£500 Mini Gaming PC - Which one will play games better?

DeanFry

DeanFry

DeanFry

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Before commenting, please tell me what performance I will expect at certain games with these builds when you are writing out your comments.

Games I want to play at good settings: Wildstar, TF2, L4D, CS:GO, The Sims 3, BF3, Steam/Origin Games etc.


1st Build:

CPU: AMD Athlon X4 750K Black Edition 3.40GHz (Socket FM2) Trinity Quad Core Processor
GPU: MSI HD 7770 GHz Edition 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card
MOBO: MSI A75IA-E53 AMD A75 Chipset (Socket FM2) DDR3 Mini ITX Motherboard
RAM: TeamGroup Elite Black 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C11 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit
PSU: Cooler Master Silent Pro Modular 2 520w '80 Plus Bronze' Modular Power Supply
HDD: Seagate Barracuda 7200RPM 1TB SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache
Case: Cooler Master Elite 120 Advanced Mini-ITX Case - Black

OR

2nd Build:

CPU: AMD A10-6800K Black Edition 4.10GHz (Socket FM2) APU Richland Quad Core Processor
GPU: MSI HD 7750 2048MB GDDR3 PCI-Express Graphics Card
MOBO: MSI A75IA-E53 AMD A75 Chipset (Socket FM2) DDR3 Mini ITX Motherboard
RAM: TeamGroup Elite Black 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C11 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit
PSU: Cooler Master Silent Pro Modular 2 520w '80 Plus Bronze' Modular Power Supply
HDD: Seagate Barracuda 7200RPM 1TB SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache
Case: Cooler Master Elite 120 Advanced Mini-ITX Case - Black
 
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The 6800K shares very similar cores to the Athlon K750, but weighs in at a higher clock. TBH using a 6800K with a dGPU is kind of defeating the purpose of an APU a bit, but I don't think AMD have dropped (or will) any Richland Athlons, which is a bit of a shame

Might be worth looking at buying a second hand i5 750 and pairing that with a decent enough GPU. I haven't done any maths on this but I suspect you could go second hand on a few bits and bag a better dGPU like the 7850
 
I believe the second one is faster.

The APU has a built-in GPU which you "Hybrid crossfire" with the 7750 to combine their strengths to hopefully beat the 7770 in the first build.

But a side note is that APU's love fast RAM such as 2133Mhz.
 
As much as I like APUs, I wouldn't pin my gaming hopes on Hybrid Crossfire working (or rather working better than the dGPU alone)
 
stulid said:
I believe the second one is faster.

The APU has a built-in GPU which you "Hybrid crossfire" with the 7750 to combine their strengths to hopefully beat the 7770 in the first build.

But a side note is that APU's love fast RAM such as 2133Mhz.
Click to expand...

TeamGroup Xtreem LV 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-17000C11 2133MHz Dual Channel Kit

This one? Why do APU's love fast RAM? and will both of these builds be able to play the games I listed in my topic at good quality?
 
I do think the second one will be faster (fast processor speed and the combined GFX cores) but the OP's biggest problem is,

Games I want to play at good settings: Wildstar, TF2, L4D, CS:GO, The Sims 3, BF3, Steam/Origin Games etc.
Click to expand...

Maybe asking a lot.
 
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DeanFry said:
TeamGroup Xtreem LV 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-17000C11 2133MHz Dual Channel Kit

This one? Why do APU's love fast RAM? and will both of these builds be able to play the games I listed in my topic at good quality?
Click to expand...

THE APU's built-in GFX core uses the system memory just like a gfx card has blazing fast RAM on the actual PCB, the faster RAM you can give it the better frames per second you get back - http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/a10-5800k-a8-5600k-a6-5400k,3224-5.html
 
use build 2 but get a different GFX card and do hybrid crossfire with a 7750 save some cash and get a bit better GFX
 
 
 
YOUR BASKET
1 x MSI HD 7870 Black Knight 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card (R7870-2GD5T) with FREE GAMES £149.99
1 x Intel Core i3-3220 3.30GHz (Ivybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor (77W) - Retail £95.99
1 x ASRock H61MV-ITX Intel H61 (Socket 1155) DDR3 M-ITX Motherboard £58.99
1 x Toshiba (7K1000.D) 1TB SATA 6GB/s 32MB Cache - OEM (DT01ACA100) HDD £49.99
1 x TeamGroup Elite Black 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C11 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (TED38GM1600HC11DC01) £47.99
1 x Corsair Builder Series CX 430w Modular '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply (CP-9020058-UK) £43.99
1 x Cooler Master Elite 120 Advanced Mini-ITX Case - Black £39.95
Total : £498.89 (includes shipping : £10.00).




Still small but a lot faster for gaming than the APU. I built a similar specced system (7790 2gb, IvyBridge Pentium, 4gb DDR3) recently that runs games like Bioshock Infinity at 1080p, high settings flawlessly. This is a fair bit faster.
 
I wouldn't recommend the APU route unless you don't intend to upgrade the graphics card. The APUs don't officially support the 7750 in dual graphics, because it's not in the same class (the 6670 is the highest).

If using a discrete card, the 6300 or 8320 is always the better option. It's not just the extra cores, it's significantly ahead. Don't buy a 970/990 AM3+ board that doesn't have VRM heatsinks (between the CPU socket and the rear IO ports) as it'll more or less prevent any overclocking.

Don't consider an i3 for recent/upcoming games, many won't be playable.

stulid's spec is good - but swap the RAM for C9 memory (the Crucial stuff at £50 is fine).
 
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teppic said:
I wouldn't recommend the APU route unless you don't intend to upgrade the graphics card. The APUs don't officially support the 7750 in dual graphics, because it's not in the same class (the 6670 is the highest).

If using a discrete card, the 6300 or 8320 is always the better option. It's not just the extra cores, it's significantly ahead. Don't buy a 970/990 AM3+ board that doesn't have VRM heatsinks (between the CPU socket and the rear IO ports) as it'll more or less prevent any overclocking.

Don't consider an i3 for recent/upcoming games, many won't be playable.

stulid's spec is good - but swap the RAM for C9 memory (the Crucial stuff at £50 is fine).
Click to expand...

How is this?

CPU: AMD FX-6300 3.5GHz 6-Core Processor
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO 82.9 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler
Motherboard: Asus M5A99FX PRO R2.0 ATX AM3+ Motherboard
Memory: Corsair Vengeance 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory
Storage: Seagate Barracuda 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive
Video Card: Asus Radeon HD 7770 GHz Edition 1GB Video Card
Case: Corsair 300R ATX Mid Tower Case
Power Supply: Corsair CX 430W 80 PLUS Bronze Certified ATX12V Power Supply

Total: £505.37
 
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