Although synthetic metrics aren't representative of real-world performance, they do help us drill down into specific subsystems. Let's start by looking at graphics.
The HD Graphics engine in Intel's Pentium B960 does not support DirectX 11, so we have 3DMark Vantage (the green bar) as a secondary measurement. 3DMark 11 does yield viable results on the other two platforms.

Obviously, the Pentium B960 gets outclassed in 3DMark Vantage. Intel's HD Graphics 4000 engine is quite a bit faster in Vantage, though it's only slightly faster in 3DMark 11. AMD's GCN architecture tends to fare best in more modern titles, so this really isn't a surprise to us.

PCMark 7 yields conflicting results. The Pentium gives us the best Overall and Productivity suite scores. AMD's A4-5000 leads in the storage test. And the Core i3-3217U performs best in the Creativity suite.

Cinebench doesn't do AMD any favors; regardless of whether you're looking at single- or multi-threaded performance, the Intel cores are quickest.

The A4-5000 fares well against the Pentium in Sandra's floating-point benchmark. However, it's beaten in raw measures of integer performance.

With support for AES acceleration, the A4-5000 achieves a great result in Sandra's encryption/decryption subtest, moving data as fast as its memory subsystem allows. This is one of those features that Intel strips off for the sake of differentiation. As such, Kabini is handed an easy win.

Intel's Sandy Bridge architecture only supports OpenCL on its CPU cores. Ivy Bridge added support for HD Graphics, though the test only ran in Compute Shader mode for us. Meanwhile, AMD's A4-5400 is able to tackle Sandra's OpenCL workload across its x86 and graphics resources.

LuxMark tells a different story, though. We expect Intel to serve up potent performance from its x86 cores. However, the HD Graphics engine serves up great results as well compared to Kabini's 128 ALUs. It's not exactly clear why AMD's architecture, which is known for its compute alacrity, suffers so badly in this test. The Pentium-based notebook does not work in LuxMark, though its general-purpose cores should support OpenCL.
- Temash And Kabini: AMD's Mobile Future
- Jaguar: A Low-Power x86 Core
- The First APUs With AMD's GCN Architecture, Plus Power Management
- AMD's E-Series and A-Series APUs, Along With Their Bundles
- AMD's Kabini-Based Prototype And Our Benchmarks
- Results: Synthetics
- Results: F1 2012 And The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
- Results: Tomb Raider And Metro 2033
- Results: Media Encoding
- Results: Adobe CS6 Suite
- Results: Productivity
- Results: Compression
- Power Consumption
- The Kabini-Based A4-5000: Mediocre Performance, But Great Efficiency
This was a poor review because of the choice made there. I think a lot people were curious about how improved it was over the Bobcat. No data. How about the Atom? No data. Let's just compare it with chips the Piledriver competes with, instead of those it does. It makes no sense.
In case you guys haven't figured it out, Piledriver is the competitor for SB/IB, not Kabini. Two different markets. That you justify this so poorly by saying one particular notebook would cost x amount of dollars, is borderline insane. From one notebook, which are based on things other than the cost of the processor as well, you would assume all will cost the same? Strange.
The comparisons with SB/IB aren't worthless, but they should have been in addition to the processors in their market, and also with AMD's Trinity line. Maybe four or five processors, instead of just two that are addressing a higher performance market, and architecturally quite close.
You lost this one to other sites. Normally, especially when Chris writes them, Tom's ends up having the best information. Not this time. Not even close.
AMD Kabini sleekbook. I am just drooling at the idea of that.
Given that the AMD Temash and Kabinis are priced in the range of Atoms, it is illustrative that the Tom's reviewer used two Pentium and i3 CPUs that cost over $130 and $200 respectively.
To see the Intel chips utilizing dramatically more watts than the Kabini brings up issues discovered by other reviewers. Just look at the graph of the i3-3217u rated at "17 watt TDP" playing F1-2012 at what is 100% or nearly 35 watts! This means that AMD Kabini A6-5200 which is being released in June will outperform Intel's $225+ i3-3217u for price-performance per watt, you can be on it.
While running the range of applications, the AMD Kabini remained cool while the Intel chips heat up dramatically. This heat has to be dissipated from the laptop and it takes a toll on both the machine and user.
HP just announced 10 point touchscreen laptops that utilize AMD Jaguar Kabinis for a breakthrough price of $399 and that is just a start of a flood of good old competition (hello AMD Kaveri APU Xmas).
This is because the i3-3217u is not an SOC, it's just an ULV dual core Ivy Bridge. Many of the controllers and other supporting hardware are located off die on the mother board, which increases power consumption over the CPU/GPU's rated 17W TDP.
Kabini will have to compete with Intel's upcoming ULV Haswell, which will go as low as ~10W TDP and will be an SOC. This is why I said in my previous comment that I feel AMD has a rare advantage right now and a narrow window of opportunity to make an impact. Jaguar will overlap Silvermont on the low end of its TDP range, and Haswell on its upper end. Both will likely outperform it in their given segments.
AMD told us the Kabini laptop they gave us would be priced $500 on the market, and that cheaper versions would be as low as $350.
We used the cheapest comparison laptops we could find. The only thing it illustrates is that we were trying to give Kabini the best chance of strutting its stuff.
AMD Kabini sleekbook. I am just drooling at the idea of that.
No, Kabini competes in the Intel Atom price range like its predecessor, AMD Brazos.
Sure they compete in a similar TDP range, but you wouldn't expect people to compare the chips that go into $999 ultrabooks with chips that will (ultimately) go into the same form factor as them, but are priced at <$400.
ULV processors from Intel are priced at a premium - because Intel is unchallenged in that space. AMD would be insane to try and price Kabini anywhere near IVB or Haswell ULV parts, because AMD will never win by overpricing their products.
"There's no such thing as a bad product, just a bad price point"
Edit: Not entirely sure why my comment got cut off, but here it is. Please note this comparison was made about the ultraportable area of the market, where the main concerns are weight, screen size and battery life. If we start comparing a CPU designed for primarily 11.6" or 10.1" screens with say 35W CPUs in a 15" form factor, you've lost the whole point of the comparison you're doing ultraportable vs. desktop replacements. Sure, if a manufacturer wants to put Kabini in a 15" form factor then it's fair game, but for the majority of Kabini chips, we'll see them in ultraportables, not desktop replacements.
This was a poor review because of the choice made there. I think a lot people were curious about how improved it was over the Bobcat. No data. How about the Atom? No data. Let's just compare it with chips the Piledriver competes with, instead of those it does. It makes no sense.
In case you guys haven't figured it out, Piledriver is the competitor for SB/IB, not Kabini. Two different markets. That you justify this so poorly by saying one particular notebook would cost x amount of dollars, is borderline insane. From one notebook, which are based on things other than the cost of the processor as well, you would assume all will cost the same? Strange.
The comparisons with SB/IB aren't worthless, but they should have been in addition to the processors in their market, and also with AMD's Trinity line. Maybe four or five processors, instead of just two that are addressing a higher performance market, and architecturally quite close.
You lost this one to other sites. Normally, especially when Chris writes them, Tom's ends up having the best information. Not this time. Not even close.
TDP defines the possible form factor's a processor or SOC can occupy. In this upcoming generation both Intel and AMD will share many of the same mobile form factors, from tablets to ultrabooks. They will be competing. AMD might be forced into lower price points by Intel's upcoming products, but that doesn't change the fact that they're competing for the same market. And as Don pointed out, price points can overlap more than you might assume.
And umm, what were you going to say?
No, Kabini competes with what it's priced similar to. That will be low end pentiums and Core i3s. This is by AMD's own admission.
Temash will be priced lower, in the Atom/Brazos and Tablet range.
I know lets compare this low powered cpu vs the flagship intel architecture. that makes all the sense in the world.
this seems like the worthy successor of the successful brazos socs. power efficient and well-performing.
now it's up to amd to push the arch to oems for competing in the portable computing arena.
I don't see what is so mediorce about it. How will the same i3 fair against A8 and A10 Richland APU's when they are released (Mobility only).
Once again, please read carefully: ****AMD*** TOLD US TO COMPARE IT TO $300 - $500 LAPTOPS.
Once again, please read carefully: ****AMD*** TOLD US TO COMPARE IT TO $300 - $500 LAPTOPS.
+100.