AM1 Chips?

S

SpongeBob

The Contraceptive Under the Sea
Joined
Jan 15, 2011
Messages
939
Anyone use one of these little quads? How capable are they really?
 
I used to have one. It was pretty good for the price. What do you want it to do?
 
Specifically steam in home streaming, or light gaming, streaming Netflix, media server, curious max resolution. Considering a Semp 3850. Do the AM1 boards only have 2 sata ports?
 
I have a Sempron 2650 in my pfsense router I built. Got it because the mini-ITX board I got had a DC power header on it and it looked like a decent enough chip.
So far extremely happy with the setup. Then again though this is an entirely different application. Super quiet and low power (<18w total system draw).

ASRock AM1H-ITX and AM1B-ITX both have 4x SATA ports.

EDIT: I actually have that first board, been very pleased by it too.
 
SpongeBob said:
Specifically steam in home streaming, or light gaming, streaming Netflix, media server, curious max resolution. Considering a Semp 3850. Do the AM1 boards only have 2 sata ports?
Click to expand...
I have a Intel G3258 running a box doing the same things you want. For the price it cant be beat. And it will do all this with ease, and use less power. If you do not have a board already, there is no reason to not consider the 3258
 
Rav3n said:
I have a Intel G3258 running a box doing the same things you want. For the price it cant be beat. And it will do all this with ease, and use less power. If you do not have a board already, there is no reason to not consider the 3258
Click to expand...

I'm trying to stay on a budget and while I agree the 3258 is a far far better chip it's $70 more expensive where I live. While it's probably worth it for some it might be total overkill?
 
I have an Athlon 5350 running my Hyper-V/pfSense box. Its not going to break any speed records, but for my purpose it works well enough. Only build the system because I got an AM1 board for $17 and thought I would give it a try.
 
Have a 5350 as well. It's a cool little chip. Very low power and will work for just about anything except for video encoding. Other than that it's a great little chip

By the way I think there's a new top SKU above the 5350.
 
I have an athlon 5350 for web browsing with 8GB of ram and ssd and it's still slow :) I regret not buying the pentium G3258 was only more 3€ :(
 
I had the athlon 5350 and had no issues converting and streaming 1080p media (from whatever I had to h264). Never gamed on the thing, but I have run serious sam 3 on a e-350 which got 10-ish frames per second in a pinch for a lan party.
 
5GHZ+ said:
I have an athlon 5350 for web browsing with 8GB of ram and ssd and it's still slow :) I regret not buying the pentium G3258 was only more 3€ :(
Click to expand...
Sorry not buying that for a second. Even did an Linux based HTPC out of one and it did remarkably well.
 
Darakian said:
I had the athlon 5350 and had no issues converting and streaming 1080p media (from whatever I had to h264). Never gamed on the thing, but I have run serious sam 3 on a e-350 which got 10-ish frames per second in a pinch for a lan party.
Click to expand...
For Plex it's fine.
 
kac77 said:
Sorry not buying that for a second. Even did an Linux based HTPC out of one and it did remarkably well.
Click to expand...
I buy it. A Pentium G3258 is way faster, even with half the cores. If the price is close there is no question which is the better value. Sadly, like a lot of AMD platforms an AM1 is only attractive if it is significantly cheaper than the Intel alternative. I say this as someone who just built two FM2 boxes, an AM3+ box and anA10-7850k FM2+ box. All of those happened because I got each motherboard for less than $10 a piece.
 
doublejack said:
I buy it. A Pentium G3258 is way faster, even with half the cores. If the price is close there is no question which is the better value. Sadly, like a lot of AMD platforms an AM1 is only attractive if it is significantly cheaper than the Intel alternative. I say this as someone who just built two FM2 boxes, an AM3+ box and anA10-7850k FM2+ box. All of those happened because I got each motherboard for less than $10 a piece.
Click to expand...

The point wasn't whether it was faster. There was no debate there. The person was saying that the chip was struggling with WEB BROWSING. Hyperbole is cool and all but a damn single core Celeron or Sempron for that matter of the lowest sku can do web browsing.

It's also like comparing apples and oranges.
 
5GHZ+ said:
I have an athlon 5350 for web browsing with 8GB of ram and ssd and it's still slow :) I regret not buying the pentium G3258 was only more 3€ :(
Click to expand...

That's ok, I have an I7-6700k with 32GB of ram and an SSD and regret getting it with all the problems I have had with it. (I already had to rma the processor once and memory compatibility is an issue.) That and I game at 4k so I see no real difference between this and the FX 8350 I was using. (No, I do not play heavily modded skyrim and I do not churn out videos all the day long.) On the other hand, I built an 5350 with 8GB of ram and a hard drive and it was a quick little machine. (Windows 7 Pro.)
 
Rav3n said:
I have a Intel G3258 running a box doing the same things you want. For the price it cant be beat. And it will do all this with ease, and use less power. If you do not have a board already, there is no reason to not consider the 3258
Click to expand...

Unless I'm mistaken the G3258's idle power draw is almost as high as the Athlon 5350 is at full load... my 5350 pulls 17w idle/36 load. I don't even have a fan on the CPU heatsink, the airflow from a single 120mm case fan at silent speeds is adequate for all situations. Video playback looks good on the 5350 and AMD iGPUs have much better support for older games you might want to run on such a machine. Web browsers can chug a little but it mostly feels like the snappy experience you'd expect from a desktop PC. It's the first low-power hardware I've been happy with.

I've had nothing but trouble connecting Intel iGPUs to televisions up through the 4th gen iX series. Video playback always looks a bit off even after turning off all the driver 'enhancements' and game support is bad regardless of what displays you use. Intel makes fast CPU's, but when I need a decent iGPU I go AMD.
 
Last edited:
I have a Dell AIO with an A6-7310, which is basically the same chip, surprisingly decent little processor. It plays old steam library titles pretty decently at 1080p. If you have a frys or Microcenter (40$ cpu and 40 off a mobo) around, some of the deals on the 5350 are hard to beat.
 
I used a Sempron 3850 and an Athlon 5350 for a while. Don't expect much from them. They run fine as a basic home computer and when paired with 4-8GB of RAM and an SSD they could even be considered "Snappy". They would make a good system for general internet browsing, video viewing, and office work. However, you won't find yourself playing many games more intensive than minecraft on them. My original idea for these chips was to make a small, cool, quiet, low power, game server. It was disappointing when I figured out that a 5350 overclocked at 2.2GHz couldn't run a vanilla MC server with 2 players without lagging horribly (to the point of crashing because of the time difference between the server and client systems).
 
kac77 said:
The point wasn't whether it was faster. There was no debate there. The person was saying that the chip was struggling with WEB BROWSING. Hyperbole is cool and all but a damn single core Celeron or Sempron for that matter of the lowest sku can do web browsing.

It's also like comparing apples and oranges.
Click to expand...
I don't agree with your conclusion. Flash is going away, slowly, but while it remains in use one needs some decent horsepower to surf the web. Also, pages load much faster on mid-level machines than on bottom tier ones. Maybe the use of struggling is hyperbole to you, but I think it is applicable. I certainly would not want to use such a weak system to surf the web with any kind of regularity.



DeathFromBelow said:
Unless I'm mistaken the G3258's idle power draw is almost as high as the Athlon 5350 is at full load... my 5350 pulls 17w idle/36 load. I don't even have a fan on the CPU heatsink, the airflow from a single 120mm case fan at silent speeds is adequate for all situations. Video playback looks good on the 5350 and AMD iGPUs have much better support for older games you might want to run on such a machine. Web browsers can chug a little but it mostly feels like the snappy experience you'd expect from a desktop PC. It's the first low-power hardware I've been happy with.

I've had nothing but trouble connecting Intel iGPUs to televisions up through the 4th gen iX series. Video playback always looks a bit off even after turning off all the driver 'enhancements' and game support is bad regardless of what displays you use. Intel makes fast CPU's, but when I need a decent iGPU I go AMD.
Click to expand...
Max tdp on the 3258 is like 53W. At idle it uses much less. I have two in 24/7 use, one is a htpc and the other is my wife's desktop. They are quite efficient and very powerful. As far as the Intel igpu and televisions, I have mine running Linux (Ubuntu). I don't experience the issues you described.
 
doublejack said:
Max tdp on the 3258 is like 53W. At idle it uses much less. I have two in 24/7 use, one is a htpc and the other is my wife's desktop. They are quite efficient and very powerful. As far as the Intel igpu and televisions, I have mine running Linux (Ubuntu). I don't experience the issues you described.
Click to expand...

My entire system with a 5350 used less than half the TDP of just the G3258 (Before adding power draws of RAM, motherboard, drives, fans). I even tried to max out the load on it with P95 and Furmark, and I never got over 40C, even overclocked and on a passive cooler. The iGPU is decent as well, I've noticed no difference in video playback and gaming visual fidelity between the iGPUs on Intel and AMD processors.
 
mrluckypants96 said:
My entire system with a 5350 used less than half the TDP of just the G3258 (Before adding power draws of RAM, motherboard, drives, fans). I even tried to max out the load on it with P95 and Furmark, and I never got over 40C, even overclocked and on a passive cooler. The iGPU is decent as well, I've noticed no difference in video playback and gaming visual fidelity between the iGPUs on Intel and AMD processors.
Click to expand...
I don't think the power consumption is that different. Reviews of the 3258 show idle power just over 40W. Here's an example - linkhttp://www.guru3d.com/articles-pages/pentium-20th-anniversary-series-g3258-processor-review,6.html


So maybe the difference is $1 a month between the two, assuming both are always on.
 
doublejack said:
I don't think the power consumption is that different. Reviews of the 3258 show idle power just over 40W. Here's an example - linkhttp://www.guru3d.com/articles-pages/pentium-20th-anniversary-series-g3258-processor-review,6.html


So maybe the difference is $1 a month between the two, assuming both are always on.
Click to expand...

I like how the i7 and A10 chips actually match or beat the Pentium-K in idle wattage. It's also 42W on idle, where my 5350 system never went past 27W on full load.
 
doublejack said:
I don't think the power consumption is that different. Reviews of the 3258 show idle power just over 40W.
Click to expand...
Not that different? The 3258's idle wattage is at or above the max TDP for the 5350! You're comparing different categories of chips. The 5350 is comparable to an Atom with a decent iGPU while the 3258 is a low-end desktop CPU.

So maybe the difference is $1 a month between the two, assuming both are always on.
Click to expand...

Yes and no. I've long argued that the high power consumption of AMD's FX line was no problem for the same reason. In this case however there's more to it than just the power cost: the very low TDP on the AM1 chips allows them to run in fanless or near-silent configurations while still being decent desktop PCs with the ability to play/stream 1080p video and play games.
 
DeathFromBelow said:
Not that different? The 3258's idle wattage is at or above the max TDP for the 5350! You're comparing different categories of chips. The 5350 is comparable to an Atom with a decent iGPU while the 3258 is a low-end desktop CPU.



Yes and no. I've long argued that the high power consumption of AMD's FX line was no problem for the same reason. In this case however there's more to it than just the power cost: the very low TDP on the AM1 chips allows them to run in fanless or near-silent configurations while still being decent desktop PCs with the ability to play/stream 1080p video and play games.
Click to expand...

My system with a 5350 had one fan in it, and that was the PSU fan, which was replaced with a low-speed Noiseblocker for inaudible performance.
 
SpongeBob said:
Anyone use one of these little quads? How capable are they really?
Click to expand...
I have the 5350 and it plays blu rays just fine. Its my garage PC. It is cool running which is good here in the Phoenix metro area. :hungover:
 
I don't know if this is possible but any of you guys able to clock your 5350's down to 1.3Ghz and try playing a game with steam home streaming for me. Tell me how it goes, for science! and SpongeBob! I'm assuming the only real difference between the two is basically clock speed. I'm just leery of the lack of balls this chip has but I can get it for $30 so it sounds like quite a bargain.
 
SpongeBob said:
I don't know if this is possible but any of you guys able to clock your 5350's down to 1.3Ghz and try playing a game with steam home streaming for me. Tell me how it goes, for science! and SpongeBob! I'm assuming the only real difference between the two is basically clock speed. I'm just leery of the lack of balls this chip has but I can get it for $30 so it sounds like quite a bargain.
Click to expand...

I've got a 3850 lying around, I might give it a try.
 
SpongeBob said:
I don't know if this is possible but any of you guys able to clock your 5350's down to 1.3Ghz and try playing a game with steam home streaming for me. Tell me how it goes, for science! and SpongeBob! I'm assuming the only real difference between the two is basically clock speed. I'm just leery of the lack of balls this chip has but I can get it for $30 so it sounds like quite a bargain.
Click to expand...

Alright, I have some results.

I tested over a wired connection in an attempt to get the best performance. My gaming system ([email protected] and an R9 Fury@1100MHz) was used as the master system, streaming to the 3850 (3850@Stock, 8GB RAM) system. The CPU didn't seem to mind the streaming, settling in at about 12% usage during gaming. I did get some odd performance traits though. Framerate seems to be locked to 30fps in the stream, and I kept getting dropped frames and the occasional half-second of black screen. I retested with an R7 240 taking the GPU load and these occurrences happened far less often and the whole experience felt way smoother. That said, there still seemed to be rough patches in the stream and the occasional blackscreen, which I'm going to attribute to my crap home network and router.

Conclusion: The 3850's CPU portion appears to be sufficient for steam game streaming, apart from network issues (latency and sound oddities). However, a dedicated GPU is recommended for the best performance, even a basic one, as the integrated GPU appears to struggle some.
 
mrluckypants96 said:
Alright, I have some results.

I tested over a wired connection in an attempt to get the best performance. My gaming system ([email protected] and an R9 Fury@1100MHz) was used as the master system, streaming to the 3850 (3850@Stock, 8GB RAM) system. The CPU didn't seem to mind the streaming, settling in at about 12% usage during gaming. I did get some odd performance traits though. Framerate seems to be locked to 30fps in the stream, and I kept getting dropped frames and the occasional half-second of black screen. I retested with an R7 240 taking the GPU load and these occurrences happened far less often and the whole experience felt way smoother. That said, there still seemed to be rough patches in the stream and the occasional blackscreen, which I'm going to attribute to my crap home network and router.

Conclusion: The 3850's CPU portion appears to be sufficient for steam game streaming, apart from network issues (latency and sound oddities). However, a dedicated GPU is recommended for the best performance, even a basic one, as the integrated GPU appears to struggle some.
Click to expand...
Good work! I have a 965BE with a 5450 passive cooled GPU and it streamed great, all wired in not wifi. Also having my 8350/290 PC using VSR in games looked real pretty streaming to my TV.
 
JustReason said:
Good work! I have a 965BE with a 5450 passive cooled GPU and it streamed great, all wired in not wifi. Also having my 8350/290 PC using VSR in games looked real pretty streaming to my TV.
Click to expand...

Thanks, I like how the part that took the longest of this whole experiment was trying to get a Windows ISO to boot on the 3850 test bench, because the Windows media creation tool hates my flash drives.

I'm most likely not going to use the streaming in my house. Not only was the latency enough to make me nauseous, but I prefer being at my gaming system with its triple screens.
 
mrluckypants96 said:
Thanks, I like how the part that took the longest of this whole experiment was trying to get a Windows ISO to boot on the 3850 test bench, because the Windows media creation tool hates my flash drives.

I'm most likely not going to use the streaming in my house. Not only was the latency enough to make me nauseous, but I prefer being at my gaming system with its triple screens.
Click to expand...
I didn't try it out a lot but initially using FFXIII it ran and looked awesome. 30Fps palying games like that are fine. I wouldn't even attempt MMOs streaming but single player games would be fine. I actually just thought it was nifty and cool. And like you I prefer my COmputer.
 
I use a 3850 with an intel quad nic as a pfsense box. Over powered for my need, I want to try again with the AMD e1-2100.

I use a 5150 as an HTPC using WMC in windows 8.1. It works pretty well.
 
It works well, even the AES-NI modules works (This is why I chose it over the intel atom chip). Thermal sensor also works.

PowerD does not work, you can get it to work if you turn off c-states in bios but I that just basically gives your speedstep. I found just locking the chip to 800mhz and leaving PowerD off gives the best power savings currently. The PowerD has been fixed in FreeBSD but that patch isnt on Pfsense currently. It has something to do with C-state ranging.

It sits at about 15watts currently with a intel quad nic. It the old PT nic so that should be about 5+watts

mrluckypants96 said:
This is what I want to do with my 3850, mainly because I've gone through 3 routers that can't go half a day without having to be reset.
Click to expand...
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top