How good is a10 7870k for a bit of gaming?

lemonade · 14 Oct 2015 at 11:51

AMDMatt said:
If heat output is a concern go with the 260X. They run very cool and quiet and trade blows with the 750TI.

I can't seem to find 260 series anywhere, have they been replaced by the R7 360? What are those cards like as they fit the ~£80 budget.

LtMatt · 14 Oct 2015 at 11:53

lemonade said:
I can't seem to find 260 series anywhere, have they been replaced by the R7 360? What are those cards like as they fit the ~£80 budget.

The R7 360 series replace the 260 series and perform at a similar level, only using newer and better binned silicon. They may be marginally faster and as i mentioned above, the 260/360 is faster than the 6850 you currently own but using only a fraction of the power.

lemonade · 14 Oct 2015 at 12:01

AMDMatt said:
The R7 360 series replace the 260 series and perform at a similar level, only using newer and better binned silicon. They may be marginally faster and as i mentioned above, the 260/360 is faster than the 6850 you currently own but using only a fraction of the power.

Cheers man, what would be a discreet card equivalent to the GPU within the 7870k? I'm thinking maybe the 250 you mentioned earlier paired with the 7870k igpu, but only if will allow me to play games smoothly at 1080p, but if its equivalent to igpu, then I won't bother.

lemonade · 14 Oct 2015 at 12:16

Just to add looks like A88X mini itx motherboards do not support 2400MHZ ram, only upto 2133mhz, so 2400mhz ram will be useless.

Scougar · 14 Oct 2015 at 12:22

Just because it doesn't officially support it, doesn't mean it won't work.

BTW... what exactly didn't you like about the 7870K ?

I don't want to be rude but it sounds like you actually wanted more performance than you were saying?

LtMatt · 14 Oct 2015 at 12:23

lemonade said:
Cheers man, what would be a discreet card equivalent to the GPU within the 7870k? I'm thinking maybe the 250 you mentioned earlier paired with the 7870k igpu, but only if will allow me to play games smoothly at 1080p, but if its equivalent to igpu, then I won't bother.

The 260X will give you slightly better overall performance, but the 7870K and a 240/250 combination will perform well in games that scale very well with Dual Graphics. I would probably go with the 260X as you'll be running 1080P.

zola25 · 14 Oct 2015 at 12:33

The 260X is a sound choice as AMDMatt states, but will require 2 x 6 pin connectors and the OP has stated he's limited by his ITX PSU.

As for hybrid Crossfire, again this will be great in the situations where multi GPU is supported. Having recently ditched 2x GTX 980 in SLI I can attest that multi GPU is not plain sailing even today.

LtMatt · 14 Oct 2015 at 12:54

zola25 said:
The 260X is a sound choice ss AMDMatt states, but will require 2 x 6 pin connectors and the OP has stated he's limited by his ITX PSU.

As for hybrid Crossfire, again this will be great in the situations where multi GPU is supported. Having recently ditched 2x GTX 980 in SLI I can attest that multi GPU is not plain sailing even today.

The 260X/360 requires 1x6 pin connection.

lemonade · 14 Oct 2015 at 13:02

Scougar said:
Just because it doesn't officially support it, doesn't mean it won't work.

BTW... what exactly didn't you like about the 7870K ?

I don't want to be rude but it sounds like you actually wanted more performance than you were saying?

True that.

What's put me off the 7870K is things I've read about how it doesn't run games very well.

You are right in away, initially i wasn't fussed about needing high performance as it was just for casual gaming, but was thinking about it yesterday evening and I thought it would be much nice to be bale to play 1080p on the TV rather than scaled down 720p (which can look pretty bad), along with the fact that I can't see the 7870k being useful for at 3 years on the gaming side.

But If I wan't to upscale in performance its going to cost me another £100 at the very least, so costs are rising and I have a better main rig already so it might be a silly idea.

Plus to fit a discreet card, a good one anyway, I would need to buy the Silverstone ML07, which is a lot bigger and bulky looking, which i'm not sure about.

lemonade · 14 Oct 2015 at 13:08

zola25 said:
The 260X is a sound choice ss AMDMatt states, but will require 2 x 6 pin connectors and the OP has stated he's limited by his ITX PSU.

As for hybrid Crossfire, again this will be great in the situations where multi GPU is supported. Having recently ditched 2x GTX 980 in SLI I can attest that multi GPU is not plain sailing even today.

AMDMatt said:
The 260X/360 requires 1x6 pin connection.

The 300w SilverStone SST-ST30SF I ordered has 1 x 6pin PCI-E Power, so that would work, although the 100w power output of the 260x will pushing that PSU to its limit, the 750ti at 60w would be a better bet, otherwise for a beefier graphics card the SST-ST45SF would be ideal, I have that in my main rig and it has all the connectors required.

Regarding the crossfire, seems pointless to try that then if there is not much benefit, and I can't imagine the R7 240 or 250 will be much better than the iGPU in the 7870k.

LtMatt · 14 Oct 2015 at 13:12

lemonade said:
The 300w SilverStone SST-ST30SF I ordered has 1 x 6pin PCI-E Power, so that would work, although the 100w power output of the 260x will pushing that PSU to its limit, the 750ti at 60w would be a better bet, otherwise for a beefier graphics card the SST-ST45SF would be ideal, I have that in my main rig and it has all the connectors required.

Regarding the crossfire, seems pointless to try that then if there is not much benefit, and I can't imagine the R7 240 or 250 will be much better than the iGPU in the 7870k.

The 260x will cope fine on that PSU. Btw the 750TI uses around 20W less than a 260X so you're splitting hairs really.

EDIT

Actually the HIS IceQ 260X/360 is using less power (7W) than the 750TI in that review, and OCUK sell it here.

zola25 · 14 Oct 2015 at 13:24

AMDMatt said:
The 260X/360 requires 1x6 pin connection.

My apologies, I was looking at the 270X you had linked

lemonade · 14 Oct 2015 at 14:05

Ok so I think I have come to a decision and conclusion.

I'm going to stick with what I have bought so the 7870k stays and I will buy some 2400Mhz ram to get the most out of it.

I figured that as this will be a living room HTPC/Steambox, there is no point going all out on the performance stakes, especially as I don't know how much it will get used. I have a main rig which is very powerful, Haswell i5 unlocked, 16gb ram, 6850, SSD, its 3 years old, but still feels super fast and runs most games no problem, I can upgrade the GFX card and have an upto date system, but all I play on it these days is CS:S, so it is severely under used. Plus I can get to use the ML05 itx case which will keep the footprint of this htpc small.

Worst comes to worst if this new 7870k based living room PC does get used a lot and a lot more gaming on it I can transfer the internals of my main rig, buy a new case to fit it all and then use that in the living room, then I can just use the 7870k machine as my room computer, as it will play CS:S or CS:GO without any issues, I can also reuse the 6850 in that to beef it up and buy a new better graphics card to go in the living room PC. Doing all that might mean I end up spending a bit more in the long run.

To sum for anyone else in the same boat, go for a 7870k build if you want a casual mini-ITX gaming PC to use as a 720p machine, don't expect any spectacular gaming expirience from it as its very compromised, the graphics capability sits between the R7 240 and 250. If you want to play 1080p with a great gaming experience and play latest AAA titles, then you have two options, if your on a budget go for separate CPU and GPU solution, the AMD CPU chips seem the best value for money on a budget, you get quad core processors, with Intel you get dual core, although both have advantages over each other. If you have more to spend then I would build around an i5 chip. Then of course buy a discreet graphics card, lots of choices out there for.

Thanks for all the help everyone.

LtMatt · 14 Oct 2015 at 14:20

lemonade said:
Ok so I think I have come to a decision and conclusion.

I'm going to stick with what I have bought so the 7870k stays and I will buy some 2400Mhz ram to get the most out of it.

I figured that as this will be a living room HTPC/Steambox, there is no point going all out on the performance stakes, especially as I don't know how much it will get used. I have a main rig which is very powerful, Haswell i5 unlocked, 16gb ram, 6850, SSD, its 3 years old, but still feels super fast and runs most games no problem, I can upgrade the GFX card and have an upto date system, but all I play on it these days is CS:S, so it is severely under used. Plus I can get to use the ML05 itx case which will keep the footprint of this htpc small.

Worst comes to worst if this new 7870k based living room PC does get used a lot and a lot more gaming on it I can transfer the internals of my main rig, buy a new case to fit it all and then use that in the living room, then I can just use the 7870k machine as my room computer, as it will play CS:S or CS:GO without any issues, I can also reuse the 6850 in that to beef it up and buy a new better graphics card to go in the living room PC. Doing all that might mean I end up spending a bit more in the long run.

To sum for anyone else in the same boat, go for a 7870k build if you want a casual mini-ITX gaming PC to use as a 720p machine, don't expect any spectacular gaming expirience from it as its very compromised, the graphics capability sits between the R7 240 and 250. If you want to play 1080p with a great gaming experience and play latest AAA titles, then you have two options, if your on a budget go for separate CPU and GPU solution, the AMD CPU chips seem the best value for money on a budget, you get quad core processors, with Intel you get dual core, although both have advantages over each other. If you have more to spend then I would build around an i5 chip. Then of course buy a discreet graphics card, lots of choices out there for.

Thanks for all the help everyone.

No problem at all and good luck with the build. Let us know how it goes.

If you ever want to add a bit more muscle to the Graphics without spending a lot of money add in one of these.

lemonade · 14 Oct 2015 at 14:36

^ Cheers I will consider those if games do utilise two graphics card. I should be able to fit a single slot low profile card on the case I will be using.

koolpc · 14 Oct 2015 at 17:27

I am toying with going with a Skylake Intel Core i5-6600 3.30GHz myself. Use the on board GPU for now until i can afford a nice GPU.

Thing is, i want an ITX mobo and it will have to be DDR4 ram? Which one? Which mobo?

Thinking of using a Core 500 Fractal case!

lemonade · 14 Oct 2015 at 19:19

That would make a great basis for an ITX gaming machine. My main rig I built around Haswell i5 chip, for the motherboard I can highly recommend ASRock, mine is rock solid and they make great ITX motherboards on the Intel chipsets, great for overclocking too, unlike say MSI who use cheap mofsets and vrm. ASUS also make great high end boards but tend to be pricey.

You can have a look at these:

ASRock Z170M-ITX/AC
ASRock Z170 Gaming-ITX/ac
ASUS Z170I PRO GAMING

That Fractal case looks lovely too. I would recommend checkng out SilverStone too, really good quality cases, I have the Sugo SG05 which is similar in style to that Fractal, but the Fractal looks more stylish.

lemonade · 16 Oct 2015 at 12:00

I've been testing my build for last 2 days, and the APU gets ridiculously hot! upto 90c on load and idles at around 60c. This was my fear with AMD CPU chips, they are stupidly inefficient and why I moved to Intel all those years ago. This is also in an air con-ed room, I would hate to think what it would be like in the living room tucked inside cabinet.

I am going to put my own thermal paste on it as the stock heatsink comes with way too much paste which might be adding to the problem.

LtMatt · 16 Oct 2015 at 12:09

lemonade said:
I've been testing my build for last 2 days, and the APU gets ridiculously hot! upto 90c on load and idles at around 60c. This was my fear with AMD CPU chips, they are stupidly inefficient and why I moved to Intel all those years ago. This is also in an air con-ed room, I would hate to think what it would be like in the living room tucked inside cabinet.

I am going to put my own thermal paste on it as the stock heatsink comes with way too much paste which might be adding to the problem.

That doesn't sound right. What are you using to measure the temperature?

koolpc · 16 Oct 2015 at 12:13

lemonade said:
That would make a great basis for an ITX gaming machine. My main rig I built around Haswell i5 chip, for the motherboard I can highly recommend ASRock, mine is rock solid and they make great ITX motherboards on the Intel chipsets, great for overclocking too, unlike say MSI who use cheap mofsets and vrm. ASUS also make great high end boards but tend to be pricey.

You can have a look at these:

ASRock Z170M-ITX/AC
ASRock Z170 Gaming-ITX/ac
ASUS Z170I PRO GAMING

That Fractal case looks lovely too. I would recommend checkng out SilverStone too, really good quality cases, I have the Sugo SG05 which is similar in style to that Fractal, but the Fractal looks more stylish.

Waw, cheers for that

ASRock Z170M-ITX/AC
Intel Core i5-6600 3.30GHz (Skylake)

What ram for above guys? Will be using on board GPU

Core 500 case is what i am going for

Also want a very quiet PSU, modular