My LLano A4-3300 Review [Old thread - necro]

[waltchan]

Installing my 3rd ECS/A4-3300 combo today with Rosevill FBM-02 case, only to put inside my car trunk permanently as a backup or for hotel-room use. I could care less if hotel cleaning workers steal it. Don't risk putting a Haswell i7 alone unattended.

This time it doesn't have a DVD drive, looks good without it, less-weight. I use the smallest and cheapest 3.5" WD 250GB HHD with 2014 manufactured date, plus 2GB RAM and cheapo Coolmax 400W power supply. Anything smaller than 250GB were made in 2011 or older. This is the most base-model Windows 10 certified mATX I've ever built.

Yes, it's showing itself again, and it's indeed performing at least 20% faster than A4-4000 FM2 again, due to benefit of a 2nd core, not 2-threads in 1 core found in A4-4000.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Hmm, I bought three Rosewill FBM-02 cases myself, for $22 ea. shipped. Also ended up picking up some ECS H81 mATX boards for $37 ea., shipped, and some 16GB kits of Mushkin RAM for $50 shipped ea.

Just built one of the G1820 (had the CPUs from a prior purchase) rigs, with the ECS board and the Mushkin RAM. Came together fine, although it took like a minute from power-on until I saw the ECS splash-screen on my monitor. I thought that perhaps it wasn't going to boot. Not sure what it was doing. Maybe setting memory timings?

Anyways, the Mushkin DDR3 RAM was 1.35v and CAS11, and after checking the BIOS settings, it had auto-set the voltage correctly.

The BIOS/UEFI on these H81 boards is similar in appearance and layout to the ECS A55M V2.0 boards too.

I started an informational thread about that build earlier here:
http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2469710

 

[VirtualLarry]

only to put inside my car trunk permanently as a backup or for hotel-room use.

I use the smallest and cheapest 3.5" WD 250GB HHD with 2014 manufactured date

Just a little tip; I travelled partially cross-country, with a desktop PC in my "boot", and when I finally got back home, and hooked it up later on, the HDD was TOAST.

So, if you're going to place a PC in a location where it will be exposed to bumps and vibration, might I strongly suggest putting in an SSD?

Otherwise, it probably won't work when you take it out and hook it up.

Edit: Or maybe it was just because it was a Seagate? LOL. Not really sure.

 

[waltchan]

Just a little tip; I travelled partially cross-country, with a desktop PC in my "boot", and when I finally got back home, and hooked it up later on, the HDD was TOAST.

So, if you're going to place a PC in a location where it will be exposed to bumps and vibration, might I strongly suggest putting in an SSD?

Otherwise, it probably won't work when you take it out and hook it up.

Edit: Or maybe it was just because it was a Seagate? LOL. Not really sure.

It's packed in its original Rosewill FBM-02 retail box with Styrofoam and bag. Should be fine. 250GB 3.5" rates higher in reliability due to smaller size. Even if it dies, 250GB HHD only cost less than $15 to replace. :thumbsup:

 

[VirtualLarry]

Well, I'm in for five more ECS A55F-M4 v2.0 mobos and five more A4-3420 APUs. That should hold me for some time. (So, now I have ten combos total, and five heatsinks, after giving one combo and heatsink away to a friend.)

Btw, directron.biz has "new pull" 250GB Seagate HDDs, 3.5" desktop size, for $15.99 + ship. Almost bought a qty, but I still have a qty of 160GB refurb "zero POH" drives to get rid of.

Also, Newegg (goHardDrive) has 80GB X25-M G2 vendor refurbished SATAII SSDs for $29.99 FS. Almost bought a few of those, too.

Newegg also themselves has Corsair 240GB Force LS refurbs for $49.99. Not a bad deal for a 240GB MLC SSD, although it had two reviews, both one egg, complaining of failure within a year.

Edit: Thanks, waltchan, for cluing me in on those boards. They're not bad with the 2.8Ghz APU mildly overclocked to 3.15Ghz.

 

[waltchan]

Edit: Thanks, waltchan, for cluing me in on those boards. They're not bad with the 2.8Ghz APU mildly overclocked to 3.15Ghz.

Glad to hear you're liking them. Are you currently on AHCI or IDE mode? Try installing a separate SATA III 6.0 GB/s card, maybe you can overclock it more since it's bypassed on BIOS and doesn't need to boot from SATA 0 port.

 

[escrow4]

Well, I'm in for five more ECS A55F-M4 v2.0 mobos and five more A4-3420 APUs. That should hold me for some time. (So, now I have ten combos total, and five heatsinks, after giving one combo and heatsink away to a friend.)

Btw, directron.biz has "new pull" 250GB Seagate HDDs, 3.5" desktop size, for $15.99 + ship. Almost bought a qty, but I still have a qty of 160GB refurb "zero POH" drives to get rid of.

Also, Newegg (goHardDrive) has 80GB X25-M G2 vendor refurbished SATAII SSDs for $29.99 FS. Almost bought a few of those, too.

Newegg also themselves has Corsair 240GB Force LS refurbs for $49.99. Not a bad deal for a 240GB MLC SSD, although it had two reviews, both one egg, complaining of failure within a year.

Edit: Thanks, waltchan, for cluing me in on those boards. They're not bad with the 2.8Ghz APU mildly overclocked to 3.15Ghz.

But why? I'd put my 5930K up against every single one of your systems and it will come out on top. Buy a real CPU that has some balls behind it and use that. I've tried the top end and the bottom of the barrel and there is a reason its so cheap. D:

 

[waltchan]

But why? I'd put my 5930K up against every single one of your systems and it will come out on top. Buy a real CPU that has some balls behind it and use that. I've tried the top end and the bottom of the barrel and there is a reason its so cheap. D:

He's just making fun of FM1 because of its low-price. :\

 

[VirtualLarry]

He's just making fun of FM1 because of its low-price. :\

Maybe, but he did try a Haswell Celeron G1850 CPU for a while. I thought that he was going to learn to appreciate budget building, but for some reason it didn't last long.

I'm curious, escrow4, did you use the G1850 with a dGPU, or with the iGPU? If it was with the iGPU, might want to try the A4-3420 OCed under Win10, it's reasonably impressive. Not for gaming, per se, but for media-consumption tasks. It won't play 4K@30 H.264 though, like that Elysium trailer.

 

[sm625]

Also, Newegg (goHardDrive) has 80GB X25-M G2 vendor refurbished SATAII SSDs for $29.99 FS. Almost bought a few of those, too.

They were $25. I bought 4 of em. Already used two for win 10 upgrades. Wish I had 10 more of these.

 

[escrow4]

He's just making fun of FM1 because of its low-price. :\

Its rubbish:

Low end slow junk, nothing more. If you have ever used a higher end CPU you'll never drop back.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Its rubbish:
Low end slow junk, nothing more. If you have ever used a higher end CPU you'll never drop back.

Err, try harder? Those graphs were of AM1, not FM1. No FM1 APUs were listed in those graphs.

AM1 is a "small core". FM1 is a "big core", a big core with much better IPC than FM2/FM2+ big cores.

http://krakenbenchmark.mozilla.org/...e":[109,117,113,111,107,108,112,110,104,115]}

2616ms on my 3.15Ghz A4-3420 on Windows 10, using Firefox 45.0.1 64-bit, Kraken 1.1 js version.

Which is pretty close to the Haswell G1820 score. Within spitting distance, at least, and I had internet radio playing in the background while testing.

http://krakenbenchmark.mozilla.org/...6-iterative":[75,73,84,71,79,70,79,72,70,88]}

3545ms in edge, or whatever the default new "e" leads to in Win10.

 

[escrow4]

Err, try harder? Those graphs were of AM1, not FM1. No FM1 APUs were listed in those graphs.

AM1 is a "small core". FM1 is a "big core", a big core with much better IPC than FM2/FM2+ big cores.

http://krakenbenchmark.mozilla.org/...e":[109,117,113,111,107,108,112,110,104,115]}

2616ms on my 3.15Ghz A4-3420 on Windows 10, using Firefox 45.0.1 64-bit, Kraken 1.1 js version.

Which is pretty close to the Haswell G1820 score. Within spitting distance, at least, and I had internet radio playing in the background while testing.

http://krakenbenchmark.mozilla.org/...6-iterative":[75,73,84,71,79,70,79,72,70,88]}

3545ms in edge, or whatever the default new "e" leads to in Win10.

947ms here, 2600ms is glacial. Those graphs had the A4 4000 which is FM2. It doesn't matter either way, slow is still slow.

 

[waltchan]

947ms here, 2600ms is glacial. Those graphs had the A4 4000 which is FM2. It doesn't matter either way, slow is still slow.

A4-4000 is completely different to A4-3300 or A4-3420. While A4-4000 may have tiny-bit better HD7000 graphics than HD6000 in FM1, it only has SINGLE-core with two-threads, and it's the slowest-of-slowest FM2 processor. A4-4000 only reads 1333 MHz memory RAM max. It sucks terribly with only 2GB RAM because its single-core design has to work harder. Due to it being a current socket, used price isn't a bargain at all. China sellers are asking $35 shipped for it. When will they learn?

Sounds like to me escrow4 just got richer and no longer appreciates any low-end stuff. He no longer owns the G1850. Enjoy your new Core i7, and don't make fun of us appreciating still-useful obsolete CPUs.

 

[Azuma Hazuki]

Having fun "playing poor?"

 

[VirtualLarry]

Having fun "playing poor?"

Not sure who that's directed at, or what it has to do with FM1 APUs.

Edit: I had a ramen bowl last night for supper. Rich people don't eat ramen.

 

[NTMBK]

Not sure who that's directed at, or what it has to do with FM1 APUs.

Edit: I had a ramen bowl last night for supper. Rich people don't eat ramen.

Maybe if you hadn't bought 10 FM1 systems you could have had a more nutritious dinner.

(I wonder if waltchan is the one selling all these eBay motherboards, and he's managed to con you into buying his entirely useless stock :awe: )

 

[VirtualLarry]

Maybe if you hadn't bought 10 FM1 systems you could have had a more nutritious dinner.

(I wonder if waltchan is the one selling all these eBay motherboards, and he's managed to con you into buying his entirely useless stock :awe: )

I've wondered that, actually.

*shrug*. They're OK for giveaway rigs. I've contemplated using them for my main rig. They can't quite hold a candle to my G4400 rigs at 4.3-4.4Ghz though.

 

[Magic Carpet]

Not sure who that's directed at, or what it has to do with FM1 APUs.

Unless you sell these systems for profit, you are essentially playing poor. It's not that you can't afford a better system.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Unless you sell these systems for profit, you are essentially playing poor. It's not that you can't afford a better system.

But if I get 10x the enjoyment of building systems with FM1, why would I build a singular i7-6700K rig and just OC it and let it sit there?

 

[Magic Carpet]

But if I get 10x the enjoyment of building systems with FM1, why would I build a singular i7-6700K rig and just OC it and let it sit there?

Well, you can sell it to someone, pre-installed with programs, tweaks, etc. With your added value on top of it?

I've built a couple of systems based around G1840 CPUs, and honestly I've had enough. What's the fun in it, exactly? These are only good for replacing failed C2D rigs or similar. If you don't game, and only consume information, you might as well get a tablet or something. You don't need another slow box with legacy cables hanging out from all the corners. And if you game, these are essentially useless from day 1.

 

[Shivansps]

A4-4000 is completely different to A4-3300 or A4-3420. While A4-4000 may have tiny-bit better HD7000 graphics than HD6000 in FM1, it only has SINGLE-core with two-threads, and it's the slowest-of-slowest FM2 processor. A4-4000 only reads 1333 MHz memory RAM max. It sucks terribly with only 2GB RAM because its single-core design has to work harder. Due to it being a current socket, used price isn't a bargain at all. China sellers are asking $35 shipped for it. When will they learn?

Sounds like to me escrow4 just got richer and no longer appreciates any low-end stuff. He no longer owns the G1850. Enjoy your new Core i7, and don't make fun of us appreciating still-useful obsolete CPUs.

Anything less than A4-7300 its just too slow, A4-7300 has now become a very popular PC build here, we are still selling those crap AM1 builds now and them, but A4-7300 is very popular.

 

[waltchan]

(I wonder if waltchan is the one selling all these eBay motherboards, and he's managed to con you into buying his entirely useless stock :awe: )

Ascendtech is a wholesale corporation located in Willoughby, Ohio where the ECS motherboard came from.

http://www.ascendtech.us/

 

[waltchan]

Anything less than A4-7300 its just too slow, A4-7300 has now become a very popular PC build here, we are still selling those crap AM1 builds now and them, but A4-7300 is very popular.

Anything less than K edition, like A6-5400K, is the most appropriate response here. A4-7300 isn't really as fast as you think it is, it's a 100MHz faster refresh of A4-6300. A6-5400K and A6-6400K can be easily overclocked up to 4.4GHz max on stock voltage.

A4-7300 also has one of lowest resale values out there, they will be burned soon since there are no official Crimson drivers available. I just bought one used for $27 shipped, so it's already depreciating harshly. Can't believe it's still selling for $45 crap today, higher than Celeron G1840.

 

[waltchan]

What's the fun in it, exactly?

There's TONS of fun for me building low-end stuff. You can build more than you need as a hobby or pleasure, give some as gifts for FREE, or donate some to church showing God has forgiven you. I have a very diverse group of cheap CPUs, and some will be faster or slower based on nearly same price I paid for each.