G2120 vs A10-5800K for gaming HTPC

[yannis76]

System is almost ready and I can tell you my first impressions:

1) As you may have read before noise was one my biggest initial problems. Although I have ordered a Scythe Shuriken revb coller, I have also reduced the max CPU power output from the AMD drivers to 63% and so far its much more silent!!
2) What is even more impressive is that at 63% max power gaming seems to be pretty feasible: I have tested only 2 games, Fifa13 at 1080p and high and Sine More again at high quality. Both of them play great!!!!
3) Of course also movie playback is great, but that was expected.

I will come back with more info later in the day

 

[yannis76]

Yea...I think I did mention that AMD's stock coolers are generally quite loud...glad to see that you have replaced it with a decent cooler instead.

haven't replaced it yet...Just ordered the Shuriken B. I have however lowered the max CPU output to 63% and it did the job!!

 

[yannis76]

I have just built a HTPC and used as 5800K it was too hot, so i replaced it with a 5700 CPU

It's virtually the same chip just cooler, and slightly lower turbo speed.

you could as well lowered the CPU output from the AMD drivers...

 

[yannis76]

And I can't get my head around lowering the output of the CPU for what is already a fairly slow CPU.

Just my 2 cents here, since I am actually using the A10-5800K and I also have the i5-3570k (desktop) and can compare them. Despite the various benchmarks that show the AMD CPU slower (and it is) than the Intel, its certainly not slow for the uses of a light gaming HTPC!

As I told before, even at 63% (2400 vs 4000MHz) you can play hd content and 3d games (Fifa13, Worms Revolution, Sleeping Dogs at normal quality, Sine Mora at high and Alan Wake at medium). To be honest, when I first decided to buy the A10 I was also planning to get another used GPU (7770 or 7850) after 4-6 months. However after seeing the gaming ability of the A10, there is a big chance I will just stay with it!

Compared to i5-3570k+7970 the difference is quite noticeable in high quality settings with full AA. But that was not the purpose of my project at least.
All the other tasks (web, email, movies, music and some gaming) can run great on this A10.

 

[yannis76]

i was quite disappointed in the a10 for gaming whether it was igp, dual graphics, standalon 7870 or the 7870s crossfire. fair eniugh the 7870 on its own played games at highest settings but was laggy even at medium settings it still stuttered about a lot and was even worse when paired with the 6670

Hi,

I don't want to start any flame war and I am not an AMD or Intel fan. However, the disappointment you describe is quite subjective since you don't present many facts. On what games weren't you happy? At what resolution and settings? Judging by my experience with the A10, you either expected too much from it (DX11 games, high res, high sets) or didn't delve enough into it.
Personally I am going to use the gaming capabilities only for coop or split screen games with mates.