AMD Kabini: Athlon 5350 Desktop SoC

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Lawrence Lee
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AMD Kabini: Athlon 5350 Desktop SoC

Post by Lawrence Lee » Thu Apr 17, 2014 1:01 pm


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Re: AMD Kabini: Athlon 5350 Desktop SoC

Post by mkk » Thu Apr 17, 2014 3:21 pm

Already knowing I was just gonna have to build something on this platform, I'm glad to hear the heat produced is low enough for the stock cooler to cope with it. And for the platform, If I found the CPU price to be a tad bit higher than rumors had me expect, the motherboards sure don't disappoint. I hope ASRock sends you one of their AM1H-ITX to play with. :)

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Re: AMD Kabini: Athlon 5350 Desktop SoC

Post by andyb » Fri Apr 18, 2014 6:28 am

The one thing that I never expected to be missing from an SPCR review was the noise........

It's "SILENT PC Review" guys, please add noise readings, "The fan spun at a modest speed throughout testing, producing very little noise" simply isn't enough to go on.


Andy

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Re: AMD Kabini: Athlon 5350 Desktop SoC

Post by Kriz » Sat Apr 19, 2014 12:39 am

andyb wrote:The one thing that I never expected to be missing from an SPCR review was the noise........
Heh, I was too busy shaking my head at those idle power figures. I really wish there was a better way of comparing ATX power boards with NUC style boards with DC in.

Maybe use a picopsu on the boards with ATX power?

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Re: AMD Kabini: Athlon 5350 Desktop SoC

Post by Vicotnik » Sat Apr 19, 2014 5:04 am

Kriz wrote:I really wish there was a better way of comparing ATX power boards with NUC style boards with DC in.

Maybe use a picopsu on the boards with ATX power?
That's what's being done, right? What's the problem? :)

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Re: AMD Kabini: Athlon 5350 Desktop SoC

Post by porkchop » Sat Apr 19, 2014 5:30 am

the asrock am1h-itx with dc in for $65 is unprecedented i think.

there's one test on youtube with an msi am1i and 5350 that does ~10w idle, cheap meter though so who knows how accurate it is.

edit: i think some noise numbers would've been nice too. i understand it isn't a cooler review, but since there's no other options at the moment some quick numbers would have helped!

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Re: AMD Kabini: Athlon 5350 Desktop SoC

Post by Kriz » Sat Apr 19, 2014 5:57 am

Vicotnik wrote:That's what's being done, right? What's the problem? :)
My eyes are so used to seeing:

Seasonic SS-400ET ATX power supply
and
DC (estimated)

That I was sure the PSU was the Seasonic being used again. That'll teach me to read reviews after having a few beers :)

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Re: AMD Kabini: Athlon 5350 Desktop SoC

Post by mkk » Sat Apr 19, 2014 1:34 pm

Some numbers for the fan RPM would be good enough for me. Like how low did it go at low loads?

One bonus with these chips from AMD over similarly priced low level desktop chips from Intel is that they don't turn off niftly little features like AES-NI for artificial product differentiation.

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Re: AMD Kabini: Athlon 5350 Desktop SoC

Post by FrankL » Mon Apr 21, 2014 12:06 pm

It would have been nice to see power and performance comparison with Intel CPUs in the same price range, i.e. an Intel Celeron and a Pentium model from the Haswell generation.

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Re: AMD Kabini: Athlon 5350 Desktop SoC

Post by andyb » Mon Apr 21, 2014 12:44 pm

i understand it isn't a cooler review, but since there's no other options at the moment some quick numbers would have helped
That DOES make it a cooler review..... The CPU cooler comes with the CPU, there is no alternative (currently) to the provided CPU cooler and I have no idea how loud it is.


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Re: AMD Kabini: Athlon 5350 Desktop SoC

Post by porkchop » Mon Apr 21, 2014 2:55 pm

andyb wrote:That DOES make it a cooler review..... The CPU cooler comes with the CPU, there is no alternative (currently) to the provided CPU cooler and I have no idea how loud it is.


Andy
er... no? i would like to know how loud it is too.

the fact that there aren't other coolers available at the moment doesn't magically change it from a cpu/apu review to a cooler review.

generally spcr only posts noise numbers for cooler, case and system reviews.

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Re: AMD Kabini: Athlon 5350 Desktop SoC

Post by b_rubenstein » Tue Apr 22, 2014 7:12 am

I was been intending to build a new WHS based on WHS2011 and was collecting parts (2x 2TB WD AV drives & Intel 180 GB SSD), when I saw th $99 kit on Newegg (http://promotions.newegg.com/amd/14-170 ... cid=249125) based on the ASRock AM1B-ITX. I couldn't resist and got the package. The attraction of the AM1B-ITX for me are the 4 SATA 3 ports. The build went together with only one significant issue: the USB 3 ports don't work. WHS2011 is based on Server 2008r2 and that may be the problem. Even though the drivers installed, Device Manager has a No Driver available error.

Using an old Corsair 520 PS, using a Kill-a-Watt, the PC would draw about 38w while booting and 31w @ idle. I got a PicoPSU-120-WI-25 120W Wide Input DC-DC Power Converter and it's being powered by an IBM laptop brick (16V, 4.5A). This dropped the power draw by 10w and the brick barely gets warm to the touch. The 120mm fan the case came with was noisy, with a Lian Li I had under MB control it spins at 550 RPM and very quiet. The CPU fan spins at around 3000 RPM, but is surprisingly quiet. If it was sitting on the desk, I could hardly hear it. Seems to be a dandy low power server.

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Re: AMD Kabini: Athlon 5350 Desktop SoC

Post by MikeC » Tue Apr 22, 2014 8:46 am

It is an oversight -- the lack of any acoustic info about the fan on the Asus board heatsink. But I think I understand why Larry forgot about it: The little fan simply doesn't make any appreciable noise. It runs at ~1200rpm on startup, and is audible only from under a foot away in the anechoic chamber. I didn't bother measuring it -- it's at or close to ambient (11 dBA). This morning, I ran P95 on it for 30 minutes & saw only a 20C rise in temp (to around 40C), and no change in RPM or noise.

So, it's effective and silent.

EDIT (15 minutes later): P95 was still running when I went back to the chamber and I discovered the CPU temp had crept up to 46C (around 26C rise), and the fan speed to 1350rpm. Still barely audible.

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Re: AMD Kabini: Athlon 5350 Desktop SoC

Post by andyb » Tue Apr 22, 2014 8:59 am

I didn't bother measuring it -- it's at or close to ambient (11 dBA). This morning, I ran P95 on it for 30 minutes & saw only a 20C rise in temp (to around 40C), and no change in RPM or noise.

So, it's effective and silent.
That's quite impressive and very good to know. Thanks Mike.


Andy

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Re: AMD Kabini: Athlon 5350 Desktop SoC

Post by porkchop » Thu May 01, 2014 7:02 pm

some interesting custom heat sink mounting

passive cooling at the bottom with some nice numbers using a 90mm fan sized tower (23C ambient, 30min. prime95 cpu 46C mb 53C).

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Re: AMD Kabini: Athlon 5350 Desktop SoC

Post by haar » Sat May 17, 2014 5:03 am

FrankL wrote:It would have been nice to see power and performance comparison with Intel CPUs in the same price range, i.e. an Intel Celeron and a Pentium model from the Haswell generation.
5150/asrock am1h-itx dc in, ssd... idles at 16 watts. (the 5350 should idle at the same amount, but i only have the 5150.)

haswell g3240/msi h81i, 19 watts.
it seems that all of the haswell cpus at or below the i5-4440 level, idle at the same rate.

using a bronze level 300 tfx psu (included with the inwin 631t case, oddly enough uses the same or 2 watts less compared to the seasonic ss300-tgw gold tfx psu. at 20 watts.)
of course the gold level psu is more efficient at 20% power level...

which is why IMO Silentpcreview should measure the efficiency at 20 watts for all psus not just at 10% and higher, because with todays processors and a ssd's it is easy to get a system that idles at 20 watts ... although it becomes Moot point when you get pragmatic about power consumption.

My mythtv backend server with 2HDD (1 WD red 2TB , av-gp 3TB, corsair neutron SSD, i3-4330, 8GB) idles at 29 watts.
(seasonic ss300 sfx, again uses the same power at 28 watrs idle compared to the silverstone 450 gold sfx PSU)

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Re: AMD Kabini: Athlon 5350 Desktop SoC

Post by haar » Sat May 17, 2014 5:26 am

b_rubenstein wrote:I was been intending to build a new WHS based on WHS2011 and was collecting parts (2x 2TB WD AV drives & Intel 180 GB SSD), when I saw th $99 kit on Newegg (http://promotions.newegg.com/amd/14-170 ... cid=249125) based on the ASRock AM1B-ITX. I couldn't resist and got the package. The attraction of the AM1B-ITX for me are the 4 SATA 3 ports. The build went together with only one significant issue: the USB 3 ports don't work. WHS2011 is based on Server 2008r2 and that may be the problem. Even though the drivers installed, Device Manager has a No Driver available error.

Using an old Corsair 520 PS, using a Kill-a-Watt, the PC would draw about 38w while booting and 31w @ idle. I got a PicoPSU-120-WI-25 120W Wide Input DC-DC Power Converter and it's being powered by an IBM laptop brick (16V, 4.5A). This dropped the power draw by 10w and the brick barely gets warm to the touch. The 120mm fan the case came with was noisy, with a Lian Li I had under MB control it spins at 550 RPM and very quiet. The CPU fan spins at around 3000 RPM, but is surprisingly quiet. If it was sitting on the desk, I could hardly hear it. Seems to be a dandy low power server.
on linux trusty tahr (14.04), asrock am1h-itx and 5150, the usb 3.0 ports(blue) do work.

they aren't as fast as i have as other usb3.0 ports... but that might be the driver.

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Re: AMD Kabini: Athlon 5350 Desktop SoC

Post by FrankL » Sat May 17, 2014 2:13 pm

haar wrote:
FrankL wrote:It would have been nice to see power and performance comparison with Intel CPUs in the same price range, i.e. an Intel Celeron and a Pentium model from the Haswell generation.
5150/asrock am1h-itx dc in, ssd... idles at 16 watts. (the 5350 should idle at the same amount, but i only have the 5150.)

haswell g3240/msi h81i, 19 watts.
it seems that all of the haswell cpus at or below the i5-4440 level, idle at the same rate.

using a bronze level 300 tfx psu (included with the inwin 631t case, oddly enough uses the same or 2 watts less compared to the seasonic ss300-tgw gold tfx psu. at 20 watts.)
of course the gold level psu is more efficient at 20% power level...

which is why IMO Silentpcreview should measure the efficiency at 20 watts for all psus not just at 10% and higher, because with todays processors and a ssd's it is easy to get a system that idles at 20 watts ... although it becomes Moot point when you get pragmatic about power consumption.

My mythtv backend server with 2HDD (1 WD red 2TB , av-gp 3TB, corsair neutron SSD, i3-4330, 8GB) idles at 29 watts.
(seasonic ss300 sfx, again uses the same power at 28 watrs idle compared to the silverstone 450 gold sfx PSU)
At these low power levels, PSU efficiency starts, as you rightfully said, becoming a huge factor, as well as motherboard features and for Haswell CPUs supported sleep states.

It'd be good to use a universal super-efficient power brick + DC-DC (when no onboard DC-DC is available) to test power consumption for these boards. For me, a dedicated PSU stops making much sense at sub-60W load; a good external power brick + DC-DC is often more efficient, and 100% silent.

The Celeron (and Pentium) Haswells don't support all the deep sleep states (C7 ?), so I expect an i3 and up to have slightly lower power consumption than the cheaper versions.

It'd also be very interesting to see a comparison of different mini-itx and micro-atx motherboards for Haswell, where only power consumption is tested, while keeping CPU/storage/RAM/PSU identical between different boards.

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Re: AMD Kabini: Athlon 5350 Desktop SoC

Post by MikeC » Sat May 17, 2014 2:32 pm

haar wrote:...which is why IMO Silentpcreview should measure the efficiency at 20 watts for all psus not just at 10% and higher, because with todays processors and a ssd's it is easy to get a system that idles at 20 watts ... although it becomes Moot point when you get pragmatic about power consumption.
Unless, I've been doing it in my dreams, 20W DC output is the first level of my PSU power test, and has been for some years. We have never used a percentage of rated power as target output level, only actual wattages, currently 20, 40, 65, 90, 150, 200 W and so on.

I'm glad you recognize the practical side of high efficiency at low power: The differences in real power/current is are very small. A 90% efficient PSU pulls 22.2W AC to output 20W DC. Improve to 95%, AC power drops to 21W. Saving just 1.2W... but the cost of making this improvement could be quite high. Back off to 85% and the AC power draw is 23.5W, just 1.3W more than at 90%, and it is probably far cheaper to design & manufacture this PSU.

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Re: AMD Kabini: Athlon 5350 Desktop SoC

Post by lakowske » Sun May 18, 2014 8:35 am

I bought a 5350 and was worried about the stock fan on the heatsink ruining my hope for a dead silent PC. I figured I'd buy a new heatsink when they had one available for this socket, but I've found that the BIOS lets me turn the fan off unless the CPU gets to warm.

This essentially means I am almost never running the fan. I put together a post here if you want to see how I have my AM1H-ITX set up: http://sethlakowske.com/technology/sile ... rkstation/

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Re: AMD Kabini: Athlon 5350 Desktop SoC

Post by b_rubenstein » Tue May 20, 2014 7:23 am

haar wrote:
on linux trusty tahr (14.04), asrock am1h-itx and 5150, the usb 3.0 ports(blue) do work.

they aren't as fast as i have as other usb3.0 ports... but that might be the driver.
I should have updated my original post; the two asmedia USB 3.0 front panel ports do work. The front ports are a very tight fit and I think that I may not have fully seated the cables :oops: I'm now using a 2Tb USB drive to back up the server. Hopefully, there will be driver update for the rear panel ports.

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Re: AMD Kabini: Athlon 5350 Desktop SoC

Post by porkchop » Tue May 20, 2014 8:05 pm

lakowske wrote:I bought a 5350 and was worried about the stock fan on the heatsink ruining my hope for a dead silent PC. I figured I'd buy a new heatsink when they had one available for this socket, but I've found that the BIOS lets me turn the fan off unless the CPU gets to warm.

This essentially means I am almost never running the fan. I put together a post here if you want to see how I have my AM1H-ITX set up: http://sethlakowske.com/technology/sile ... rkstation/

nice case :)
i was thinking of doing the same but the lack of tools and materials has stopped me.

nice info on the fan control, how much stress is needed on the cpu to turn the fan on? how are the idle temps? ambient room temp?

welcome to spcr!

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Re: AMD Kabini: Athlon 5350 Desktop SoC

Post by cjcerny » Mon Jun 16, 2014 5:47 am

I've had a 5350 for a couple of weeks now. I disagree that with the assessment that only having 4 lanes of PCI-E 2.0 is a major bottleneck to gaming with a discrete graphics card. I get good framerates at 1080p when I use my 650Ti video card with the 5350. I wouldn't really recommend this set up, but only having the 4 lanes for a video card is not nearly as much of a problem as you might think it would be.

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