. I'd pay $100 at maximum.
Performance: 8.50
Construction: 9.00
Functionality: 9.50
Overclock: 8.50
Value: 8.50
Final Score: 8.25 ?????out of 10
ĦĦĦĦĦ8.8!!!!!
AMD Phenom-II X4-975BE Final Thoughts?????
ĦĦĦĦĦAMD A8-3850 Lynx Final Thoughts!!!!!
I think the LLANO APUS 65W TDP ,with Turbo Core 2,for HTPC,buros,workstati ons,etc,are the most interesting of use.