• Competitor rules

    Please remember that any mention of competitors, hinting at competitors or offering to provide details of competitors will result in an account suspension. The full rules can be found under the 'Terms and Rules' link in the bottom right corner of your screen. Just don't mention competitors in any way, shape or form and you'll be OK.

G2120 vs A10-5800K for gaming HTPC

Back in November I was looking to upgrade my HTPC for light gaming and running films at 1080. I went for the A8-5600K Black Edition, didn’t bother going for the A10-5800K as I would rather save the extra £25 and put towards some RAM. I didn’t take the Intel route as the FM2 socket was new, has CPU upgrade pretential and the Intel HD4000 graphics is poor for gaming.

The APU played Blu-Rays etc flawlessly but I couldn’t play Super Street Fighter 4, Fifa 2013, Black Ops 2 at a good frame rate. Unless I turned off (not down) certain graphic options. At this point it looked worse than the console counter parts. Black Ops 2 looked like I was playing Quake 3 style graphics. So I crossfired the APU with a 6670 and it didn’t make much a difference, so I dropped the crossfire with APU idea and went for a dedicated 7770.

Super Street Fighter 4 and Fifa 2013 I can play all settings maxed out. Black Ops 2 I can play above medium settings. So they look better than the console versions. Also I can play Diablo 3 at a decent frame rate too. This running off my 240w PSU.
 
malachi said:
Back in November I was looking to upgrade my HTPC for light gaming and running films at 1080. I went for the A8-5600K Black Edition, didn’t bother going for the A10-5800K as I would rather save the extra £25 and put towards some RAM. I didn’t take the Intel route as the FM2 socket was new, has CPU upgrade pretential and the Intel HD4000 graphics is poor for gaming.

The APU played Blu-Rays etc flawlessly but I couldn’t play Super Street Fighter 4, Fifa 2013, Black Ops 2 at a good frame rate. Unless I turned off (not down) certain graphic options. At this point it looked worse than the console counter parts. Black Ops 2 looked like I was playing Quake 3 style graphics. So I crossfired the APU with a 6670 and it didn’t make much a difference, so I dropped the crossfire with APU idea and went for a dedicated 7770.

Super Street Fighter 4 and Fifa 2013 I can play all settings maxed out. Black Ops 2 I can play above medium settings. So they look better than the console versions. Also I can play Diablo 3 at a decent frame rate too. This running off my 240w PSU.
Click to expand...

Very important information. So I assume that A10-5700 is more than enough for the beginning...My plan is to add later a used 7850 or 7770 as you say.
 
CAT-THE-FIFTH said:
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.
Click to expand...

I think the numbers are not that different...
In idle the dif is 1W (?!)
In 3D load with GTX680 the dif is 18W

The numbers are from the lnks posted in this thread.
http://hexus.net/tech/reviews/cpu/47257-amd-a10-5700/?page=6

After this I decided to change to A10-5800K and Corsair CX430 PSU.
 
Last edited:
yannis76 said:
I think the numbers are not that different...
In idle the dif is 1W (?!)
In 3D load with GTX680 the dif is 18W

The numbers are from the lnks posted in this thread.
http://hexus.net/tech/reviews/cpu/47257-amd-a10-5700/?page=6

After this I decided to change to A10-5800K and Corsair CX430 PSU.
Click to expand...

Not with an IGP though:

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

Remember you are using a SFF case,and the A10 5700 is only around 7% slower if using a GTX680.

The main advantage of the A10-5800K is if you want to overclock the CPU with a better cooler.

The GD04 is not the quietest case though,but less heat produced should mean a quieter system as you can use lower fan speeds:

http://www.anandtech.com/show/4072/silverstone-gd04-htpc-case-cool-not-quiet

Having said that it is big enough for you to use a water cooler if you mod it slightly:

http://www.overclock.net/t/990111/antec-k-hler-h2o-620-920-club/1680

I would also get an XFX PRO 450W. It is a smaller and more compact PSU than the CX430W,and is made by Seasonic and seems to use more expansive capacitors and even a longer life ball bearing fan.
 
Last edited:
CAT-THE-FIFTH said:
Not with an IGP though:

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

Remember you are using a SFF case,and the A10 5700 is only around 7% slower if using a GTX680.

The main advantage of the A10-5800K is if you want to overclock the CPU with a better cooler.

The GD04 is not the quietest case though,but less heat produced should mean a quieter system as you can use lower fan speeds:

http://www.anandtech.com/show/4072/silverstone-gd04-htpc-case-cool-not-quiet

Having said that it is big enough for you to use a water cooler if you mod it slightly:

http://www.overclock.net/t/990111/antec-k-hler-h2o-620-920-club/1680

I would also get an XFX PRO 450W. It is a smaller and more compact PSU than the CX430W,and is made by Seasonic and seems to use more expansive capacitors and even a longer life ball bearing fan.
Click to expand...

You are right! Never saw these graphs!!
The difference is quite substantial...Should I change again to 5700???
On the other hand when I eventually add a dedicated VGA, the power usage differences will be much lower and also the temps, I suppose.
 
So...this is maybe the last day I can choose between A10-5800K and A10-5700...Shall I keep the 5800 or revert it to 5700 due to noise, heat concerns?
 
yannis76 said:
So...this is maybe the last day I can choose between A10-5800K and A10-5700...Shall I keep the 5800 or revert it to 5700 due to noise, heat concerns?
Click to expand...
If you getting a quiet 3rd party CPU cooler, I don't see any point worrying over that little extra heat...as it would barely make any difference to the audible noise level.

The FM2 CPUs are slow enough as it is...I certainly wouldn't go for one that cannot overclock. I know you are worrying about the heat due to your case, but I think the 5800K would still be a better option - you can overclock it without too much voltage increase so long as you are not aimming for top overclock that require much higher voltage.

Also, the Silverstone GD04 it has two 80mm fan mount for the rear...you should look into getting two quiet 80mm fans (i.e. the noiseblocker 80mm) for exhausting the heat out of the case. The difference for CPU temp between having and not having rear exhaust case fans is huge...lower CPU temp would also mean your CPU cooler wouldn't have to work as hard, thus its fan be able to spin at lower rpm and quieter.
 
Last edited:
Marine-RX179 said:
If you getting a quiet 3rd party CPU cooler, I don't see any point worrying over that little extra heat...as it would barely make any difference to the audible noise level.

The FM2 CPUs are slow enough as it is...I certainly wouldn't go for one that cannot overclock. I know you are worrying about the heat due to your case, but I think the 5800K would still be a better option - you can overclock it without too much voltage increase so long as you are not aimming for top overclock that require much higher voltage.

Also, the Silverstone GD04 it has two 80mm fan mount for the rear...you should look into getting two quiet 80mm fans (i.e. the noiseblocker 80mm) for exhausting the heat out of the case. The difference for CPU temp between having and not having rear exhaust case fans is huge...lower CPU temp would also mean your CPU cooler wouldn't have to work as hard, thus its fan be able to spin at lower rpm and quieter.
Click to expand...

thx for the reply!
The case has already 3 120mm fans pushing air into the case. Do you think I should put one or two more?? In the end, if I ever install a dedicated GPU, I will have 6-7 fans in this HTPC. I think they will be too many and noise will be skyrocket.
Actually, I was thinking to activate only the 2 out of the 3 fans...
 
yannis76 said:
thx for the reply!
The case has already 3 120mm fans pushing air into the case. Do you think I should put one or two more?? In the end, if I ever install a dedicated GPU, I will have 6-7 fans in this HTPC. I think they will be too many and noise will be skyrocket.
Actually, I was thinking to activate only the 2 out of the 3 fans...
Click to expand...
The thing about airflow is...having intake only is not enough. It's important to have fan added as exhaust is because if you don't, most of the heat that get dump into the case by the CPU cooler will remain inside the case and get recycled back into the CPU cooler. See the following which I suggested another member with good result from adding exhaust fan to his intake only case:
http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?p=23571236#post23571236

As for your concern over noise...having more fans don't automatically mean it would become noiser...it is the rpm they spin at that make the most direct impact on noise level. With the Asus motherboard, it should have in bios settings allowing your to choose from different fanspeed profile, with the options of "Silent, Standard, Turbo, None" etc, which will control the fanspeeds the fans spin at (so long as the fans are powered by the 3pin of the motherboard). Fan-splitter would work as well (i.e. if you had the two rear exhaust fan connected to the splitter which connect to the single 3pin header of the motherboard).
 
Last edited:
Thx again!

Unfortunately the Asus f2a85-m le has only 3 fan connections where only 1 is controlled by Xpert Fan.
So I have decided to change this to an asrock fm2a85x extreme4-m where there 4 fan connections all controlled in bios.
 
NB: If you underclock/undervolt the 5800k to the same level as the 5700 it will almost certainly consume the same amount of power. The 5800s are almost guaranteed to be binned well considering they're supposed to be a premium OC part.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom