AMD Athlon 5150 & Sempron 2650/3850 APUs On Linux

[AJSB]

Michael, can you test the 5350 with a GTX750 or a GTXTi using Nvidia Blob ?...and compare results with standalone A10-7850K using latest Catalyst ?

I know this is is kinda a "contra-natura" test, but trust me, it will be interesting

[uid313]

What is the point of buying some cheap low-performance motherboard/CPU when you gonna put it in a big, bulky power supply and a big, bulky case that will both cost more than the motherboard/CPU?

AMD really ought to make something like a Intel NUC. A computer in a small miniature box with a built-in low-power supply.

[JS987]

Michael, can you test the 5350 with a GTX750 or a GTXTi using Nvidia Blob ?...and compare results with standalone A10-7850K using latest Catalyst ?

5350 is about 5 times slower than A10-7850K and certainly isn't suitable for games.

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=amd_athlon5350_ubuntu&num=4

[Spittie]

5350 is about 5 times slower than A10-7850K and certainly isn't suitable for games.
http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?pag...0_ubuntu&num=4

Those benchmarks have something wrong, the 5350 is 40-75% as fast as the A10 according to every other review from the internet.

[zanny]

What is the point of buying some cheap low-performance motherboard/CPU when you gonna put it in a big, bulky power supply and a big, bulky case that will both cost more than the motherboard/CPU?

AMD really ought to make something like a Intel NUC. A computer in a small miniature box with a built-in low-power supply.

This Antec case is effecitvely that. $60 with rebate, more than enough power for the use case.

Though I'd like to see a high efficiency low wattage Flex ATX PSU unit, and cases to utilize it. Silverstone is pushing SFX PSUs, for example. I'd like to see another company adopt the Flex market, since they are even smaller - SFX is great at 400-500w, Flex could go in the 200-300w range. It would also be nice to see an even smaller integrated PSU standard that is just a power brick in the enclosure, but that would probably require a smaller motherboard form factor that can depreciate the absurdly huge 20/4 pin cables.

$100 mobo / CPU + $30 ram + $50 SSD + $60 case / PSU = ~$250 with shipping / tax perfectly capable PC for anything but 3d, CAD, or compiling. Throw in a $15 Atheros NIC and its wireless, MSI has a $35 board with an mpcie slot.

[grege]

I have built an E350 box using an older version of the Antec case mentioned by @Zanny. The 60w external brick is very efficient. The same motherboard uses about 9w less at idle when using the brick versus a 380w 80Plus Bronze Antec Earthwatts. And the brick is silent.

@UID313's point is very true. We need efficient, silent and compact power supplies. When a whole system uses no more than 40w when driven to it's maximum then using a 380w power supply is just crazy. There are some DC power supplies around if you search. There is also an SFX 80Plus Bronze power supply by Silverstone, but I cannot see that being any more efficient than an Earthwatts - just smaller.

I look forward to building a 5350 box with an SSD at some point.

[bridgman]

5350 is about 5 times slower than A10-7850K and certainly isn't suitable for games.
http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?pag...0_ubuntu&num=4

Those benchmarks used the kernel driver in Ubuntu 14.10, which runs CI parts with low clocks. Michael ran more tests the next day with a newer kernel and updated Mesa -- performance was quite a bit higher. The GPU still only has two CU's vs eight in Kaveri so it's going to be slower, but it's also a much smaller part at ~1/3 the price of Kaveri.

[stiiixy]

What is the point of buying some cheap low-performance motherboard/CPU when you gonna put it in a big, bulky power supply and a big, bulky case that will both cost more than the motherboard/CPU?

AMD really ought to make something like a Intel NUC. A computer in a small miniature box with a built-in low-power supply.

Simply put, laptop power supplies.

Firstly, Everyone comes to an agreement on an internal plug size (create an adaptor for 20/24pin > Agreed Standard plug), and you plug your laptop PSU to the external laptop style round pluh (with another adaptor to suit the agreed external plug size, if need be) and voila. All your old gear's now useful alongside with the new standards. Two birds, one stone, very cheap. Cant even remember if there are voltage differances though between desktop and laptop. Probably is. Still, the 3rd party external plug adaptor could handle that part anyway. Could make it inline because pretty much all laptop PSU's come with the detached cable set up.

It's just getting a standard is the problem. Seemingly anything 'small' inversely gets more proprietry technology.

[mmstick]

Couldn't one just underclock the 5350 to simulate the 5150 by dropping the max multiplier (or is that level of control not possible)?

From what I have read, it's not possible to alter the multiplier or frequency with AM1.

[grege]

Simply put, laptop power supplies.

Firstly, Everyone comes to an agreement on an internal plug size (create an adaptor for 20/24pin > Agreed Standard plug), and you plug your laptop PSU to the external laptop style round pluh (with another adaptor to suit the agreed external plug size, if need be) and voila. All your old gear's now useful alongside with the new standards. Two birds, one stone, very cheap. Cant even remember if there are voltage differances though between desktop and laptop. Probably is. Still, the 3rd party external plug adaptor could handle that part anyway. Could make it inline because pretty much all laptop PSU's come with the detached cable set up.

It's just getting a standard is the problem. Seemingly anything 'small' inversely gets more proprietry technology.

That is essentially how many ITX systems work already. There is an internal board that has a standard 24 pin connector and connectors for Sata etc and an external round power connector as per a notebook. That is how my Antec is configured.

The next step, as you suggest, is to make them all standard. Probably won't happen. Just like notebooks, they will all be just a bit different so you cannot use a charger from an old machine or borrow one from a different make. The EU did a good job of mandating a standard charger for phones. I have a Sony phone, a Kobo book reader, a Nexus 7 tablet and a Huawei pocket WiFi and they all use the same charger and cable. They should do the same thing for notebooks then that could flow on to mini-itx. There are some mni-itx machines that are portable gaming rigs that need 600w to drive the graphics card, but they can continue on with standard power supplies.