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Ultrathins (AMD) and Ultrabooks (Intel) are still a young device category with focus on performance and mobility. In this area Samsung certainly has some tempting laptops, the Series 5 Ultra represents their entry into the highly competitive ultra-mobile market.
Last time I’ve tested standard voltage (35W) AMD Trinity APUs and their overall performance is very satisfactory. This time I’ll go further and test ultra-portable laptops with power saving components; One has AMD Trinity A10 (ULV) APU inside with integrated Radeon HD7620G, while the other has an Intel Ivy Bridge i5 (ULV) processor, including an integrated Intel HD4000 graphics core!
The only visible difference between the two is the Stickers slapped onto the wrist rest.
Test Systems:
Samsung Series 5 NP535U4C-A01US (Ultrathin)
- AMD Trinity A10-4655M 25W APU 2Ghz Quad-Core CPU and Radeon HD7620G GPU,
- 2X4GB DDR3 1600MHz CL9 1.35V RAM,
- Samsung 830 Pro 128GB SSD,
- Windows 8 X64,
- AMD Catalyst 13.1 WHQL Driver
Samsung Series 5 NP530U4C-A01US (Ultrabook)
- Intel Ivy Bridge Core i5 3317U 17W APU 1.7GHz Dual Core CPU and Intel HD4000 GPU,
- 2X4GB DDR3 1600MHz CL9 1.35V RAM,
- Samsung 830 Pro 128GB SSD,
- Windows 8 X64,
- Intel HD Graphics Driver 15.28.12.64.2932
To ensure bring the best out of these APUs I upgraded both laptops with 4GB ADATA 1600MHz CL9 1.35V Memory to achieve Dual-Channel. Unfortunately none of these laptops taking the advantage of 1600MHz Memory speed and that is serious bottleneck for the integrated GPU performance. Furthermore the AMD APU rated for 25W TDP, while Intel’s APU only for 17W TDP. Obviously lower is better and hearing these key specifications you might already think Intel’s solution is more efficient…! …Really?... Let’s see further…
AMD CPU cores are running up to 2.8GHz, hope GPU turbo will work too…
Intel’s Turbo frequency goes up to 2.6GHz, but surprisingly the memory speed also just 1333MHz.
Tests:
I’m going to make similar tests than previously; based on real world situations, such as encoding video with the most commonly used multithreaded video transcoder Handbrake program, compressing folders, files with 7zip, WinRar, WinZip, and play with the most popular games. Some of these tests are newly implemented, while other tests are the same with identical settings for sake of comparability.
CPU Tests:
7zip; Compressing 1GB folder with default setting. Intel’s i5 ULV solution more than a minute faster than AMD’s fastest Trinity ULV.
WinRar; Compressing 1GB folder with default setting. The A10 ULV is close to its standard voltage predecessor, but far from Core i5 ULV.
WinZip; Compressing 1GB folder with default and OpenCL acceleration settings. In this test A10-4655M’s Turbo frequency worked very well and with OpenCL acceleration was faster than Core i5. Unfortunately AMD consumed 13W more power, therefore Intel still better.
This Handbrake version is not OpenCL Accelerated yet, encoding a 45 minute DVD movie. I was hoping better time from Intel, therefore I checked CPU frequency to make sure there is no throttling issue, but both CPU Cores were running at 2,4GHz.
x264 HD Benchmark v5.0.1 just for sake of comparability with other systems.
All these CPU tasks are using all available CPU cores and AMD’s 25W Quad Core still could not beat Intel’s Dual Core. That is sad and therefore Intel i5 CPU part is much faster than AMD’s A10 solution, in more tests even faster than the good old overclocked A8-3550MX too! That means if you run a processor intensive application, you can get jobs done minutes earlier with an Intel based laptop. Fortunately for other everyday tasks I have not felt AMD solution slower.
GPU Tests:
Alien vs. Predator is one of the first title with DX11 support. AMD 25W Trinity was taking the 2nd best place, I’ve expected this performance difference in all the games!
In order to get the most repeatable possible performance from Battlefield 3, I used a 90 second sequence from the Going Hunting level to benchmark. This not the most demanding segment and certainly not multi-player. A10-4655M disappoints, the GPU turbo core won’t kick-in.
The popular Call of Duty series with maxed out graphics running ok on A10-4655M Ultrathin, but I’ve expected more.
Far Cry 3 is a new DirectX 11-optimized game with Dunia Engine, which recreates jungles, beaches, and the ocean in stunning detail, if hardware is strong enough to keep up. The two ultra-portables are certainly not strong enough with some details turned to high
The time finally arrived when a low power consumption APU is enough to play GTA4. Unfortunately the game only detected 20MB video memory for Intel Ultrabook, therefore I could not run the benchmark with these settings. Only 800x600 screen resolution was available with every details on the lowest.
Minecraft use OpenGL instead DirectX. The difference is tremendous, Intel should do something with their drivers. I still expect more from AMD A10!
Need for Speed Run; What a Rush track measured with Fraps. All details set to Ultra, expect shadow. This NFS use the same engine as Battlefield 3, therefore Intel’s very low performance is surprising. AMD A10 ULV performance week as well.
The best video game of 2012 is well optimized for all the platforms. The Walking Dead, Episode 1, Chapter 8; Safe... Mostly intro part benchmarked.
3DMark03 show the difference what I’ve expected in all the games.
In 3Dmark11 the AMD GPU turbo cores working for sure, while only in few games.
The other half of these APUs is the GPU and AMD’s HD7620G is more potent for multimedia and gaming. In few games demonstrates twice as fast performance than Intel HD4000, while in rest of the games show similar performance. Intel probably could do better with improving their drivers and AMD also with fixing their turbo core frequency. I’ve noticed in the first 30 seconds AMD A10-4655M pumping out much more FPS (consuming between 40-50W power the whole system), but after the higher frame rates are gone and will not consumes more power than 37W. The graphics quality difference is noticeable between the two laptops, sometimes I’m unsure if higher graphics details are applying on Intel… Radeon graphics simply better.
Power Consumption:
A very important factor for laptop users, lower means longer battery time, less heat, less fan noise. The Intel Core i5 3317U 17W has 8W less Thermal Design Power than AMD A10-4655M 25W, so I expect to see this measurable difference in my diagram. Power usage measured with a wall meter connected to the factory AMD 60W adapter:
And yes, generally the 17W Intel consumes less power than 25W AMD Trinity
Performance per Watt:
In this test I’ll calculate the energy efficiency of A10-4655M and Core i5 3317U. Literally, I determine the rate of computation that can be delivered by these Ultra-portables for every watt of power consumed.
As much worse AMD Trinity in CPU tasks, as much more efficient in Games. I kind of wish an Ultra-portable with Intel CPU, but AMD graphics.
Operating Temperature, System noise:
Both laptops noise development really quiet in idle mode, and zero after activating the silent operation by F11 key. All laptops should have this option, really smart! In load situation Prime95+Furmark both ultra-portables got little warm, but they stayed comparatively quiet. Excellent Samsung, exactly what we need!
Similar temperatures and they are not noisy in load situations.
Conclusion:
These ultra-portables are about energy efficiency and on that point they certainly delight. However the AMD version disappoints with week GPU performance, even if still stronger than the competition Ivy Bridge i5 3317U. I’ve expected GPU performance closer to A10-4600M than to A8-3550MX, instead it is below A8-3550MX. Than AMD’s slower CPU is obvious, the Intel Dual Core easily outperform the more power hungry Quad Core AMD. Fortunately for everyday use CPU performance is not an experience limiting factor, while faster and better GPU makes spectacular differences when we are playing games. As a performance user I wish if these thin laptops were came with standard voltage A10 APUs without throttling issue. Otherwise I can recommend the new Series 5 Ultra which combines the two good; Intel Core i5 ULV CPU + Radeon HD8750M 2GB graphics.
Samsung Series 5 Ultrathin Vs. Ultrabook performance and efficiency contest with power saving AMD A10 APU and Intel Core i5 CPU
Discussion in 'Samsung' started by Atom Ant, Feb 26, 2013.
