AMD Fusion: Brazos Gets Previewed: Part 2, Performance

Features
By Andrew Ku
published

AMD gave us an opportunity to go hands-on with its upcoming Brazos platform--the only preview you'll see before this technology surfaces in retail notebooks. Is it fast enough to compete with the Nehalem-based competition, and cool enough to trounce Atom?

Benchmark Results: Productivity

Benchmarks: Productivity

We’ve adapted our Photoshop benchmark to the CS5 release, though the results of our threaded filter workload don’t change much. The test takes advantage of as many cores, as possible, which is why it isn't too surprising to see the K125 fall behind the pack.

WinRAR seems to be the one application in the suite that doesn't seem to respond as favorably to the dual-core Bobcat architecture. Intel holds a distinct advantage in this test.

Symantec's Norton lineup is all but ubiquitous, so we decided to have a go at the Internet Security suite. The results mirror those seen in the WinRAR benchmark, except that the K125 and D525 are jockeying for position. Despite the fact that this suite is threaded, the K125's architecture is favored more than Atom's dual cores.

We threw in Dragon NaturallySpeaking 11 because it is a popular mainstream application. The Transcribe From Audio Recording function is partially multi-threaded but it is also sensitive to clock rate, which is why we see the K125 ahead of the ULV processors.

Overall, the E-350 is pretty competitive with the Core 2 Duo SU7300, which is where AMD is pegging the competition.

Andrew Ku
62 Comments Comment from the forums
  • ares1214
    Looking extremely impressive AMD, where as before you were a full gen behind, now id just say half gen. Make BD a big success, and you will most definitely get back in the game, however i doubt it would be enough to take the lead.
    Reply
  • did you realize that sometime it's as fast as the i3 with 2,2ghz?
    Reply
  • frederico
    If an Intel processor and an AMD processor were exactly the same - 9 out of 10 'normal' people would choose the Intel

    The only people "in the know" are in the enthusiast segment of the market, which is a very small slice really.

    Its a constant uphill battle for AMD, but then again, if they didn't exist, we'd all be paying through the nose for slower processors
    Reply
  • vaughn2k
    Hope it will come sooner than later...
    Reply
  • I don't like when Tom's trow at us many facts from the AMD crowd to brainwash our mind. I don't like when the game is to convince the community to buy something who is not proved again.

    "The new AMD Fusion developer "trust fund" is actually a great way to start chipping away at the current CPU-heavy mentality." Yeas and we are also GPU-heavy mentality too!!!

    Reply
  • killerclick
    Who the hell plays games on a netbook? Another spectacular fail for AMD.
    Reply
  • tsnorquist
    killerclickWho the hell plays games on a netbook? Another spectacular fail for AMD.
    Probably not a lot of people, but when netbooks have the capability to play at acceptable levels for the masses, they will be great.
    Reply
  • gxpbecker
    Nifty, an the best thing about AMD making high end competition for intel is price drops lol, if AMD can pull it off.
    Reply
  • hannibal
    Even more interesting would be a tablet that can be used to play games!
    So it could mean that we can read e-mail, read e-books watch movies and internet pages and even play with tablet-PC. Netbook is just one step ahead... Yep it is not the same as Nvidia 460, even 350 or amd 5650 from the low end (gaming), but the resolution would be smaller, so it would be possible.

    Let see what we get when this is really out.
    All in all it gives people a choice. Need more CPU and very rarely GPU power... take intel... If you don't need so much CPU power, but need GPU power chose AMD. It's good to have altenatives!
    Reply
  • K2N hater
    fredericoIf an Intel processor and an AMD processor were exactly the same - 9 out of 10 'normal' people would choose the IntelThe only people "in the know" are in the enthusiast segment of the market, which is a very small slice really.Its a constant uphill battle for AMD, but then again, if they didn't exist, we'd all be paying through the nose for slower processorsThe average user either picks Intel or Apple. And when the user picks Apple the CPU manufacturer is absolutely out of question.
    Reply