





I. Priced to Kill




II. Performance










OverClockers Club also delivers a similar favorable review, writing:


TweakTown was gushing as well, applauding:


III. Conclusions






Comments     Threshold


Not as meaningful for desktops
By corduroygt on 6/30/2011 3:43:11 PM , Rating: -1
When you can spend a little bit more and get a discrete card that blows away any IGP solution, I don't think Llano has value on the desktop over a Athlon X4 or a Sandy Bridge. On notebooks where you can't upgrade the graphics, it makes a lot more sense.

RE: Not as meaningful for desktops




RE: Not as meaningful for desktops
You mom plays 3d games? pretty cool.


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RE: Not as meaningful for desktops
Um, no.


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RE: Not as meaningful for desktops
By MrTeal on 6/30/2011 3:56:31 PM , Rating: 2
Other than for HTPCs or other SFF builds, I don't see the attraction of the Llano platform at the current prices.

Given you need to spend $10-20 more for higher clocked RAM just to get lower performance, the A8-3850+MB combination looks especially weak compared to just buying a 3.1GHz X4, AM3 MB and HD5570. You'd get better performance and save $50-70.

Until some lower priced FM1 motherboards start coming out in the $75 range, the platform will be overpriced compared to AM3.

RE: Not as meaningful for desktops
By MrTeal on 6/30/2011 4:18:50 PM , Rating: 2
As an example, right now on you could buy an AM3 MB, X4 645 (3.1GHz), XFX 5570, and 4GB of DDR3-1600. Total cost $255 before $45 worth of mailin rebates. CPU performance would be similar to the 3850, and gaming performance would be much better.

Even using the same RAM, a $135 3850 would need a $90 motherboard to even match the same price as the AM3+X4+5570 combination before mail in rebates. Since you almost never see MIRs on a processor, if you can stomach them there's no way that Llano can touch a $35 HD5570.

RE: Not as meaningful for desktops
By MrTeal on 6/30/2011 4:52:21 PM , Rating: 3
Actually, that's such a good deal that I had to buy it. I need a computer for the basement TV anyway.

Phenom II X3 720 Black
Cheap Biostar AM3 MB
XFX HD5570
Crucial 2x2GB PC-1600
Cheap RF wireless KB+mouse

Grand total after shipping and tax, $257, before $35 MIR. An old ATX case and PS and I'll have a computer I can do some light gaming 1080p on, for less than just Llano+FM1 motherboard.

RE: Not as meaningful for desktops
By Nutzo on 6/30/2011 5:34:47 PM , Rating: 2
I'm still waiting for more information on idle power levels & image quality.
I was planning on building an i3 SB based HTPC, with a cable card/tuner so the idle power is important. But if the image qualiy is better on the Llano, and the price/idle power is the same, I might switch. Guess I'll wait a couple more weeks before I decide.

RE: Not as meaningful for desktops
By Taft12 on 6/30/2011 4:15:41 PM , Rating: 2
When you can spend a little bit more and get a discrete card that blows away any IGP solution...

That's not how the OEM PC market works. Almost nobody builds or upgrades their own desktop. In the OEM market, a "gamer" buys an Alienware or Dell XPS and it ships with an HD 5570 video card, unless he paid to upgrade (and paid far more than the price of the card on Newegg, natch).

This is exactly the niche AMD is capitalizing on here. An inexpensive PC capable of enough performance to warrant the word "gaming" in Acer or HP's marketing leaflet.

RE: Not as meaningful for desktops
By Mitch101 on 6/30/2011 4:39:01 PM , Rating: 2
Leaving the graphics on the motherboard does the same.

The bad is if your someone who buys discreet graphics your now paying extra for the chip with a part you dont have any need for. If the price remains the same then AMD is eating the cost of the silicon instead of producing more chips on the same wafer.

Dont get me wrong I think every CPU should have a good GPU as it paves the way for developers to be able to write code that uses it because its a known item in every machine. Photoshop, Video Encoding/Decoding, Encryption, Compression etc.

Now the key is for the OS to leverage the GPU passing specific functions to the GPU over the CPU when necessary rather than using the GPU strictly for graphics output. So the ideal scenario is to ignore the GPU on the CPU for graphics and to leverage it for functions the CPU does poorly to improve OS/Application performance. Eventually the GPU would Merge with the CPU even more so you could use the command set of both more than a CPU/GPU on the same die. Having a hard time expressing my meaning here. Its like how no one thinks of the co-processor any more because the two have merged a long time ago along with the instruction sets.

By Solandri on 7/1/2011 8:20:04 AM , Rating: 2

Unfortunately for you and me, gamers make up a tiny fraction of PC buyers. Most systems will never have a discrete graphics card put into them. Us paying for features we don't need isn't likely to hurt sales much.

