AMD Athlon 5350 And AM1 Platform Review: Kabini In A Socket

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AMD is repackaging the mobile-focused Kabini APU for use on the desktop, and tucking them under the familiar Athlon and Sempron brands. We take a closer look at the company's socketed AM1 platform and compare its performance to Intel's Bay Trail-D.

Test Systems And Benchmarks

We're comparing AMD's new Athlon 5350 to Intel's Celeron J1900. It's a great match-up because it gives us our first opportunity to test Intel's Bay Trail-D platform against AM1 using closely-matched clock rates (the Celeron is running at a 2 GHz base frequency that goes as high as 2.41 GHz, while the Athlon operates at 2.05 GHz).

While Intel's most powerful Bay Trail-D-compatible option is the Pentium J2900, the only difference between that chip and our Celeron J1900 is clock rate. The Pentium's base frequency is 410 MHz higher, while its peak Turbo Boost state allows for 250 MHz more. Additionally, the HD Graphics engine is up to 42 MHz faster on the Pentium.

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Header Cell - Column 0 AM1 SystemBGA 1170 System
MotherboardGigabyte AM1M-S2H, AM1ASRock Q1900B-ITX, BGA 1170
ProcessorAMD Athlon 5350, quad-core, 2.02 GHzIntel Celeron J1900, quad-core, 2.0/2.42 GHz
MemoryDDR3-1666, 9-9-9-24DDR3-1333, 9-9-9-24
GraphicsRadeon R3 Graphics, 600 MHz,AMD Catalyst 14.8 beta 8Intel HD Graphics, 688-854 MHz clock range,Graphics Driver 10.18.10.3366
System DriveWestern Digital Black, 500 GB
Power SupplyXFX PRO850W, 850 W, 80 PLUS-certified

And here are the benchmark details:

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Benchmark Configuration
3D Games
Dota 260-Second Fraps, botmatch
Grid 2Direct X 11, Built-in Benchmark
Audio/Video Encoding
HandBrake CLIVersion: 0.98, Video: Video from Canon EOS 7D (1920x1080, 25 frames) 1 Minutes 22 Seconds, Audio: PCM-S16, 48,000 Hz, Two-Channel, to Video: AVC1 Audio: AAC (High Profile)
iTunesVersion 10.4.1.10 x64: Audio CD (Terminator II SE), 53 minutes, default AAC format
LAME MP3Version 3.98.3: Audio CD "Terminator II SE", 53 min, convert WAV to MP3 audio format, Command: -b 160 --nores (160 Kb/s)
TotalCode Studio 2.5Version: 2.5.0.10677, MPEG-2 to H.264, MainConcept H.264/AVC Codec, 28 sec HDTV 1920x1080 (MPEG-2), Audio: MPEG-2 (44.1 kHz, Two-Channel, 16-Bit, 224 Kb/s) Codec: H.264 Pro, Mode: PAL 50i (25 FPS), Profile: H.264 BD HDMV
Productivity
ABBYY FineReaderVersion 10.0.102.82: Read PDF save to Doc, Source: Political Economy (J. Broadhurst 1842) 111 Pages
Adobe Photoshop CCVersion 13 x64: Filter 15.7 MB TIF Image: Radial Blur, Shape Blur, Median, Polar Coordinates
7-ZipVersion 9.28, LZMA2, Syntax "a -t7z -r -m0=LZMA2 -mx=5" Benchmark: THG-Workload-2012
WinRARVersion 5.1, RAR, Syntax "winrar a -r -m3" Benchmark: THG-Workload-2012
WinZipVersion 17.0 Pro, Best Method, ZIPX Benchmark: THG-Workload-2012
Synthetic Benchmarks and Settings
3DMark 2013Version: 1.0.1, Cloud Gate test
PCMark 8Version: 1.0.4, Home test, Conventional and OpenCL Accelerated
SiSoftware Sandra 2013Version: 2013 SP5c-1872, CPU Test = CPU Arithmetic, GPGPU Cryptography
Don Woligroski
132 Comments Comment from the forums
  • srap
    Are the CPU/APU names on Page 4's third image correct?
    Reply
  • kartu
    Why is there no pricing on Intel CPUs on page 1?
    Reply
  • AMD Radeon
    i hope mini office pc box can be a new trend
    AM1 can be a potential winner in this market
    Reply
  • Niko_boy
    Ultra low detail lol made me confused for once
    Reply
  • Maxx_Power
    To Toms:

    What was the ambient temperature during the testing ? Surely Toms is not testing in an refrigerator ? That idle GPU and CPU temperature at 13 degrees Celsius seems about 10 degrees too low, given that they have to be necessarily above ambient conditions to make physical sense. Perhaps the sensors are not read correctly (wrong offset) ?

    For the Dota2 graphs, there seems to be a mistake for the color legend. The difference in color isn't resolution, since the resolution is fixed (right hand top corner of graph at 1080), so my guess is that red/black represents min/avg FPS similar to the 2nd graph on Grid2.

    Reply
  • bustapr
    lol my bad, misread and graphs are fine.
    Reply
  • nezzymighty
    Thanks for the article. I agree with your conclusion, as I would probably seek an alternative build for a a "PC-Like Device" as you put it. Seeing AM1 product costs relatively the same to an A4-4000 FM2+ confuses me, as I had originally expected (hoped) AM1 high-end combinations with a motherboard to cost around the $70 mark... If I were to make an AMD HTPC, or a typical AMD business computer, based on prices released by the e-tailers today, it would make more sense for me to build an FM2+ with A4-4000. Maybe prices will reduce in time to make this a more attractive alternative relative to an FM2+ for an HTPC or business computer.
    Reply
  • ykki
    "Based on our results, I'd guess that AMD's AM1 platform should be able to handle less-demanding MMOs like World of Warcraft, lightweight shooters like Left 4 Dead, and a wide range of even more casual games (such as Angry Birds)."
    I think that it is safe to say that it can max out angry birds at 4k :)
    Reply
  • ykki
    I think it would be nice to see NAS PCs rocking the AM1 platform
    Reply
  • cleeve
    13061890 said:
    To Toms:

    What was the ambient temperature during the testing ? Surely Toms is not testing in an refrigerator ? That idle GPU and CPU temperature at 13 degrees Celsius seems about 10 degrees too low, given that they have to be necessarily above ambient conditions to make physical sense. Perhaps the sensors are not read correctly (wrong offset) ?

    On-die sensors are notoriously inaccurate at low temperatures. In this case that's obvious, but we can only report what the sensors tell us.

    13061890 said:
    For the Dota2 graphs, there seems to be a mistake for the color legend. The difference in color isn't resolution, since the resolution is fixed (right hand top corner of graph at 1080), so my guess is that red/black represents min/avg FPS similar to the 2nd graph on Grid2.

    Good catch! Fixed. :)

    Reply