General Question on my current system

shaunvos · 23 Nov 2015 at 21:31

Hi All,

I've recently built a new low spec system as follows:
A4-4000 3.00GHz (Socket FM2) APU Richland Dual Core Processor
Asus A88XM-A Socket FM2+ Motherboard
1x 4GB 1600mhz DDR3 RAM
500 GB SATA Hard drive (I have a 12TB NAS for backup)
700 Watt PSU
Windows 10

I generally use my computer for office/web browsing, playback of tv/film, encoding of videos in handbrake etc..

I occasionally do some light gaming on old games which tend to run fine on this system.

Out of curiosity sake would I be able to upgrade this system (except the motherboard) to a system that could run the latest games at their lowest settings. Or is it just not possible for this system with this motherboard?

I see my motherboards supports the AMD Kaveri A10-7870K, a pci express graphics card and upto 64GB RAM. What would drastically improve performance (in which order), new Graphics Card, New CPU or more memory?

Thanks.

ExRayTed · 23 Nov 2015 at 21:41

You could swap out the A4 for a Kaveri APU but might have to update the BIOS. That'd give you a considerable gaming boost with 8gb of quick DDR3

blitz7287 · 23 Nov 2015 at 21:55

The fastest memory your motherboard supports is 2400MHz so if your planning to upgrade the ram get either an 8GB Kit (2x 4GB) or a 16GB kit (2x8GB) to keep it dual channel. Maybe get a SSD for it for your OS Drive. If you was going for the 7870K CPU id get an aftermarket cooler for it even something cheap like a Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO so you've got some headroom for overclocking if you wanted to. Then for a GPU you can get the GTX 750Ti quite cheap now and they would all run fine off your psu seen as its 700w. If its a budget psu though i probably wouldn't overclock on it.

shaunvos · 23 Nov 2015 at 22:28

blitz7287 said:
The fastest memory your motherboard supports is 2400MHz so if your planning to upgrade the ram get either an 8GB Kit (2x 4GB) or a 16GB kit (2x8GB) to keep it dual channel. Maybe get a SSD for it for your OS Drive. If you was going for the 7870K CPU id get an aftermarket cooler for it even something cheap like a Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO so you've got some headroom for overclocking if you wanted to. Then for a GPU you can get the GTX 750Ti quite cheap now and they would all run fine off your psu seen as its 700w. If its a budget psu though i probably wouldn't overclock on it.

Thanks for the advice. What sort of performance could I expect from a spec like that (GTX 750Ti, 7870K CPU, 8GB RAM). Would the latest games on lowest settings be playable? My expectations are obviously quite low for a FM2+ CPU.

blitz7287 · 23 Nov 2015 at 23:43

shaunvos said:
Thanks for the advice. What sort of performance could I expect from a spec like that (GTX 750Ti, 7870K CPU, 8GB RAM). Would the latest games on lowest settings be playable? My expectations are obviously quite low for a FM2+ CPU.

The GTX750Ti is still a very capable card for mid to low range gaming and on older titles like Bioshock Infinite and Battlefield 4 you can play them on High Ultra at around 30FPS @ 1080p Id recommend a 4GB version of the card though for more VRAM overclockers don't seem to have any on their site i would link you to one but seen as overclockers block you posting rival companies lol you'll have to google that. There is only £10-£15 price difference between that and the 2GB versions. They are based off 1st gen maxwell architecture but they are last gen which is why they are relatively cheap for what they are. The CPU is always going to be the bottleneck in the system but faster ram should help it out loads. You should certainly have an enjoyable experience gaming on it. Heres a review and benchmark video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sK6vHNkexic&ab_channel=NeweggTV