Ciao Mondo 3!

copertinaAbout a week after the publication of the preview on the tests and the performance of the new AMD Llano A6-3650 CPU, XtremeHardware offers the full review, all tests and the final considerations regarding this APU.

[VERSIONE ITALIANA]

 

Less than a month ago XtremeHardware proposed to its readers performance analysis and in-depth analysis of the architectural solutions for the new AMD Fusion; we talk about the new processors with Llano architecture, with integrated IGP and a respectable price performance ratio.

The first tests were carried out on the family's flagship product, the AMD A8-3850, APU with four cores operating at a frequency of 2.9GHz and an integrated AMD Radeon HD 6550D.

 

0x_A6_logo

 

Today, the staff offers the review of features and performance on another solution, part of the Llano family: the A6-3650 model.

Recall, as mentioned earlier in the preview , the new A6-3650 is available to the public at a price of 100 €.

 

0x_A6_cpu_front  0x_A6_cpu_back

 


Specifications

We begin our preview analyzing what are the specifications of the new AMD A6-3650.

We start CPU-Z, known software that can provide us with information regarding the architecture of the product, the frequency, the number of cores, the available cache as well as details on the model of the motherboard used, settings and type of RAM and video card type.

 

0x_A6_cpuz1

 

In the first window we can obtain information regarding both the CPU architecture, both the frequency and the number of cores / threads.

This processor belongs to the K12 family and is based on Llano architecture produced with 32nm technology.

As with all other Llano solutions also this APU is installed on a FM1 Socket with 905 pins.

Note that the processor has four cores operating at a frequency of 2.6 GHz (26 x 100 MHz bus).

The voltage is set to 1.008V by default and TDP is equal to 111W.

 

0x_A6_cpuz2

 

The new AMD A6-3650 has no L3 cache, as the other Llano solutions, but has 64Kb of L1 data cache per core and as many Kbytes of the first-level instructions cache.

The second-level cache amounts to a total of 4MB, 1024 Kbytes per core.

 

0x_A6_cpuz4  0x_A6_gpuz

 

Through the sixth screen of CPU-Z or by using the well-known GPU-Z software, capable of providing insights on the graphics, we can obtain information on the integrated IGP.

The solution chosen by the Sunnyvale company is an AMD Radeon HD 6530D.

The IGP is constructed through the 32nm production process and is equipped with 1450 million transistors located in just 228mmq, the size of the Die.

The card supports DirectX 11 and has a shared DDR3 memory (with the system), this memory can operate at a frequency of 1866MHz, as such, the APU supports memory operating at that frequency.

Unlike the older sister AMD HD 6550D present in the AMD A8-3850, AMD HD Radeon 6530D is equipped with 320 Cores, compared with 400 of the mayor solution, 16 Texture Units, against 20, and operates at a frequency of 443MHz , compared to the 600MHz of the HD 6550D. This difference is what distinguishes the class of A6 APU from A8.

 

 


Test system and tests

Here are the tables containing the technical specifications of the system used to perform the processor tests.

piattaforme

 

The tests were conducted on both the processor and on the GPU, using, for the latter, the RAM set both at 1333 MHz and at 1866 MHz, to detect any benefits from the maximum frequency supported by the processor and in this case also by motherboard. The CPU has been left to the standard frequency of 2600 MHz and compared with other AMD products and from competing solutions from Intel. In this case, the RAM has been set at a frequency of 1600 MHz CL8.

 

Following are the software used for CPU testing:

SYNTHETIC

 

3DMark Vantage: produced by Futuremark, 3Dmark Vantage is a useful tool to test the performance of your system. Primarily designed to track the performance of the graphics card, the 3DMark Vantage is suited for testing of the CPU that are increasingly a bottleneck in the system when it comes to graphics applications. The test was carried out only in relation to the CPU, disabling the 2 steps related only to vga.

 

PCMark Vantage: Another famous benchmark produced from Futuremark that has the task of analyzing the performance of the entire system. The tests made are CPU-related and include: data encryption, decryption, compression, decompression, image manipulation through the CPU, audio transcoding, video transcoding, and many other tests.

 

AIDA64: AIDA64 is a software product from FinalWire that monitors the system by providing detailed information on hardware components. The software includes a utility inside the bench capable of testing memory and cache inside the processor.

 

Passmark Performance Test 7: another application able to obtain detailed information about system hardware. It includes several benchmark utilities subdivided for each component. In this case, the tests were performed on the CPU and include the integer calculations, floating point calculations, tests of the SSE instructions and many others.

DATA COMPRESSION AND MULTIMEDIA

 

7zip 9.20: this well-known archive software contains within it a tool that can analyze system performance, reporting a value expressed in MIPS (million instructions per second).The tests include compression, decompression, and overall value.

 

Winrar 3 Beta 4: Another famous compression and decompression software for data archives. Inside it there is a benchmark utility that compresses a standard file suitable for this purpose; the software will return the compression speed in KB/s.

 

Cinebench 11.5 and 10: Software products from Maxon that allow, through the development of three-dimensional images and content, to test the CPU performance. Both the release allow to test the CPU using a single core, or all the cores inside the processor.

 

X264 HD Benchmark 3.0: software to measure the performance of the CPU using the x264 video encoding.

 

Handbrake 0.9.5: Multi-threaded video encoding software with which we will transform a file (a movie) to MP4; the process includes x264 video encoding, FAAC audio encoding and muxing into final MP4 container. The time it takes for the CPU to perform this task will be taken into consideration.

 


Synthetic tests

3DMark Vantage

We begin our tests starting from the benchmark produced by Futuremark, 3DMark Vantage. The test was done by selecting only the two-step related to the CPU and the performance preset setting.

0x_A6_3dmark

 

The new AMD-3650 Llano A6 is positioned the last place just below by his mayor brother A8 recording about 1100 points of difference between the two solutions.

 

PCMark Vantage

 

We continue with the other benchmark from Futuremark, the PCMark Vantage. In this case we have selected only the PCMark Suite.

 

0x_A6_pcmark

 

Also in this case, the A6-3650 record is the lowest score remained significantly behind from other solutions.

 

AIDA64 Extreme Engineering

Moving on to FinalWire software.

 

We launch the benchmark related to memory and cache, noting that with regard to latency, a lower value equals better performance.

 

0x_A6_aida_read

 

We begin by analyzing the memory and cache read speed data.

As happened in the previous review on the AMD A8-3850, this new AMD is positioned about mid-table, posting a good result on the read speed of memory and L1 cache. As we see the third level cache result is not present because not present in this processor. Good also the memory read value due to higher operating frequencies than previous AMD CPUs.

 

0x_A6_aida_write

 

Let's move to writing data in memory; the AMD A6-3650 is positioned to the last position distant from the values ​​reported by other solutions.

 

0x_A6_aida_copy

 

Test the copy brings back the A6 to mid-table, result purely due to memory score, in fact if we see the scores on the caches they are much lower than other solutions.

 

0x_A6_aida_latency

 

Finally we analyze the data obtained by performing tests on latency: the new AMD ranks in last place by giving higher latencies.

 


Data compression & Multimedia Test

7zip 9.20

 

Let's move to the benchmarks related to compression, decompression and multimedia files from a known program to manage archives: 7zip.

Let's launch the tool of performance measurement and verify the values, expressed in MIPS, the software reports.

 

0x_A6_7zip

 

The AMD A6-3650 is positioned at the penultimate position, leaving behind the Intel i3-2100, and closely followed his mayor brother A8-3850.

 

WINRAR 4 Beta 3

 

The Winrar benchmark consists of the compression of a software predefined file, reporting a value in KB/s.

 

0x_A6_winrar

 

Even in this case the new solution gains the last position with a good clearance from A8 APU.

CINEBENCH 11.5

 

Let's launch Cinebench 11.5, able to test the performance of a CPU by handling and processing of images.

 

This software, as well as version 10, is highly parallelized and takes full advantage of all processors in the system.

 

0x_A6_cine11

 

The new AMD APU ranks penultimate, leaving behind the intel I3-2100 and recording an MP ratio of well 3.96, a value much higher than many solutions.

 

CINEBENCH 10

 

Also this benchmark uses full multicore technologies.

 

Let's analyze the recorded data.

 

0x_A6_cine10

 

In this bench the A6-3650 is able to earn some position approaching AMD Phenom II BE 955 operating at a frequency of 3.2GHz; although this is obviously far from the values ​​reported by Intel solutions, except for the i3- 2100 that sits in last place.

 

X264 HD BENCHMARK

 

This benchmark enables the assessment of performance by converting a chosen file in the x264 format.

 

This operation is carried out in four phases of two steps each.

 

0x_A6_x264

 

Even in this case the Intel i3-2100 proves more powerful of AMD A6 in the first step; the medal was reversed looking at the derived from the second step of the benchmark.

 

HandBrake

 

Let's launch Handbrake with the task of transforming a 698MB movie in MP4 verifying which processor needs less time to complete the operation; in this case a lower value on the graph indicates a superior performance.

 

0x_A6_handbrake

 

This bench does not leave much to interpretation, the new AMD A6-3650 is detected much slower than the other solutions as much as 1 minute and a half.

 

Considerations on CPU test

The considerations regarding the testing of the CPU are in line with those reported in the previous review that had as its subject the AMD A8-3850 with the only difference that in this case the performances are less than other solutions, more markedly.

The gap with the same A8 is revealed net in favor of the latter. It's clear that AMD has not pointed on the performance of the 4 x86 computing cores. Let's see how it behaves this APU in graphics tests.

 


GPU Test

 

Having analyzed and reported on the CPU tests let's move to those relating to the integrated graphics, the 6550D Radeon HD IGP.

 

The tests were carried out by setting the memory frequency on 1333MHz and 1866MHz.


3DMark Vantage

Synthetic benchmark developed by Futuremark, necessarily requires the presence in the system of a video card with support for DirectX 10 API and a Windows Vista or 7 operating system. The benchmark consists of 6 separate tests: 4 focused on the GPU and 2 on the CPU. The tests are performed in up to 4 presets configured by Futuremark, characterized by a different level of workload in order to better reproduce the typical scenario of use of your system depending on the hardware configuration in use. The software allows you to set the Entry, Performance, High and Extreme configuration. The tests were done only in Entry and performance mode.

 

0x_A6_3dmark

 

The HD 6530D solution integrated in the A6-3650 shows a very respectable score positioning itself directly below the HD 6550D sister and beating all the integrated solutions offered by Intel with Sandy Bridge architecture, including Core i7.

 

S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat

 

STALKER: Call of Pripyat is a first-person shooter of post-apocalyptic science fiction genre, developed by GSC Game World and published October 2, 2009 (February 5, 2010 in Europe). It is the third installment of the series and is placed chronologically after the events of STALKER: Shadow of Chernobyl, the founder of the saga. STALKER: Clear Sky, the second chapter, is the prequel. Like the previous ones, STALKER: Call of Pripyat was developed with the proprietary engine X-Ray. A group of Stalkers reached for the first time the central core of the entire Zone, the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Station. The already harsh situation in the area is complicated and there is a real risk of a catastrophe. A great power is abnormally changing areas, there are still areas to be considered safe, but for most the whole area is now full of strange anomalies. Many of the Stalkers and the other inhabitants of the area have died as a result of these changes, while new areas appear anywhere in the territory. The area is now very unstable, what to do to stop the anomalies? The game supports DirectX 10.1.

 

stalker_dx9

 

We evaluate the performance of the integrated IGP, starting from the graph on the bench made with the DX9 support.

We note that on average there are about 3 frames of difference between the IGP integrated in this APU and the HD 6550D integrated in the A8-3850, which is slightly faster.

 

stalker_dx10

 

Performing the test with the Direct X 10 we note a substantial difference between the HD 6550D and 6530D, especially at a resolution of 1680x1050 with the RAM set at a frequency of 1866 MHz

 

Lost Planet 2

 

Lost Planet 2 is a game produced and developed by Capcom and released from Halifax for PS3, Xbox 360 and PC. It was initially to be released in early 2010, but Capcom has put off the end of 2010. The game is set 10 years after the adventure of Wayne Holden on Lost Planet, and things have changed: Thanks to the efforts of Wayne and his friends, EDN III, the planet where the game is played, began a slow terraforming process, which has caused a drastic climate change. In fact, if in Lost Planet 1, the planet was only arctic, there are now desert areas, areas with dense tropical jungles, areas with warmer climates, etc.. But this has not brought peace, indeed, now that the world is more populated by humans, they are again divided into bands and real snow pirate clans involved a constant and perpetual civil war for control of the planet and the EN-T, the liquid substance used by humans as fuel for their technology, both from the Akrid, the indigenous creatures of EDN III, which are a perennial problem for humans as they are very aggressive and difficult to kill.

 

lost

 

The test of Lost Planet, B scene brings us good results, because the difference with the IGP integrated in the A8 is minimal, the 6530D is ranked second, using RAM set to 1866 MHz

All Sandy Bridge solutions results to be less efficient.

 

HAWX 2

 

Tom Clancy's H.A.W.X. 2 ("High Altitude Warfare Experimental") is the second version of flight simulator developed by Ubisoft Romania available for PC, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and Nintendo Wii. During the action, the pilot has available several new features over the previous version: night vision to conduct attacks in stealth mode, anti-radar pod that distracts an opponent and prevent him from attacking, the ERS (Enhanced Reality System), which traces a route through virtual dangerous traits in a safer manner. It can also make new flight procedures such as takeoffs and landings from marine platforms and aircraft carriers, air refueling, using bombs and missiles and precision guided. Several missions also provide support to allied units, land, sea and sky. The game has different views: in the first and third person view cabin (with realistic instrumentation), battle-mode plane (third-person view on the battlefield). The pilot data are maintained during all phases of the game, statistics, performance, and can present experience, as well as upgrades and aircraft unlocked (PEC rewards - Persistent Elite Creation). The satellite information, aerial and geospatial data in the game are provided by GeoEye.

 

hawx

 

The new AMD is ranked fourth, just below the most powerful HD 6550D and the Intel i7 processors and i5 solutions with both the Intel integrated HD 3000.

The performances are high and the game runs smoothly with both resolutions and with the RAM set to both 1333 MHz and 1866 MHz.

 

COLIN MCRAE DIRT 2

 

The game is based on Ego technology, which we also see in the next chapter of Operation Flashpoint. Dirt 2 has a World Tour mode that allows you to compete in various locations around the world : Utah, Japan, Malaysia, China, Croatia, Baja California, Morocco and London. Race modes are very different, like Rally, Race Time, Destroy the Gates, Raid, and Elimination, Domination, beyond the simple "classical race" The rally becomes an even more extreme and adrenaline sports with Colin McRae DiRT 2: exciting new racing head to head, drawn by the impressive realism and special events in stadiums and spectacular circuits. From London to Malaysia, Morocco in Los Angeles, conquers the world of off-road racing!

 

The game supports DirectX11.

 

dirt

 

Also in this test the integrated card is in second place at about 5 frames away from the older sister.

The game is fluid and there is a chance to play without problems.

As in most tests the Intel solutions appear to be less efficient.

 

Resident Evil 5

 

Resident Evil 5, known in Japan as Biohazard 5, is a game of survival horror genre, and is the eighth installment of the main Resident Evil games, is released for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. The game, developed and published by Capcom is set eleven years after the Raccoon City disaster, which occurred in 1998, and five after the adventure of Leon S. Kennedy in Spain, which took place in 2004. In 2009, Chris Redfield, former STARS member of special team, he joined a company that fights against bioterrorism, called BSAA Is sent into the heart of Africa, specifically in the region of Kijuju, to investigate a mysterious threat of bioterrorism. Li made ​​the acquaintance of a girl, Sheva Alomar, member of the African branch of the BSAA The two soon discover the horrors of the place: the natives of Kijuju have been infected by a mysterious parasite, which sentenced them to remain in a permanent state of murderous rage. The two agents B.S.A.A. then deal with the hordes of enemies, called Majini, looking at the same time to prevent the spread of the parasite. At the same time Albert Wesker, a former captain of STARS and nemesis of Chris, he went to Africa to work with Excella Gionne, the owner of the pharmaceutical company Tricell. Wesker, helped by a mysterious hooded woman who does the dirty work for him, trying to counter the plans of the BSAA, intent on world domination.

 

re5dx9

re5dx10

 

Using Direct X 9 we note a difference of about 5 frames between the HD 6550D and HD 6530D, the subject of our test.

Shifting attention to the graph of the performance recorded using the Direct X 10, we note that the gap becomes wider, in fact, the HD 6550D gets 34.2 fps against 29 of the HD 6530D at 1680x1050, with memories set to 1866MHz .

 

Note how the Intel solutions have received about half of the frame.

 

THE LAST RENMANT

 

The last born created by Square-Enix will allow the player to take the role of Rush Sykes, an eighteen year old boy waiting in spasmodic (with sister) back home to his parents, famous researchers now for years engaged in a secret project. Shortly thereafter, however, Irina (her sister) is kidnapped by shady characters who will leave unspecified what the poor Rush, who meanwhile discovered to possess a power in him, with a handful of flies. It will be the search of the beloved sister, embryonic opening words of the whole adventure, to accompany the young hero on a journey which will meet all kinds of beings, sometimes friendly and sincere at times subtle and wicked. As with any self-respecting fantasy tale characters and supporting actors are bound together, in this case by the Remnant, powerful and ancient artifact capable of turning-not without a high price to pay in-arms unspeakable power when connected to a living being after the necessary capacity.

 

the_last_renmant

 

Let's look at the graph for the last test done on the graphics portion; even in this case the board is positioned in second place, leaving unchanged his condition and being seconded by just 4 frames.

 

GPU TEST CONCLUSIONS

Like his older brother A8-3850 the strength of this processor is the integrated graphics, second only to the HD 6550D integrated in the A8.

As we have seen from the tests, the performance of the IGP are very respectable and enable us to spend time with some games without running into several slowdowns.

Despite the differences between the HD 6550D and HD 6530D, the performance are very similar and we found the difference mostly being in the order of 4 or 5 frames.


Overclock

 

After describing the behavior of the CPU and the GPU at standard frequency is now time to practice some overclocking.

 

We have done overclocking on the CPU by adjusting the FSB using the software included with the Gigabyte "EasyTune 6" motherboard that allows you to set parameters quickly and act even on the VCore.

 

In this case we kept the multiplier set to 26 as from the factory and we went with the system bus; the 3 steps of the operation are shown in the images below.

 

3253mhz

26x125MHz

 

In this picture we took the A6-3650 at 3250MHz, setting the FSB to 125 and without changing the Vcore, fixed at 1.412 V

 

3436mhz

26x132MHz

In the picture above, instead, we took the bus to 132MHz increasing the frequency to 3436MHz; in this case we had to act on the CPU core voltage, which otherwise would not hold that frequency.

 

3643mhz

26x140MHz

 

The maximum value that allows us to bench is about 3640MHz, reached setting the bus at 140Mhz and leaving the VCore set to 1.504 V.

 

The CPU booted to the operating system even at 3700MHz, but the system was unstable and there was not even possible to close a benchmark.

 

Below is a chart with the value recorded at 3640MHz and using the Cinebench 11.5 software.

 

cine11

 

The improvement is clear and we can notice it from the figure recorded in the "CPU" for the tests carried out using all the cores on the CPU; the result is well above the standard value.

Equally we can see how even the single core performance gets significantly better than a core operating at standard frequency.

 


Temperatures and consumption

As happened in the previous review on the AMD Llano A8-3850, even in this case the software used to detect the temperature of the processor and integrated IGP temperatures reported identical temperatures in all situations, both in IDLE processor and FULL LOAD, both with Standard frequency equal to 2600MHz and in overclocking.

This is probably due to software not yet able to provide full support to this new platform.

The data will be updated as soon as possible.

 

Interesting aspect of this platform, as mentioned in the previous review and in-depth articles on this architecture, are the consumption registered under IDLE, GPU Stress and full CPU load.

 

consumi

 

The values ​​are very close to those reached with the A8-3850 and are very positive, because it has the highest consumption with CPU at full load, equal to about 160W, a standard value.

In gaming or normal use of the system it uses on average 90 to 112W resulting to be very balanced.

 


Conclusions

 

argento

 

Performance: 3,5 stelle - copia
Quality/price ratio: 3,5 stelle
Overall: 3,5 stelle - Copia 2

The new AMD Llano A6-3650 confirms what introduced with the A8-3850, or that the proposed new architecture and platform from AMD is definitely winning.

The performance is pretty good especially in the graphics side, where the HD 6530D integrated IGP turns out to be very similar to her mayor sister in the high end solution for FM1 Socket.

However, the slight price difference between this solution and the most efficient A8-3850, just 20 €, does tip the balance in favor of the latter and we feel to recommend the purchase of the APU with HD 6550D, as it turned out, in some tests, much more powerful of the A6-3650 solution.

That said, we think that this architecture and this platform is perfect for medium to low end systems that do not demand the maximum performance, but they do not miss anything.

 

PROs

  • Low price
  • Balanced consumption
  • GPU performance
  • Good margin for overclocking

CONs

  • CPU performance is not brilliant

 

We thank AMD for the sample supplied to us.

Angelo Ciardiello

Translated by Marco Comerci

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