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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  • haardrr - Saturday, May 31, 2014 - link

    but the i7-4675t is a 35 watt processor... does that mean that the i7-4675t competes with the 5350?
  • Namisecond - Monday, June 9, 2014 - link

    They are a lot closer in power usage than you might think, both idle and loaded.
  • BMNify - Saturday, May 31, 2014 - link

    why would you use a dual core anything to day ! , and these chips do not have AVX simd so are underpowered before you even start in 2014/15
  • BMNify - Saturday, May 31, 2014 - link

    also unless you are a large org looking to finally do mass signage in bulk then again these chips/soc are not worth it to day, if you want a few web enabled apps per Soc device then look to the http://cdn.liliputing.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/... for instance , now that will be worth the cash for something you want to actually buy on a whim
    http://liliputing.com/2014/05/crowdfunding-2-incre...

    Crowdfunding: 3 incredibly tiny PC modules starting at just $15
  • silverblue - Saturday, May 31, 2014 - link

    If you're including Kabini in that statement, the Jaguar architecture does indeed support AVX. In fact, it supports pretty much everything Piledriver does.
  • BMNify - Saturday, May 31, 2014 - link

    i wasn't, but again why settle for only old AVX , when you can have AVX2 AND a free hardware encoder and decoder that works for when you just want a quick conversion (or to make a new correctly time coded V/A fixed rate) http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=162442 Intel QuickSync Decoder - HW accelerated FFDShow decoder with video processing before you do the real x264 high visual quality encode
  • Alexey291 - Monday, June 2, 2014 - link

    Why wouldn't you?

    The fewer the number of cores required to deliver equivalent performance the better.

    Besides dual core cpu's are perfect for certain very real world applications - such as for example me typing out this message on a chromebook sporting a dual core haswell celeron.
  • eanazag - Tuesday, June 3, 2014 - link

    Agree. I was looking for a cheap Haswell Pentium. Maybe you can compare in the bench.
  • DanNeely - Thursday, May 29, 2014 - link

    The graphs in this article leave a lot to be desired. The huge number of high power/performance chips only add clutter; at most 2 or 3 representative examples from each major vendor would suffice to show these processors are very low end performing. Alternately, use the color coding not to call out AMD vs Intel; but to highlight the 4 AMD chips being reviewed along the with the J1800/1900 celerons they're nominally competing with.
  • Ian Cutress - Thursday, May 29, 2014 - link

    I'll duplicate the graphs (after I eat dinner!) and limit the results data within a narrow band, and offer the option to switch between both.

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