Athlon 5350 CPU Review

[nextpage title=”Introduction”]
This time we tested the Athlon 5350, which is a quad-core CPU from the AMD low consumption processor family, that used AM1 socket. Let’s see how it performs.
“System on a Chip” (SoC) CPUs, which bring a CPU, GPU, and chipset in a single chip, are usually soldered to the motherboard, not using a socket, which makes it impossible to change the CPU without replacing the motherboard. AMD solved this limitation on its AM1 platform, adding a CPU socket, which means you must purchase the CPU separately from the motherboard. The official name for this socket is FS1b, but most people (and even manufacturers) call it AM1 socket. These CPUs have, usually, a lower TDP than conventional CPUs.
The Athlon 5350 is one of the most powerful processors that use AM1 platform. It has four cores, 2.05 GHz clock, 2 MiB cache and a 25 W TDP. We already tested one processor from the same family, the Athlon 5150, which is similar, but with a lower (1.6 GHz) clock.
The Athlon 5350 is, like the A4-7300, one of the most inexpensive CPU available on the market today. So, we will compare its performance to the A4-7300, and also to the Celeron G3900, which is one of cheapest processors from Intel.
Figure 1 shows the Athlon 5350 package.

Figure 1: the box of the Athlon 5350

Figure 2 shows the package contents: a manual, a case sticker, the CPU itself, and a cooler. Notice that, since the power consumption of the AM1 processors are lower than conventional CPUs, the stock cooler for this socket is smaller than those used at FM2+ and AM3+ socket processors.

Figure 2: box contents

Figure 3 unveils the Athlon 5350 CPU.

Figure 3: the Athlon 5350 CPU

In Figure 4, you see the bottom of the processor.

Figure 4: bottom of the Athlon 5350

Let us compare the main specs of the reviewed CPUs in the next page.
[nextpage title=”The Reviewed CPUs”]
In the tables below, we compare the main features of the CPUs included in our review.

Prices were researched at Newegg.com on the day this article was published. TDP means Thermal Design Power, the maximum amount of heat the CPU can dissipate.
Below you can see the memory configuration for each CPU.

Below we have a comparison of the graphic engine of each CPU.

[nextpage title=”How We Tested”]
During our benchmarking sessions, we used the configuration listed below. Between our benchmarking sessions, the only variable device was the CPU being tested, besides the motherboard and memory, which had to be replaced to match the different CPUs.
Hardware Configuration

• Motherboard (socket LGA1151): ASRock Fatal1ty Z170 Gaming K6+
• Motherboard (socket FM2+): ASRock FM2A88X Extreme6+
• CPU Cooler: Intel/AMD stock
• Memory (DDR3): 8 GiB DDR3-2133, two G.Skill Ripjaws F3-17000CL9Q-16GBZH 4 GiB memory modules configured at 2,133 MHz
• Memory (DDR4): 8 GiB DDR4-2400 two G.Skill Ripjaws 4 F4-2400C15Q-16GRR 4 GiB memory modules configured at 2133 MHz
• Boot drive: Kingston HyperX Savage 480 GB
• Video Card: integrated
• Video Monitor: Philips 236VL
• Power Supply: Corsair CX500M

Operating System Configuration

• Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit
• NTFS
• Video resolution: 1920 x 1080 60 Hz

Driver Versions

• AMD driver version: 15.11
• Intel Inf chipset driver version: 10.0

Software Used

• 3DMark 1.5.915
• Cinebench R15
• DivX 10.2.4
• DVD Shrink 3.2
• Media Espresso 6.7
• PCMark 8 2.4.304
• Battlefield 4
• Dirt Rally
• GTA V

Error Margin
We adopted a 4% error margin. Thus, differences below 4% cannot be considered relevant. In other words, products with a performance difference below 4% should be considered as having similar performance.
[nextpage title=”PCMark 8″]
PCMark 8 is a benchmarking software that uses real-world applications to measure the computer performance. We ran three tests: Home, which includes web browsing, writing, light gaming, photo editing, and video chat tests; Creative, which includes web surfing, video editing, group video chat, video conversion, and gaming; and Work, which runs tasks such as writing documents, web browsing, spreadsheets, editing, and video chatting. Let’s see the results.

On the Home benchmark, the Athlon 5350 was 24% slower than the A4-7300 and 35% slower than the Celeron G3900.

[nextpage title=”3DMark”]

3DMark is a program with a set of several 3D benchmarks. Sky Diver measures DirectX 11 performance, and is aimed on average computers. The Cloud Gate benchmark measures DirectX 10 performance, and the Ice Storm Extreme measures DirectX 9 performance and is targeted to entry-level computers.

On the Sky Diver benchmark, the Athlon 5350 was 27% slower than both the other CPUs tested.

On Cloud Gate, the Athlon 5350 was 24% slower than the A4-7300 and 36% slower than the Celeron G3900.

On the Ice Storm Extreme benchmark, the Athlon 5350 was 29% slower than the A4-7300 and 15% slower than the Celeron G3900.

[nextpage title=”Photoshop CC and Cinebench R15″]

Cinebench R15

Cinebench R15 is based on the Cinema 4D software. It is very useful to measure the performance gain obtained by the presence of several processing cores while rendering heavy 3D images. Rendering is an area where a bigger number of cores helps a lot, because usually this kind of software recognize several processors (Cinebench R15, for example, can use up to 256 processing cores).
We ran the CPU benchmark, which renders a complex image using all the processing cores (real and virtual) to speed up the process. The result is given as a score.

Here the Athlon 5350 was 11% faster than the A4-7300 and 30% slower than the Celeron G3900.

DivX

We used the DivX converter, a tool included in the DivX package, in order to measure the encoding performance using this codec. The DivX codec is capable of recognizing and using all available cores and the SSE4 instruction set.
We converted a Full HD, six-minute long .mov video file into a .avi file, using the “HD 1080p” output profile. The results below are given in seconds, so the lower the better.

On DivX encoding, the Athlon 5350 was 30% slower than the A4-7300 and 54% slower than the Celeron G3900.

DVDShrink

DVDShrink is an old but still very useful program to “shrink” video DVDs that have more than 4.7 GiB of data to fit single-layer DVD media. We used it to compress the DVD of “The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring” DVD to 4.7 GiB. The results below are given in seconds, so the lower the better.

On this test, the Athlon 5350 was 18% slower than the A4-7300 and performed similarly to the Celeron G3900.

Media Espresso

Media Espresso is a video conversion program that uses the graphics processing unit of the video engine to speed up the conversion process. We converted a 1 GiB, 1920x1080i, 23,738 kbps, .mov video file to a smaller 320×200, H.264, .MP4 file for viewing on a smartphone. The results below are given in seconds, so the lower the better.

Here the Athlon 5350 was 52% slower than the A4-7300 and 62% slower than the Celeron G3900.
[nextpage title=”Conclusions”]
There was no surprise in our tests. The A4-7300 and the Celeron G3900 are entry CPUs, but they are part of the main families of their manufacturers. The Athlon 5350, on the other hand, is one of the fastest AMD SoC low-power processors, which means it was designed to be energy-efficient, and not to bring high performance.
Because of this, it clearly doesn’t reach the same performance level of the other CPUs we included in the benchmarks, so we don’t even ran any games: if the A4-7300 and the Celeron G3900 proved to be too slow to run recent games, it is clear the Athlon 5350 is not a good option for a gaming PC.
However, this doesn’t mean it is not a good option in specific situations. First, because the Athlon 5350 has a TDP of only 25 W, less than half of the other two ones. This can mean some money saved on the electricity bill, but also less heating, noise, and infrastructure economy, for example, if you need to connect a lot of computers to UPSs. Besides that, its low consumption makes it easier to be used on ultra-SFF computers.
Besides that, usually AM1 motherboards are more inexpensive than FM2+ and LGA1151 ones, used by the main family CPUs.
So, while the performance of the Athlon 5350 is relatively low, it can be a good deal in situations where you need a small, low-power, low-cost computer, in applications that doesn’t demand high performance.