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After AMD APU info, life or death question

Mrdeath69

Mrdeath69

Mrdeath69

Associate
Joined
8 Jul 2014
Posts
42
Location
Andover
Hi I'm really an intel man but I've herd that the AMD apu's are good for a budget build
I want to build a budget system for the Mrs to use
Not after a monster gaming machine as I already have 1 but will be used for a bit of light gaming like minecraft or the sims while the girls are watching TOWIE so I don't feel like hanging myself

Pro's and con's??
Anyone had much experience??

Thanks
 
I have the lowest spec apu in my HTPC, and it does a brilliant job. Transcodes streamed media on the fly nicely, HD video with true HD sound over hdmi is perfect, plex/XBMC work smoothly. Cannot fault it one bit. It idles at room temperature even in a small case.

One thing I've never done is game on it, but they are supposed to perform well, better of with a mid-range one for that though I should think.
 
For those ganes, any of the APUs will probably be sufficient, but I would go for the A8-7600. 4 cores, and a pretty powerful gpu, and a lot cheaper than the A10-7xxx chips, which have a better gpu but matching cpu.

The APUs benefit from high ram speeds on the GPU side, so go for the fastest you can get without overspending.
 
Depends on your budget,

I recently put a rig together for my daughter Project hardon for sub £400

if your willing to shop about and use scavenged/second hand parts you can build cracking spec systems for cheap


just really to give you some food for thought.


the amd APUs are good chips but like you i'm a 100% intel man and love that ickle Pentium K :)
 
Recently I built a ITX PC. I used the Corsair 250D on mine..

CPU. I bought an Athlon Kabini quad core. Was £39. Board I used a MSI AM1i which was £26.

I then plugged a GTX 480 Lightning up its back end. Results? I've seen SIMS 3 played for nearly a week, FIFA 13 and god knows what else. Now I'm not suggesting you use a GTX 480 Lightning but this -

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=gx-249-ms&groupid=701&catid=1914&subcat=1854

apparently is very similar to the gtx 480. you should also read this article here...

http://www.pcper.com/reviews/genera...rm-and-athlon-5350-gtx-750-ti-1080p-under-450



I think you'll agree, for less than £200 it will blow away any APU and board that costs £150.
 
Mrdeath69 said:
I'm liking some of these options, will have to come up with a budget then see what's going to work best
Click to expand...

You've got tons of options mate. Down at the bottom things are far more fun and there's a shed load more variety than at the top end where it's a choice of 3 CPUs at best.
 
Personally I love AMD's APUs - I use them all the time for basic builds and HTPCs because you can get an awful lot for your money out of them (and not just the processor there's some very nice MBs for AMD systems which are very featured and cheap too). If you want stronger graphics than single core performance they can make sense - plus I'm not massively keen (still) on Intel's video drivers by comparison. I'd say the only thing wrong with them really is the crap stock cooler (it works but it's basic).
 
ALXAndy said:
Recently I built a ITX PC. I used the Corsair 250D on mine..

CPU. I bought an Athlon Kabini quad core. Was £39. Board I used a MSI AM1i which was £26.

I then plugged a GTX 480 Lightning up its back end. Results? I've seen SIMS 3 played for nearly a week, FIFA 13 and god knows what else. Now I'm not suggesting you use a GTX 480 Lightning but this -

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-249-MS&groupid=701&catid=1914&subcat=1854

Apparently is very similar to the GTX 480. You should also read this article here...

http://www.pcper.com/reviews/Genera...rm-and-Athlon-5350-GTX-750-Ti-1080p-under-450

I think you'll agree, for less than £200 it will blow away any APU and board that costs £150.
Click to expand...

Why not an R7 265 - faster and cheaper than the 750Ti?

APUs are great in low-end systems, but the top tier APUs are too pricey and come into competition with discrete solutions as ALXAndy said (even though I disagree with his choice of components)

For me the A8 6600k sits right in the sweet spot (the 7600 is decent too if you care about power use - in which case the 750Ti suggestion makes sense too)
 
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I'm an apu fan too. Had a HTPC for going on 6 years and for the lions share of that time used an AMD FM1 solution.

My main requirement was for acoustic. I wanted the quietest, coolest but at the same time decent performance.

It allows me to run the pc in a very small space in virtual silence without the additional heat load from a descrete gpu.
 
David Bisset said:
Why not an R7 265 - faster and cheaper than the 750Ti?

APUs are great in low-end systems, but the top tier APUs are too pricey and come into competition with discrete solutions as ALXAndy said (even though I disagree with his choice of components)

For me the A8 6600k sits right in the sweet spot (the 7600 is decent too if you care about power use)
Click to expand...

Hey whatever works man :)
 
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