The Desktop Kabini Review Part 1: AMD Athlon 5350 (AM1) Tested
by Ian Cutress on April 9, 2014 8:00 AM ESTThe Competition
It is no secret that AMD is attempting to fire a shot across Intel’s Bay Trail. The low power x86 desktop space is almost all AMD vs. Intel (VIA still produces x86 parts), and the socketed direction for AMD’s Kabini is a new approach in this area. The claim of low power, quad core and low cost is something that entry-level desktop integrators might find hard to ignore – in fact AMD have stated that the feedback from their Latin America integrators for an upgradeable Kabini solution is very good.
While we have not necessarily looked at Bay Trail from a desktop perspective, there are products on the market today. In the UK for example, it is easy enough to purchase an Intel Celeron J1800-based motherboard and have it shipped next-day delivery.
AMD considers the Athlon 5350/5150 parts (quad core, 2.05 GHz and 1.6 GHz) in line with Intel's Pentium J2850/J2900, and the Sempron 3850 with the J1850/J1900 - all Silvermont based SoCs. In fact, I think the 5350 vs the J1900 is a better fit:
AMD Athlon 5350 vs. Intel Celeron J1900 | ||||
Athlon 5350 | Celeron J1900 | |||
CPU Architecture | Jaguar | Silvermont | ||
CPU Cores | 4 | 4 | ||
CPU Frequency | 2.05 GHz |
2.0 GHz 2.4 GHz Turbo |
||
GPU Cores | 128 SPs | 4 EUs | ||
GPU Frequency | 600 MHz | 688 MHz | ||
Memory Interface | 1 x 64-bit | 2 x 64-bit | ||
Memory Frequency | 1600 MHz | 1333 MHz | ||
L2 Cache | 2 MB | 2 MB | ||
TDP | 25 W | 10 W | ||
Price | $55 | $82 |
The big issue that AMD will point out is the price of the J1900. One of AMD’s big selling points will be the price of an APU and a motherboard, which as we discussed earlier should stretch from $56 to $90 depending on the APU/motherboard. On ark.intel.com, Intel does list the tray price of the J1900 as $82, however you can find a motherboard with integrated J1900 at Newegg for $92. Now either the motherboard manufacturer is getting a good deal on the CPU below tray price (most likely), or Intel is subsiding the cost, or the tray price is incorrect. We can only speculate, but it does mean that the Athlon 5350 and J1900 square off in terms of cost.
For CPU core counts and frequency, the 5350 and J1900 are closely matched with both being quad core parts at ~2.0 GHz, although the J1900 can boost up to 2.4GHz. AMD likely holds the GPU advantage with its R3 graphics/Radeon HD 8400 compared to Intel's 4 EU HD Graphics. With the Athlon there is a higher supported memory frequency, but only a 64-bit wide memory interface. That might hamper the IGP in our testing, and provide memory limited benchmarks an easy ride on the J1900. There's a pretty substantial TDP difference between the two as well, with Intel holding the theoretical power advantage. Intel does make a 20W Silvermont based SKU, the Atom C2750, although that is an 8 core module aimed at servers and costs $171.
The Test
Our AM1 Kabini coverage will be in two parts due to time constraints. This first part of the review is to explain the ecosystem with some Athlon 5350 numbers to compare against other platforms including a couple of Bay Trail and older Intel parts. We aim to publish a second review next week with more numbers, specifically a wider range of Kabini APUs and the key battle of the 5350 against the J1900. We were unfortunate to not be able to source a J1900 in time for this launch.
Our main Kabini Test Setup is as follows:
Test Setup | |
CPU |
AMD Athlon 5350 Quad Core, 2.05 GHz |
Motherboard | GIGABYTE AM1M-S2H |
Memory | 2x4GB DDR3-1600 9-10-10 |
SSD | SF-2281 |
Power Supply | Antec High Current Pro 1200 |
Graphics | Integrated |
Graphics Drivers | 14.3 Beta |
For other platforms:
Test Setup | |||||
CPU | Motherboard | Platform |
Cores / Threads |
Frequency | IGP |
AMD A6-5200 |
ASRock IMB-A180-H |
Kabini | 4 | 2.0 GHz | HD 8400 |
Intel Celeron J1800 |
GIGABYTE J1800N-D2H |
Bay Trail | 2 | 2.4 GHz | HD (Ivy) |
Intel Atom C2750 |
ASRock C2750D4I |
Avoton | 8 | 2.4 GHz | None |
Intel Celeron G1101 |
MSI Big Bang Fuzion |
Nehalem | 2 | 2.3 GHz |
Not Tested no IGP outputs |
Intel Celeron G465 |
ASUS Maximus V Gene |
Sandy Bridge | 1 / 2 | 1.9 GHz | HD (Sandy) |
Intel Celeron G2030 |
ASUS Maximus V Gene |
Ivy Bridge | 2 | 3.0 GHz | HD (Ivy) |
Other results in this review were taken from our AMD Kaveri launch review.
126 Comments
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Shivansps - Wednesday, April 9, 2014 - link
J1900 is quad, J1800 is dual.Anadtech did everything they could to make the 5350 look good, not incluiding Haswells is one giant red flag right there, the 5350 MUST be tested vs G1820 as well J1900 and AMD A4s, none of those tests where done to make the 5350 look good.
YuLeven - Wednesday, April 9, 2014 - link
But, but, but... but... G1820's power comsumption is a solid 25W more! Think of the dolphins and the trees! It must be rubbish!Communism - Wednesday, April 9, 2014 - link
The funny part is that the G1820's true TDP isn't anywhere near 55w.It's only listed as 55w TDP because Intel doesn't want to make selling their more expensive low power parts even harder :P.
Communism - Wednesday, April 9, 2014 - link
To put this in perspective, my 3570k supposedly has a TDP of 77w.It actually does about 70w for the CPU alone @ 4.4ghz running Intel Math Library Linpack (The highest heat output you're likely to ever see).
That was running just 5-10 degrees from TJmax as well, so superior cooling wasn't a large factor since the stock CPU w/ stock cooler @ stock speeds would be about that temperature as well.
jospoortvliet - Thursday, April 10, 2014 - link
Esp as it turns out that power usage compared to jaguar cores is barely a few percent lower and actually muc worse at idle. The final article will have to come back on this statement.riottime - Wednesday, April 9, 2014 - link
gosh. it's depressing looking at the stale fx line in that roadmap. :(FriendlyUser - Wednesday, April 9, 2014 - link
Great product! Ideal for an HTPC or NAS or even a casual desktop. It will be a hit in the weaker economies.Ranari - Wednesday, April 9, 2014 - link
It's a great product for the price, and that's all it needs to be: Quad core, a powerful and compute-capable GPU, and reasonably feature rich. The only thing that seems to be holding the Cat cores back are their clockspeeds.robbertbobbertson - Wednesday, April 9, 2014 - link
mini-PCIe slot cannot be used for cooking scrumptious bacon pancakesi am disappoint
QChronoD - Wednesday, April 9, 2014 - link
Just wanted to point out that the description of the IGP Gaming page says the tests are being done at 1080P and Xtreme settings, but it lists 1280x1024 on the graphs. Are they being done at the highest settings as well? I would imagine the test would be more useful if the settings were turned down to medium or low since that's what anyone with the system would actually be using.