AMD’s presentation of the energy efficient Zacate APU earlier this weeks offered a hint of what we can expect from the integrated graphics processor. But some numbers seemed wrong, something AMD countered by giving Anandtech free hands with the test system.
Earlier it was unclear which Core i5 processor AMD was comparing Zacate with. It has now been identified as Intel Core i5-520M with 2.4 GHz clock frequency with near twice the power consumption of AMD Zacate, 35 watt vs. 18 watt.
The benchmarks that was presented with Internet Explorer 9 wasn’t as GPU dependent as hoped and after installing a new driver on the Intel rig performance was on par with Zacate.
AMD Zacate test platform (Picture by Anandtech)
The 3D performance that was represented by the game City of Heroes looked alright though, which shows how Zacate, despite a much lower TDP, was on average 55% faster than Intel’s integrated graphics processor in Core i5 520M. The tests in Batman Arkham Asylum showed similar results with Zacate running 45% faster on average.
DirectCompute performance was several times faster on AMD Zacate where it noted a performance at 23 GFLOPS in N-Body Simulation, where Intel Core i5 520M had to settle for 8.8 GFLOPS.
All in all AMD showed great trust in the Zacate APU that is still in the development stage considering drivers and software support. Worth mentioning is that the processor is slated to appear in computers in the $500 price range, which is about the same as Intel’s Core i5 520M CPU that costs nearly $250 by itself and draws twice as much power.
