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Debating A8/A10 APU…

Disjunto

Disjunto

Disjunto

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My OH's PC is pretty much used as a HTPC that plays some basic games (WoW, Sims 3) and it's a bit tired these days, running an old P4 with an x850.

I've been looking at a cheap upgrade for the thing for some time now, and have stumbled onto the APU scene. (uh oh?)

The benchmarks I've seen of the 3850/3870K and 5800K seem to suggest some pretty reasonable numbers, but it's really difficult to get any benchmarks that even mean anything in terms of performance against and other budget upgrade seeing as I'll need new mobo, cpu and gpu no matter what (have some spare ddr3 though). They seem to be stupidly cheap as well, with my specced upgrade on the A8 coming in at about £130, I can't find anything close to it at that price.

Anyone got any input?
 
A10 should be out next month, for what you're after it could be pretty good.
That said, CPU side it still pales in comparison to the Intel offerings (But that won't matter too much if she's coping with a P4).

There's some trinity based laptops out now, A10 quad core's for 480 quid, maybe that'd be worth a punt?
 
I'm aware of the upcoming A10s (Luckily, as I was minutes away from buying an A8 when I read something about them) and they do seem to be exactly what I want, was just wondering if anyone had any input on alternatives for my ultra low budget approach, cheapest intel CPU seems to be more than an A8, so it doesn't really seem worth it unless it's an absolutely massive improvement.

Can't really think of anything CPU intensive that it might be used for either, so it's mainly for a gaming and general system speed boost.

Will look into the laptops for future purchases, but its not what we're looking for atm
 
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I did quite obviously forget to look at Celerons. Although then there's the issue of finding a mega cheap GPU to go alongside it. Guess I'll wait an see on A10 pricing before deciding on anything
 
You can find performance around the 6770 etc quite cheap second hand.

Can't imagine what pricing Trinity will have, everyone thought Llano would be well priced when that first came out but it wasn't, only now are they decent prices.

Hopefully an A10 CPU Quad will come in at 100 for the CPU.
 
The higher end trinity APUs have similar performance to an i3 2100, which is a 3.1GHz 2C/4T CPU. The Celeron is only a 2C/2T at 2.5GHz. Depending on the price of the new APUs they probably will be an attractive option, but expect them to cost the same price as the core i3 chips they compete with (about £100). This is still the same price as the Celeron with a 6670 GPU.

Assuming DDR3-1600 RAM I would expect the gaming performance of these systems to be broadly similar, in the Celeron one you would get more graphics performance at the expense of CPU and power consumption. The Trinity combination would give better CPU at the expense of GPU. For reference the 7660D is about 75% as fast as a HD6670.

I suggest you check out this review:

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/a10-5800k-a8-5600k-a6-5400k,3224.html

and this one:

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/a10-5800k-a8-5600k-trinity-apu,3241.html
 
Thanks, that's definitely cleared things up a lot, really is a struggle to compare APUs these days, as it's a fixed CPU/GPU and sites other than tomshardware seem to just flap around trying to work out what to match them against.
 
I recently was in the same position (AMD 4200+ & HD3850) and was recommended to go intel by everyone, but something told me to take a punt on the AMD APU.

I recently got a 3870K and cheap FM1 board (Asus F1A55-M LK R2.0- used the auto o/c utility to clock cpu to 3.2 and GPU to 800) for a secondary TF2 PC playing @ 1680x1050. It runs it on High settings (AA off) with an FPS range of 50-120 but normally knocking around 70-80. I did have the idea of adding a 6670 to hybrid xfire, but its performing just fine with the APU alone. My main rig is an i7 920 and 670GTX which sits along side it and the AMD rig, for TF2 at least, they play and look very similar indeed.

I know what you mean about benchmarks and getting an accurate view of its performance pre purchase, It was a nightmare, didn't really find anything to confirm how it would really perform. That said I am extremely pleased with my purchase.
 
The main advantage of an APU as I see it is low power, the possibility of 350-400w PSU. Silent operation, (almost) fanless, low heat, small case.
 
Why are people recommending intel for this situation is beyond me! for the same price as intel, AMD is giving you a chip that will play games without the need for a graphics card. plus the AMD boards are cheap as chips. I paid under £150 for my 3870k, mobo and 8Gb 2133mhz ram. ALL BRAND NEW. intel might have a better ipc on the cpu but for budget gaming their onboard gpu just doesnt cut it. if all you want is a cheap, low powered machine that is only going to be subject to lower demand games then llano/trinity seems to be the more sensible choice.
 
nkata said:
The main advantage of an APU as I see it is low power, the possibility of 350-400w PSU. Silent operation, (almost) fanless, low heat, small case.
Click to expand...

lol, you could run a Trinity system on a 120w PicoPSU (you'd need a little more for OCing, though). 350-400w is a lot of power.
 
sexyhyde said:
Why are people recommending intel for this situation is beyond me! for the same price as intel, AMD is giving you a chip that will play games without the need for a graphics card. plus the AMD boards are cheap as chips. I paid under £150 for my 3870k, mobo and 8Gb 2133mhz ram. ALL BRAND NEW. intel might have a better ipc on the cpu but for budget gaming their onboard gpu just doesnt cut it. if all you want is a cheap, low powered machine that is only going to be subject to lower demand games then llano/trinity seems to be the more sensible choice.
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Em...because people can get brand new G840 for around £50 and a 6670 for another £50 and then it walk all over the Llano with better CPU gaming performance and graphic grunt?? And if people not bothered about not having Z77 chipset, they can get a decent H61 board for around £40? Also with WOW being pretty much a single-threaded game, a single core on a Sandy would be miles faster than a single Core on the Llano.
 
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Marine-RX179 said:
Em...because people can get brand new G840 for around £50 and a 6670 for another £50 and then it walk all over the Llano with better CPU gaming performance and graphic grunt?? And if people not bothered about not having Z77 chipset, they can get a decent H61 board for around £40? Also with WOW being pretty much a single-threaded game, a single core on a Sandy would be miles faster than a single Core on the Llano.
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maybe you should read the OP :D
 
The Deuce said:
he wants the system to be as cheap as possible, therefore a Llano system makes more sense than a 1155 setup :D
the system you spoke of albeit a good cheap setup is still a lot more than the Llano setup :cool:
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If the OP doesn't care about performance but only about saving money, then he would be better just sticking with he got? The point is while the lower Llano might be slightly cheaper, but the amount of lesser performance isn't worth the money saved. And I do see the Llano actually being much cheaper than the combos I mentioned.

Actually the 1155 make FAR MORE sense than Llano...it can upgrade to i5 in the future (despite can't overclock), whereas the on the Llano performance the room for improvement on CPU upgrade side is quite dire.
 
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The Deuce said:
he wants the system to be as cheap as possible, therefore a Llano system makes more sense than a 1155 setup :D
the system you spoke of albeit a good cheap setup is still a lot more than the Llano setup :cool:
Click to expand...

His planned upgrade is 130.
Marines is about 130.

The difference isn't huge in price given the price of the A8 chip.
 
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