Would be great for whs though Sent via BlackBerry by AT&T -----Original Message----- From: "Stan Zaske" <[email protected]> Sender: [email protected] Date: Sat, 29 Jan 2011 14:21:57 To: <[email protected]> Reply-To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [H] 1st Retail Brazos Review from Anandtech.
I'm personally not interested in Brazos for an HTPC, I want one to replace my current Phenom II X2 545 based media server. I have it underclocked at 2 GHz and undervolted to the point of not booting if I go one step lower and it still uses 85 watts idle speed. Brazos is cheap and very energy efficient for my purposes and with SATA 6 gig connections too. On Sat, 29 Jan 2011 13:58:48 -0600, Brian Weeden <[email protected]> wrote: > So basically when I replace my current Ion HTPC head-end boxes I should > look > for a Brazos-based ones. And I will likely be replacing the guts of my > media server with Sandy Bridge for the sweet transcoding performance. > > AMD and Intel both win! > > ----------- > Brian > Follow Me [image: LinkedIn] <http://www.linkedin.com/in/brianweeden> > [image: > Twitter] <http://www.twitter.com/brianweeden> > > > On Sat, Jan 29, 2011 at 2:31 PM, Stan Zaske <[email protected]> wrote: > >> >> >> http://www.anandtech.com/show/4134/the-brazos-review-amds-e350-supplants-ion-for-miniitx >> >> Final Words >> With the settlement done and no DMI license in place, it's clear that >> there >> won't be another ION from NVIDIA (at least not based on x86). What >> Brazos is >> however is the ION successor that NVIDIA never built. For just over $100 >> you'll be able to buy a mini-ITX board with an E-350 that's faster than >> Atom, faster than ION and more feature rich than both. While I don't >> believe >> Brazos has enough CPU power under the hood to be a truly high end HTPC, >> it's >> easily good enough for a low cost, value HTPC. Popular codecs are well >> accelerated and with full DTS-HD MA and Dolby TrueHD bitstreaming >> support >> Brazos is solid. Flash acceleration is also present although it looks >> like >> there are still some kinks that need to be worked out there. >> >> >> Overall performance is much better than Atom, particularly in single >> threaded applications. Brazos and the E-350 can make for a very >> affordable >> email/web browsing machine, and run those applications much faster than >> Atom >> could. As our more complex workloads showed however, the E-350 is >> limited to >> the same type of general usage models as Atom (with a bunch of new >> media and >> gaming options). You can run heavier apps on the E-350, you'll just be >> far >> better off with an Athlon II instead. >> >> The Radeon HD 6310 proves to be a good match for the Bobcat cores in the >> E-350. There's not much value in adding a faster GPU via the on-board >> PCIe >> x4 slot as most games will be at least somewhat CPU bound. The resulting >> CPU/GPU combination is something that's typically as good as, if not >> better >> than Intel's Core i5 661 in games. In some cases the Radeon HD >> 6310/E-350 >> combination nips at the heels of Intel's Core i3 2100. Unfortunately in >> modern titles that's not always enough to have a playable experience, >> but >> with older games you should be able to do more with Brazos than you ever >> could with Atom or even ION for that matter. The CPU/GPU balance in the >> E-350 is good enough that I feel like Llano could make for a pretty >> decent >> value gaming machine. >> >> Just as was the case with Atom, Brazos isn't going make for a very >> powerful >> primary PC. Load up the thread count or throw heavier workloads at it >> and >> the E-350 doesn't look all that much better than an Atom D510. What it >> will >> give you however is better single-threaded performance than Atom and a >> much >> better feature set. Brazos makes those secondary or tertiary computers >> you >> build much better than they would have been otherwise with Atom. I would >> like to see more CPU performance out of the platform and I'm not too >> keen on >> meeting the single core versions, but viewed through ION glasses Brazos >> looks good. >> >> For AMD, Brazos has to be exciting. The company finally has a value >> offering that it doesn't have to discount heavily to sell. Brazos does >> very >> well against Atom on absolute performance, die size and price. The E-350 >> isn't the most powerful Fusion APU we'll meet, but it's a great way to >> introduce the family. >> >> -- >> Using Opera's revolutionary email client: http://www.opera.com/mail/ >> -- Using Opera's revolutionary email client: http://www.opera.com/mail/
