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G2120 vs A10-5800K for gaming HTPC

yannis76

yannis76

yannis76

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Joined
16 Aug 2004
Posts
804
Hi,

I am trying to decide which route to follow in order to replace my old Zotac and PS3. I am between an A10-5800K and an Intel G2120.
I want to be able to play at 1080p games like Fifa, Resident Evil and other coop games. My questions are the following:
1) Is the A10-5800K enough for 1080p gaming?
2) Adding later a 7750 card or better will allow me to play at 1080p?
3) The 100W A10 is going to produce more noise than the 55W G2120?
4) For watching HD is just the G2120 enough?

The rest of the system is the following:
Silverstone GD04
Asus (A85 or H77)
2x4GB Kingston 2400

My purpose is to build a system that will replace my Zotac box (HD player) and my PS3 (Fifa playing, BR/CD/DVD player).

thx
 
After reading in these forums, I am still confused. Now I also found Celeron G530 as an alternative. Would this CPU and its HD graphics be enough for HD playpack (1080p)?
If I add later a discrete GPU, would I also be able to play games at 1080p?
 
Just a thought:

A10 5800K = £95 (Capable of acceptable gaming up to 1680 res)
vs
Pentium G640 SandyBridge dual-core 2.80GHz = £50
+
2nd hand HD6850/5850/GTX460 1GB = £50~£55 = total £100~£105 (Capable of acceptable gaming up to 1920 res)
 
These are my thoughts too...
I mean just by spending 50€ more I might be able to build a decent 1080p gaming machine.

I just don't know which Intel CPU to buy..
 
yannis76 said:
These are my thoughts too...
I mean just by spending 50€ more I might be able to build a decent 1080p gaming machine.

I just don't know which Intel CPU to buy..
Click to expand...
Personally I wouldn't really consider the i3. It's better to go full budget build with a Pentium together with like a 2nd hand 6850 for now and save the money, so that you can justify upgrading to i5 in the future due to the money you saved now than from a i3.

The way I see it...with a Z77 1155 motherboard, there's a few options available depending on what you are prepared to pay:
1. Pentium G640 (£50) + HD6850 (£50) upgrading to i5 3570K + HD7950 in the future
2. i3 3220 (£85) + HD6850 (£50) upgrading to i5 3570K (optional) + HD7950 in the future
3. 2nd hand i5 2500K (£120) + HD6850 (£50) upgrading to HD7950 in the future
 
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Decided!

I just placed an order for my next HTPC-gaming machine:

A10-5700
Silverstone GD04
Kingston Hyper X Beast 8GB DDR3 Non ECC CL11 2133MHz (KHX21C11T3K2/8X) (Kit 2 x 4096)
Asus Socket FM2 F2A85-M LE GLan Audio Raid
Be Quiet Power Supply 300W ATX 24 pin Pure Power BN103 Active-PFC Retail

I decided on AMD based on low I was actually playing PS3 (only Fifa and Resident Evil with mates) and also by the fact that A10-5700 performs pretty good with a discrete GPU (if I want to upgrade later).

Any comments would be appreciated.

Thank you
 
For HTPC gaming the i3 route makes much more sense unless your only on planning playing source and indie type gaming. Much more upgradability with an i3 with decent dedicated gpus.
 
LukieBoy007 said:
Why did you get the 5700 over the 5800k, when the 5800k can be overclocked AND performs better?
Click to expand...

For a htpc its actually a very reasonable choice. Basically has the same gpu but is slightly underclocked as is the cpu. Idle power consumption of the two is very similar but at load theres about a 30-40w difference. May not sound like a lot but in a small htpc case that will be used for gaming I think it's worth it. Who overclocks their htpc anyway?
 
shadow_boxer said:
Spot on!
Click to expand...

I dont disagree, but why not try now the 5700 or 5800K and see how it actually plays...Even if its playing at a lower resolution, there will still be some gaming ability, whereas with the Pentium I definitively need a VGA. I repeat, that gaming apart from Fifa 13 and some other coop game wont be my main activity on this PC. It is mainly built for HD video, music, some BR, Internet etc.

Right now my dilemma is 5800K or 5700. My case will be a Silverstone GD04 with AMD stock cooling
 
yannis76 said:
I dont disagree, but why not try now the 5700 or 5800K and see how it actually plays...Even if its playing at a lower resolution, there will still be some gaming ability, whereas with the Pentium I definitively need a VGA. I repeat, that gaming apart from Fifa 13 and some other coop game wont be my main activity on this PC. It is mainly built for HD video, music, some BR, Internet etc.

Right now my dilemma is 5800K or 5700. My case will be a Silverstone GD04 with AMD stock cooling
Click to expand...
The problem is 5800K the CPU side would become a limitation the moment you add a half-decent graphic card to it, and there with no upgrade path for improving the CPU performance; whereas in comparison there's already a clearly upgrade path from the Intel Pentium (which already provide more consistence/better gaming performance if you use a dedicated card) to the i5 or even i7 in the future.

If you are certain you are fine with dropping resolution (which won't be pretty), then the 5800K is a sounded choice (but as I have already shown you...a Pentium G640 plus a 2nd hand 6850/5850 would only cost a fiver to tenner more and provide capable performance for 1920 res for most game). I think the games you mentioned the 5800K would probably handle them ok without some settings turned down, but the question you gonna have to ask yourself is..."what if I play more than this sort of games, and would like to play something else that's more demanding in the future?" The graphic performance between the intergrated 7660D and the 6850/5850 is day and light, with the 6850/5850 being something like 80-100% faster.
 
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yannis76 said:
I dont disagree, but why not try now the 5700 or 5800K and see how it actually plays...Even if its playing at a lower resolution, there will still be some gaming ability, whereas with the Pentium I definitively need a VGA. I repeat, that gaming apart from Fifa 13 and some other coop game wont be my main activity on this PC. It is mainly built for HD video, music, some BR, Internet etc.

Right now my dilemma is 5800K or 5700. My case will be a Silverstone GD04 with AMD stock cooling
Click to expand...

I would probably get the A10-5700 TBH and cool the system using a single large heatsink. Moreover,a discrete card will increase idle power consumption a decent amount:

http://hexus.net/tech/reviews/cpu/47257-amd-a10-5700/?page=8

http://hexus.net/tech/reviews/cpu/47257-amd-a10-5700/?page=6

That is with a GTX680 which has decent idle power consumption.
 
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Marine-RX179 said:
The problem is 5800K the CPU side would become a limitation the moment you add a half-decent graphic card to it, and there with no upgrade path for improving the CPU performance; whereas in comparison there's already a clearly upgrade path from the Intel Pentium (which already provide more consistence/better gaming performance if you use a dedicated card) to the i5 or even i7 in the future.

If you are certain you are fine with dropping resolution (which won't be pretty), then the 5800K is a sounded choice (but as I have already shown you...a Pentium G640 plus a 2nd hand 6850/5850 would only cost a fiver to tenner more and provide capable performance for 1920 res for most game). I think the games you mentioned the 5800K would probably handle them ok without some settings turned down, but the question you gonna have to ask yourself is..."what if I play more than this sort of games, and would like to play something else that's more demanding in the future?" The graphic performance between the intergrated 7660D and the 6850/5850 is day and light, with the 6850/5850 being something like 80-100% faster.
Click to expand...


Let's not forget that right now I can't buy both a CPU and GPU. So for the meantime and if I ever buy a discrete GPU, the AMD path is better. If I had gone the Intel route I should absolutely forget gaming until I got a dedicated VGA.

As far as the future is concerned, I was in a dilemma between Intel and AMD until I saw some benchmarks with Trinity and discrete GPU. The performance was clearly for Intel, but that doesn't mean that the A10-5800K could not play adequate at 1080p. If money wasn't an issue, I might pick up the Intel route.
Furthermore, this build is just an HTPC with some gaming abilities (similar to PS3). It will be placed on a furniture under the TV in the livingroom. So noise and heat do play a role here. I will probably never get a high end CPU or GPU because they cannot be installed due to heat/noise restrictions. So the upgrade path to a better Intel CPU with a better GPU is somewhat non existent to me.

If I am doing something wrong on the above, please correct me since there is still time to cancel/change my order.
 
I would get the 65W TDP A10-5700 for an HTPC. CPU performance in games is not much different but the power consumption is lower and it will be easier to cool. You are looking at 30W less under heavy CPU load and nearly 40W less under a gaming load using an IGP when compared to an A10-5800K. Also you are looking at just over 11W more under gaming load than a Core i3 3225 which uses a much slower HD4000 IGP.
 
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Looking at the Intel path I was wondering what do you think about the below specs and whether these can play HD content (1080p):

INTEL CELERON G555 2.7 GHZ DUAL CORE SOCKET 1155 65W BOX (BX80623G555)
ASUS SOCKET 1155 P8H77-M LE GLAN AUDIO
KINGSTON HYPER X 8GB DDR3 NON ECC CL9 1866MHZ (KHX1866C9D3K2/8GX) (KIT 2 X 4096)
 
I was also considering the A10, but am now thinking more towards Intel because then I can upgrade further down the line. What's the best graphics card to pair with a Pentium/Celeron for about £75/80?
 
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