AMD A4-5000 Review: The affordable ultraportable APU

[Steve]

Okay a few things that might not make me seem so incredibly wrong :S

Firstly 1333MHz memory is too slow, 1600MHz is the sweet spot and we have found this in the past when conducting far more extensive memory testing that what was shown in that thread. 1866MHz offers a slight bump in performance over 1600MHz but only very slight and we are talking only when using the high-end APU’s. Beyond 1866MHz we saw next to no improvement in our tests.

Now with the A4-5000 processor which was tested with 1600MHz memory, changing the memory to 1866MHz had no impact on performance at all. The GPU side of things was simply to slow to require more bandwidth, the GPU clock needs to be increased in order to take advantage of faster clocked memory.

The A8-3510MX processor featuring the Radeon HD 6620G which was used for testing in the thread you linked is considerably more complex than that of the A4-5000 and it is backed by a much faster processor.

Finally don't just take my word for it, here are Legit Reviews results from way back...

http://www.legitreviews.com/article/1652/6/

Note how there is a big jump from 1333MHz to 1600MHz and then nothing from 1600MHz to 1866MHz.

 

[BLARG!]

Okay a few things that might not make me seem so incredibly wrong :S

Firstly 1333MHz memory is too slow, 1600MHz is the sweet spot and we have found this in the past when conducting far more extensive memory testing that what was shown in that thread. 1866MHz offers a slight bump in performance over 1600MHz but only very slight and we are talking only when using the high-end APU’s. Beyond 1866MHz we saw next to no improvement in our tests.

Now with the A4-5000 processor which was tested with 1600MHz memory, changing the memory to 1866MHz had no impact on performance at all. The GPU side of things was simply to slow to require more bandwidth, the GPU clock needs to be increased in order to take advantage of faster clocked memory.

The A8-3510MX processor featuring the Radeon HD 6620G which was used for testing in the thread you linked is considerably more complex than that of the A4-5000 and it is backed by a much faster processor.

Finally don't just take my word for it, here are Legit Reviews results from way back...

http://www.legitreviews.com/article/1652/6/

Note how there is a big jump from 1333MHz to 1600MHz and then nothing from 1600MHz to 1866MHz.

Yeah that's because the processor still only runs as a single channel. You pair it with GDDR5 which has it's multiple channels tethered into the ram system and the fps will climb! However we won't see the GDDR5 laptops till a manufacturer approves to build one. Llano is a horrible example, but it's still valid. Trinity does even better and that can only leave future ones to do better, usually.

 

[Jad Chaar]

I think this should be retested with the 13.6 beta driver.

 

[Steve]

I think this should be retested with the 13.6 beta driver.

Its not a driver issue, the drivers are well matured. Its a complete lack of GPU power issue.

 

[GhostRyder]

With APU's, ive really only seen in real life (IE hands on, I don't mean internet benches) the Mobile Versions (I bought my sister as a present for example, a laptop with an A10 5800m Processor laptop which is a very nice laptop).

Personally after viewing this, it seems like the A10 for example is actually not bad (I was actually quite surprised it was right behind the 3570k in many of the tests).

This A4 though, looked like it was lagging behind but at the same time I kinda like it for the idea of a decent affordable mobile option because of its low power usage and decent integrated graphics. I think the APU's will really start to shine in the years to come once they can start getting even higher powered GPU's on the chip and giving the CPU more power. I like all the different comparisons in terms of benches games and performance in general because it really shows and highlights the potentials of each chip and where they lie.

 

[Jad Chaar]

Its not a driver issue, the drivers are well matured. Its a complete lack of GPU power issue.

True. Are we going to see a A10-6800K benchmark when it is released?

 

[Steve]

True. Are we going to see a A10-6800K benchmark when it is released?

You will

 

[Guest]

The power of the AMD Jaguar APU lies in the multiprocessing capabilities and this can be
seen in the OpenCL acceleration tests. The future of computing is OpenCL and many
more apps from Adobe to Web browsers GL to image/video editing are taking advantage of the power in CPU plus GPU computing.

Please take a look at the TechReport review of the A4-5000 where they use OpenCL accel
and the Kabini outperforms Intel Ivy Bridge i3 and even i5 either outright or in terms of performance per watt and certainly in terms of price performance.

techreport.com/review/24856/amd-a4-5000-kabini-apu-reviewed

 

[Guest]

Techspot - you should've done a performance per watt comparison, because the A4-5000 uses about half the watts at idle and notably less than half at load than the celeron or pentium do. It wins in performance/watt like a boss. That's a big deal in today's market.

 

[Guest]

I have been using an HP Pavilion DV4, which has an Intel Pentium Dual-Core T4200 @ 2GHz, for the past 2 years as my main PC.

I also use Photoshop CS6 and CC with no problems.
Of course.. I have it tweaked out for max performance.

I just got one of these AMD A4 chips for christmas,
and have been researching the specs.

Im saddened to discover the AMD A4 only slightly out-paces my 7-year old Intel
- that said.. I hope the A4 atleast supports Virtualization (Intel's VT-x)?

@ the reviewer
I've been reading reviews, benchmarks all morning.
This is the most thorough review I've seen.

Excellent job.