G540 vs A4-3300

[areksnumbr1sxylady]

Well its in the tittle, what is better to get G540 or A4-3300? Keeping in mind that no additional GPU will be added.

Thank you.

 

[CEUOTC]

If it is a media centre build then the A4-3300 is the way ahead as the inbuilt GPU AMD Radeon HD 6480G will handle HD content fine with some leg room for light gaming

The G540 has better CPU grunt tho.

Regards.

C.

 

[humbug]

Depends on what you want it for, as ^^^^ said the A4-3300 has the better IGPU and the G540 has the better CPU.

 

[sarge78]

If it is a media centre build then the A4-3300 is the way ahead as the inbuilt GPU AMD Radeon HD 6480G will handle HD content fine with some leg room for light gaming

The G540 has better CPU grunt tho.

Regards.

C.

It's a common misconception the GPU 'handles' HD video content. All modern chips have integrated decoder blocks on die and SandyBridge chips use the fantastic Multi-Format Codec Engine (MFX) for hardware decoding.
(Even Anandtech has swapped to a low power SB setup )

Only get the AMD if you want to do some light gaming, the SB Celeron is much better for everything else (it handles games like Battlefield Heros fine too)

Edit: Forgot to add... The Celeron G530 outperforms my A8-3800k in every way A A4 must feel completely gimped compared to the cheap SB!

 

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

I have a Core i3 2100 and the A4 has a better IGP and is better for video decoding too it seems(23.976FPS playback seems to be better handled looking at the reviews I have seen and HDMI 1.4a is missing from the G530). It is basically around the same level as an HD6450 discrete card.

For more general usage the IGP on the G530 is probably fine.

I have used the IGP on the Core i3 2100 and TBH after trying the one on the A6-3650 a mate had,it had very poor performance in comparison. Even L4D had weird textures when I tried it at 1280X800. That was last year though,so hopefully drivers have improved.

I would go for the A4-3400 over the A4-3300 too,if you get the AMD CPU,as it has a higher clocked IGP and the main reason Anand used the Pentium G850 is probably down to fact that mini-ITX FM1 motherboards are extremely limited in choice.I am an SFF fan and you will find Intel has much better choice for mini-ITX motherboards(Shuttle also does mostly Intel systems). It is one of the reasons I have stuck with Intel in the last few years.

If you want more CPU grunt,the Celeron G530 or G540 is a better choice than the A4 CPUs. However,the G530 is not faster than even an old quad core like a Q6600 in every way either. Even my old Q6600 at around 3GHZ is still quicker in things like HandBrake than my Core i3 2100,and so an A8 will be faster too in a reasonable amount of things. Maybe something like iTunes for example which uses one thread will be quicker on the Celery,but anything that uses more than 2 threads,it won't.

Edit!!

The G530 is a reasonable amount cheaper though than an AMD A4-3300 or A4-3400 so that needs to be taken into consideration too.

 

[Subliminal Aura]

Edit: Forgot to add... The Celeron G530 outperforms my A8-3800k in every way A A4 must feel completely gimped compared to the cheap SB!

A g530 should not wipe the a8-3800k. For single or dual threaded apps the G530 is way ahead as you suggest but for all cores the a8 should take the lead due to it being a quad

The G530 is a good little runner - spec wise it's like an old dual core duo @ 3.2ghz BUT it's vastly lifted by the SB platform itself ie huge memory bandwidth, SATA 3 etc etc

 

[elroberto]

Edit: Forgot to add... The Celeron G530 outperforms my A8-3800k in every way A A4 must feel completely gimped compared to the cheap SB!

Until you try playing a ny sort of game through the onboard graphics...then it gets lwft behind, just like the i3.

 

[sarge78]

^ Yup, higher end Llano chips have great GPUs. I wouldn't get the current A4 for gaming though, looks like it struggles at 720p and the Celeron does casual games perfectly well. Spend the extra ££ on a A6/A8 if you want a decent gaming HTPC with no graphics card.
(maybe wait for the A6-5400K? That could hit a price/performance sweet spot)

The G530 is a good little runner - spec wise it's like an old dual core duo @ 3.2ghz BUT it's vastly lifted by the SB platform itself ie huge memory bandwidth, SATA 3 etc etc

Probably. Outside benchmarks everything felt much smoother and faster, even Lightroom. Very impressed what £30 gets you these days .

 

[Subliminal Aura]

Probably. Outside benchmarks everything felt much smoother and faster, even Lightroom. Very impressed what £30 gets you these days .

Yes we all agree to that but

You're failing to see my point ... I have a couple of boxes myself G530 + [email protected] - side by side

Benchmarking the e5200 cpu alone it is actually faster than the G530 BUT the G530 system as a whole is far more fluid and faster than the old socket 775 box

 

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

^ Yup, higher end Llano chips have great GPUs. I wouldn't get the current A4 for gaming though, looks like it struggles at 720p and the Celeron does casual games perfectly well. Spend the extra ££ on a A6/A8 if you want a decent gaming HTPC with no graphics card.
(maybe wait for the A6-5400K? That could hit a price/performance sweet spot)

The A4-3400 has an IGP slightly better than the HD3000 IGP in the Core i3 2105. However,you can get the AMD A6 CPUs for silly low prices now if your can shop around and use the AMD cashback deal.

You are looking at £10 to £15 more than an A4 now.

However,the main issue is cost though - the A4 3300 and A4 3400 are around £10 to £15 more than a G530. The G530 seems like the CPU of choice IMHO if you have an ultra low budget.

Probably. Outside benchmarks everything felt much smoother and faster, even Lightroom. Very impressed what £30 gets you these days .

TBH,the A6-3650 I tried did feel smooth and so does my Core i3 2100. Both systems did have SSDs though. Of course it could be that the G530 is smoother than my Core i3 2100,but I somehow doubt that!!