A Kaveri Question

[ali_83]

I'm in the process of planning a small form factor build that I can use for some gaming and light photoshop work. I currently have a Mac Pro but if I'm being honest its massive overkill for my needs (6 core Xeon, 6GB RAM, twin SSD's). Im thinking about a downsize to save space and hopefully save a bit off the energy bill too!

So far I have acquired two components for the build thanks to my brother who recently did an upgrade so I already have a R9 280X and an i7 3770S.

I'm not sure I need the power of the i7 so have been debating selling it and picking up one of the new AMD chips (7850K). I have only ever had AMD in the past.

My gaming needs aren't great, I'm actually not that much of a gamer to be honest. I don't play any recent titles (my most played are Borderlands 2, Black Flag, Tomb Raider and stuff from Steam). When I do play though I like to have the settings whacked up pretty high.

Photoshop wise its mostly Lightroom that I use with some Photoshop CS5 but I'm not dealing with huge files or anything. I don't do any rendering or video work (hence the thinking that the Mac Pro is just too much).

The build is going to be small, mITX or mATX in something like a Aerocool Dead Silence or Bitfenix Prodigy case. It also needs to be pretty cheap! I have some bits already kicking around and can scavenge drives from the Mac Pro.

How do the Kaveri chips stack up when it comes to light gaming/photoshop. I've seen the benchmarks etc but I'm wondering if anyone has some real world experience of them?

 

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

For such large mini-ITX cases I would probably use the Core i7 3770S and the R9 280X TBH.

An A10 7850K especially in a motherboard with a configurable TDP would be great for use in a lower profile case IMHO.

Regarding LR I posted some benchmarks in another thread:

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18608138

I thought this might be useful for some of you:

https://translate.google.com/transl...r-Photoshop-und-Lightroom-1109093/&edit-text=

Edit!!



The video is in German but indicates they generated 30 jpegs at the same resolution as the RAW files. They used sRGB and 87% quality for the jpegs.

The chart says 4GB of RAM per channel was used.

 

[joeyjojo]

Any modest PC with a half-decent GPU would do the job for what you're asking. A CPU in the £50-100 range and same again for the GPU would be plenty.

If you want to save money, sell the current stuff and ask for a cheap spec. But like CAT I'd probably also keep the i7 and 280X. The S suffix on the i7 marks it as a low-power component anyway which are a little rarer and fit in with your low-power plan nicely. The 280X is mega-overkill for old games so that would be a good candidate for downsizing on, but never know - you might get into more modern games some time.

Edit: nothing wrong with Kaveri by the way, it would also do the job OK as long as you don't have a huge screen resolution for the games. The next revision will be the one to go for though if it gets DDR 4 so we're all waiting for that I think.

 

[ali_83]

Thanks for the info. I think I'll stick with the i7 and the 280X for the time being as I already have them.

Now I just need a motherboard! (minefield right there, worth spending a bit on something decent or just getting something cheap as my CPU is already years out of date?)

 

[joeyjojo]

Now I just need a motherboard! (minefield right there, worth spending a bit on something decent or just getting something cheap as my CPU is already years out of date?)

It's only 2 years old, the new stuff isn't much faster!

Literally any 1155 board will do as you won't be able to overclock, as long as it has the features you want. I'd aim for £50 second hand probably.

 

[ali_83]

Great thanks for the info.

Off to trawl eBay for some parts.