The Competition

Because AMD is the first x86 CPU manufacturer to move their tablet focused processors into the socketed market along with low-cost motherboards, Intel has no direct comparative product.  We have to look to their Bay Trail-D SoC range which loses that upgradable functionality.  Competition between AMD and Intel on this front is a tit-for-tat operation, with each company focusing on their different strengths.  AMD’s integrated IGP aims to be more powerful than the equivalent Intel along with support for DDR3-1600 memory, as well as cheaper overall, however Intel can boast dual channel memory and a lower power output.

With all these differences between Kabini and Bay Trail, including price, power and cores/threads, it is hard to find Intel parts that accurately match each other. AMD has put the following in front of reviewers to provide a guide:

AMD consider the Athlon 5350/5150 parts (quad core, 2.05 GHz and 1.6 GHz) in line with the Intel Pentium J2850/J2900, and the Sempron 3850 with the J1850/J1900. For this Part 2 we were able to obtain full Celeron J1800 (dual core) and Celeron J1900 (quad core) Bay Trail-D parts for testing.  Even though AMD puts the Athlon 5350 in the path of the J2900, the J2900 is primarily an OEM solution used by Acer.  A single J2900 motherboard appeared on Newegg a week after we had packed up testing.

In fact, I think the 5350 vs the J1900 is a better fit:

AMD Athlon 5350 vs. Intel Celeron J1900
  Athlon 5350 Celeron J1900
CPU Architecture Jaguar Silvermont
CPU Cores 4 4
CPU Frequency 2.05 GHz 2.0 GHz / 2.4 GHz Turbo
GPU Cores 128 SPs 6 EUs
GPU Frequency 600 MHz 688 MHz
Memory Channels Single Dual
Memory Frequency 1600 MHz 1333 MHz
L2 Cache 2 MB 2 MB
TDP 25 W 10 W
Price $59 $82

Also we can now directly compare pricing.  Take for example the two of the motherboards we had for this review, one J1900 and the other AM1 while equipping the system with an Athlon 5350:

GIGABYTE J1900N-D3V: $87 (Newegg)
GIGABYTE AM1M-S2H: $35 (Newegg)
AMD Athlon 5350: $65 (Newegg)

Totaling up the AMD components gives $100 vs $87 from Newegg, or £65 vs. £66 on Amazon UK, on the extreme high end of a Kabini AM1 setup.  Pricing is also influenced slightly by quoting the boxed version of the APU, rather than the OEM pricing that AMD likes to quote.

Our test setup is a follows:

Test Setup
CPU AMD Athlon 5350, Quad Core, 2.05 GHz
AMD Athlon 5150, Quad Core, 1.60 GHz
AMD Sempron 3850, Quad Core, 1.30 GHz
AMD Sempron 2650, Dual Core, 1.45 GHz
Motherboard GIGABYTE AM1M-S2H
Memory 2x4GB DDR3-1600 9-10-10
SSD OCZ Vertex 3
Power Supply OCZ 1250W ZX Series
Graphics Integrated
Graphics Drivers 14.3 Beta

Note that for our benchmark results we are also taking data from previous reviews done at AnandTech, including some of the higher powered mainstream systems.  Over time we have added benchmarks (such as SYSmark 2014) which are lacking some of the mid-range data.

Power Consumption: Idle to 100% CPU Load (on IGP)

Power Difference - Idle to full CPU load (on IGP)

Because of the difference in TDP, the AMD APUs here use more energy, although all four comfortably use less than the 25W TDP.  The dual core especially only registered a 10W difference from idle to a full CPU load.

AMD AM1 Kabini Part 2: Athlon 5350/5150 and Sempron 3850/2650 Tested CPU Performance: Real World Benchmarks
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  • Ian Cutress - Thursday, May 29, 2014 - link

    I've adjusted most of the severe cases into graphs that are easier to read :)
  • easp - Thursday, May 29, 2014 - link

    Better, but dude, the red bars stand out, and yet they represent something other than the focus of the article. Given the color pallet, I'd assume that the black bars were the least significant numbers, the background information, and yet, they actually represent the focal point of the article.
  • Ian Cutress - Thursday, May 29, 2014 - link

    I originally have had blue for Intel and red for AMD. Black is the only other color I can add that doesn't look odd; if graphs start having three-plus colors then it just looks a little odd. It might be worth greying everything and just highlighting the important points without an Intel/AMD distinction except in the labelling for the future.
  • edzieba - Friday, May 30, 2014 - link

    How about adding 'cores' to bars that are immediately relevant to the articke (e.g. an orange line in the centre of the bars for the socketed Kabinis and the Celerons). This would highlight the bars that are being compared directly, while still being in the context of all the other data, and keeping the expected blue/Intel red/AMD bar colouring intact.
  • DanNeely - Friday, May 30, 2014 - link

    Thanks, that's much better.
  • pjkenned - Thursday, May 29, 2014 - link

    Ian - good to see you had similar results as I did. The other bit is that the J1900 can be passively cooled while the AM1 chips need active coolers. That helps lower power consumption, noise and points of failure.

    I think I had benchmarks with the Raspberry Pi also - these are MUCH faster.
  • buffhr - Thursday, May 29, 2014 - link

    Would have been nice if you could have included some hd video playback (1080p/720p/3D) and impressions.
  • vesoljc - Thursday, May 29, 2014 - link

    I second this!
  • nirolf - Friday, May 30, 2014 - link

    Me too! Should be fine, but what about 4K?
  • BMNify - Saturday, May 31, 2014 - link

    "but what about 4K?"
    what about it!, it doesn't really exist for consumers, oh perhaps you mean pseudocolor UHD 2160p, or the real colour UHD-1 3840 pixels wide by 2160 tall at 10bit or 12bit per pixel content today as used by several ARM Cortex Soc

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