How good is a10 7870k for a bit of gaming?

[lemonade]

I'm looking into building another mini itx system, this time to stick in the living room to use for entertainment and as a sort of steam box. On a tight budget, around £300 for mobo, cpu, case and psu, have some ram and ssd already.

Anyway was thinking of using the 7870k, how good is this at running games? The gaming side would be most casual, games played would be anything from Sonic, to GTA, Dirt, Fifa etc.

Not bothered about playing on high settings on everything.

Any feedback would be appreciated, been out of the loop since I last build a rig, so not sure what the best options are.

 

[lemonade]

Cheers guys, sounds good will go for it then, hope it doesn't run things at low an FPS, the option of being able to add discreet gpu is appealing although will be limited by the itx case and psu I plan on getting.

Thinking of whether to wait for the Excavator APU's, but then I'll just wait for the next and the one after etc.

 

[lemonade]

I didn't really delve too much into a separate cpu and gpu option as I figured I would need to spend well in excess of £100 for anything worthwhile, plus would need to spend more on a beefier PSU and bigger case too.

 

[lemonade]

Oh that sucks I'm reusing corsair vengeance lp 8GB ram I have spare in the draw, think they are 1600mhz.

Might need to sell them then and get some corsair Vengeance Pro Series ram.

 

[lemonade]

I've done a bit more reading and massively regretting going with the APU and building around that, it appears it's not all that good or efficient, so I will be returning all the stuff bar the motherboard and going for a separate CPU and GPU, should have done my homework properly first!

I've had a change of thought too and would now like to do 1080p gaming as much as possible, this is also going to be played on a TV and I would like it to last at least 3 years, so the APU won't cut it I guess.

So is the 850k cpu mentioned above the best budget CPU? would have like to get an Intel CPU and board but they don't seem to be good value for money for a budget build.

With the GFX card my budget would be £100, so I guess the 750Ti fits the bill, but what is the AMD equivalent of that? Would rather stick with AMD as I have had bad experience with nvidia and overheating in the past.

If an equivalent AMD card runs as good or better then the HD6850 in my main rig then I will be happy with that.

Cheers for the help guys.

 

[lemonade]

I won't be buying a monitor. This build is a HTPC/Steam gaming box for the living room. It will be hooked upto a 40" 1080p TV.

It's also a mini itx build, so I need to take into consideration size and heat dispensation.

So far I have selected an MSI A88X Mini ITX motherboard, I ordered a Silverstone ML05 case but will have to return it if I decide to go for a discreet GPU. I also ordered a 300w PSU, which should be enough for this build bu thinking of returning it and getting a 450w psu.

Now I have to decide whether to keep this APU chip or return and get a Athlon 860x and either a 750ti or 270x, I think the 750ti would be better as it produces less heat.

 

[lemonade]

But the 750Ti's lower power-consumption is at the cost of being slower than the 270x by a fair margin, so it's really be up to you to decide how to weight heatoutput against performance.

IMO, the heat output of the 270x would not be an issue in the mitx case anyway, so it would make more sense to go for performance over heat output.

True that, the heat issue probably wont be a big thing in the grander scheme of things.

I've had a bit of a medium brainwave, it looks like the 7870k CPU and the 860k are pretty much on par with each other in performance, so I could keep that and then I can recycle and use the HD6850 from my main rig in the future with the mini ITX build, then replace the 6850 with a modern equivalent for my main rig. I'll still need to return the case and psu either way.

Decisions, decisions... <_<

 

[lemonade]

If heat output is a concern go with the 260X. They run very cool and quiet and trade blows with the 750TI.

I can't seem to find 260 series anywhere, have they been replaced by the R7 360? What are those cards like as they fit the ~£80 budget.

 

[lemonade]

The R7 360 series replace the 260 series and perform at a similar level, only using newer and better binned silicon. They may be marginally faster and as i mentioned above, the 260/360 is faster than the 6850 you currently own but using only a fraction of the power.

Cheers man, what would be a discreet card equivalent to the GPU within the 7870k? I'm thinking maybe the 250 you mentioned earlier paired with the 7870k igpu, but only if will allow me to play games smoothly at 1080p, but if its equivalent to igpu, then I won't bother.

 

[lemonade]

Just to add looks like A88X mini itx motherboards do not support 2400MHZ ram, only upto 2133mhz, so 2400mhz ram will be useless.

 

[lemonade]

Just because it doesn't officially support it, doesn't mean it won't work.

BTW... what exactly didn't you like about the 7870K ?

I don't want to be rude but it sounds like you actually wanted more performance than you were saying?

True that.

What's put me off the 7870K is things I've read about how it doesn't run games very well.

You are right in away, initially i wasn't fussed about needing high performance as it was just for casual gaming, but was thinking about it yesterday evening and I thought it would be much nice to be bale to play 1080p on the TV rather than scaled down 720p (which can look pretty bad), along with the fact that I can't see the 7870k being useful for at 3 years on the gaming side.

But If I wan't to upscale in performance its going to cost me another £100 at the very least, so costs are rising and I have a better main rig already so it might be a silly idea.

Plus to fit a discreet card, a good one anyway, I would need to buy the Silverstone ML07, which is a lot bigger and bulky looking, which i'm not sure about.

 

[lemonade]

The 260X is a sound choice ss AMDMatt states, but will require 2 x 6 pin connectors and the OP has stated he's limited by his ITX PSU.

As for hybrid Crossfire, again this will be great in the situations where multi GPU is supported. Having recently ditched 2x GTX 980 in SLI I can attest that multi GPU is not plain sailing even today.

The 260X/360 requires 1x6 pin connection.

The 300w SilverStone SST-ST30SF I ordered has 1 x 6pin PCI-E Power, so that would work, although the 100w power output of the 260x will pushing that PSU to its limit, the 750ti at 60w would be a better bet, otherwise for a beefier graphics card the SST-ST45SF would be ideal, I have that in my main rig and it has all the connectors required.

Regarding the crossfire, seems pointless to try that then if there is not much benefit, and I can't imagine the R7 240 or 250 will be much better than the iGPU in the 7870k.

 

[lemonade]

Ok so I think I have come to a decision and conclusion.

I'm going to stick with what I have bought so the 7870k stays and I will buy some 2400Mhz ram to get the most out of it.

I figured that as this will be a living room HTPC/Steambox, there is no point going all out on the performance stakes, especially as I don't know how much it will get used. I have a main rig which is very powerful, Haswell i5 unlocked, 16gb ram, 6850, SSD, its 3 years old, but still feels super fast and runs most games no problem, I can upgrade the GFX card and have an upto date system, but all I play on it these days is CS:S, so it is severely under used. Plus I can get to use the ML05 itx case which will keep the footprint of this htpc small.

Worst comes to worst if this new 7870k based living room PC does get used a lot and a lot more gaming on it I can transfer the internals of my main rig, buy a new case to fit it all and then use that in the living room, then I can just use the 7870k machine as my room computer, as it will play CS:S or CS:GO without any issues, I can also reuse the 6850 in that to beef it up and buy a new better graphics card to go in the living room PC. Doing all that might mean I end up spending a bit more in the long run.

To sum for anyone else in the same boat, go for a 7870k build if you want a casual mini-ITX gaming PC to use as a 720p machine, don't expect any spectacular gaming expirience from it as its very compromised, the graphics capability sits between the R7 240 and 250. If you want to play 1080p with a great gaming experience and play latest AAA titles, then you have two options, if your on a budget go for separate CPU and GPU solution, the AMD CPU chips seem the best value for money on a budget, you get quad core processors, with Intel you get dual core, although both have advantages over each other. If you have more to spend then I would build around an i5 chip. Then of course buy a discreet graphics card, lots of choices out there for.

Thanks for all the help everyone.

 

[lemonade]

^ Cheers I will consider those if games do utilise two graphics card. I should be able to fit a single slot low profile card on the case I will be using.

 

[lemonade]

That would make a great basis for an ITX gaming machine. My main rig I built around Haswell i5 chip, for the motherboard I can highly recommend ASRock, mine is rock solid and they make great ITX motherboards on the Intel chipsets, great for overclocking too, unlike say MSI who use cheap mofsets and vrm. ASUS also make great high end boards but tend to be pricey.

You can have a look at these:

ASRock Z170M-ITX/AC
ASRock Z170 Gaming-ITX/ac
ASUS Z170I PRO GAMING

That Fractal case looks lovely too. I would recommend checkng out SilverStone too, really good quality cases, I have the Sugo SG05 which is similar in style to that Fractal, but the Fractal looks more stylish.

 

[lemonade]

I've been testing my build for last 2 days, and the APU gets ridiculously hot! upto 90c on load and idles at around 60c. This was my fear with AMD CPU chips, they are stupidly inefficient and why I moved to Intel all those years ago. This is also in an air con-ed room, I would hate to think what it would be like in the living room tucked inside cabinet.

I am going to put my own thermal paste on it as the stock heatsink comes with way too much paste which might be adding to the problem.

 

[lemonade]

That doesn't sound right. What are you using to measure the temperature?

Both the BIOS printout and HW Monitor, the fans are also going into overdrive and the whole case because a radiator as a result of the heat!

Whoever decided to slap on a load paste on the heatsink is stupid, it leaks down onto the chip from the heatspreader! very dangerous!

Cleaned it all up and put my trusty MX2 paste on, lets see if it makes a difference, the stock heatsink is probably not upto the job either so thats another expense to add getting a good aftermarket cooler.

 

[lemonade]

Thats abnormally hot especially with the fact the A10 7870K uses an updated cooler unlike the previous ones which are all aluminium,and also uses solder instead of TIM now too.

Some more pictures of the retail package:

http://xtreview.com/addcomment-id-39162-view-a10-7870k-processor-on-sale.html

Plus the chip idles at around 30W to 35W too.

You shouldn't be getting 60C at idle.

Thats what I was expecting, but damn this thing runs hot, either that or temp sensor is dodgy, as the temps are heavily fluctuating they drop to around 40c sometimes the shoot back up at idle, the office is now chilled with AC on, yet the CPU is still running around 60c on idle

Gonna try some BIOS tweaking and maybe undervolt this as the stock volts are high at around 1.45v, not fussed if I lose a bit of clock speed as a result.

 

[lemonade]

The motherboard is MSIa88x1 ac v2. The motherboard parts are hot to touch although its temps are 32c.

The temps, voltages and clock speeds are really erratic, currently its sitting semi idle, only have Steam open downloading a game, but temps are switching between 40-60c, voltage is fluctuating between 0.9v to 1.45v, and the cores clock speeds are heavily fluctuating, max 4.ghz, really hard to pinpoint as all very erratic. Maybe BIOS needs flashing, but this mobo is supposed to support Godavari chips out of the box.

 

[lemonade]

So this is a bit confusing HWMonitor shows upto 82c on load for CPU, and on Speedfan max it went up is 45c and idle is around 34-38c, not sure which one to trust.