Budget AMD Gaming computer - July 11th 2013 System Build - ordered all the parts - what do you think? & a couple questions.

tennis4789

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Jul 12, 2013
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Ok kind of got sucked in yesterday -
Newegg had a micro case and 400 watt power supply on sale for $15 AR. Decided to buy the micro case and then decided one piece after another to build a machine.

$15 AR - Case & 400 Watt PS
$60 - CPU & GPU - AMD A6-5400
$73 - MOBO - ASRock FM2A75 Pro4-M FM2 AMD A75
$57 - Memory - 8GB (2X4gb) 1600 DDR3
$18 - DVD Burner
$90 - 128 SSD - Samsung 830 Series
$313 TOTAL - no tax and already included shipping costs

Am hoping it all works together. Like said just found the deal on the case and then got sucked in the rest of the night.

What kind of performance should I expect?
What would be the best chip I could get for the MOBO if I decided to upgrade?
Would adding a good gaming graphics card make a huge difference?

Did I need the DVD burner or could I have just used a memory stick? I really don't need to burn DVDs & don't play them. I guess as a home theater I might.

Planning to just put Linux on to test everything and then see where I go from there.

Any input appreciated. Hope it might help someone build theirs. It took me like 5 hours last night to find the deals and decide what I wanted. A bit proud of building what I think is a pretty nice system for $313. Any site I could have used that would have found me good deals and made sure all this would work together? Could I have found a deal on a system that would have been just as good? Used Techbargains quite a bit.

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Case - NewEgg
HEC Vigilance400 Black 0.5 mm Thickness SGCC MicroATX Mini Tower Computer Case with Dual 8cm Fan, 2x USB2.0, Audio HP400 400W Power Supply

MOBO - NewEgg
ASRock FM2A75 Pro4-M FM2 AMD A75 (Hudson D3) HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 Micro ATX AMD Motherboard

Memory - NewEgg
Kingston HyperX Black Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model KHX16C9B1BK2/8 - Free Resident Evil-Revelations PC Games

DVD - NewEgg
LG 24X DVD Burner - Bare Drive 24X DVD+R 8X DVD+RW 8X DVD+R DL 24X DVD-R 6X DVD-RW 16X DVD-ROM 48X CD-R 24X CD-RW 48X CD-ROM Black SATA Model GH24NS95 - OEM

Drive - Rakutan
Samsung 830 Series 128GB 2.5" SATA III Solid State Drive (SSD)

CPU & GPU - NewEgg
AMD A6-5400K Trinity 3.6GHz (3.8GHz Turbo) Socket FM2 65W Dual-Core Desktop APU (CPU + GPU) with DirectX 11 Graphic AMD Radeon HD 7540D AD540KOKHJBOX
 
Solution
The HEC PSU-shaped object is probably not good for more than 250W. Fortunately, that is enough for your system, but not with a graphics card upgrade.
You got one of the weaker, dual-core APUs. While I believe you will be able to play, settings will most likely be low to medium.
As a Linux machine to run office-type applications, it should be fine, but for running games, it is pretty weak by modern standards. You can put any socket FM2 APU on your motherboard. You'll need to add a graphics card for good game performance, but not on the HEC PSU-shaped object, so you'll need to replace that too.
The HEC PSU-shaped object is probably not good for more than 250W. Fortunately, that is enough for your system, but not with a graphics card upgrade.
You got one of the weaker, dual-core APUs. While I believe you will be able to play, settings will most likely be low to medium.
As a Linux machine to run office-type applications, it should be fine, but for running games, it is pretty weak by modern standards. You can put any socket FM2 APU on your motherboard. You'll need to add a graphics card for good game performance, but not on the HEC PSU-shaped object, so you'll need to replace that too.
 
Solution

tennis4789

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Jul 12, 2013
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10,510



Hi Onus,

Thanks for the info.

Yeah I found another better APU that was like $90 vs. $60 after I had already ordered with Newegg and could not change my order. Been looking at components soooo long time to finally do something.

Figure just use this as a base and should be able to upgrade as I find really good deals like Power Supply. Graphics card.

Could have got a 1TB 7200 hard drive for $60 but decided wanted the 128 GB SSD for $90. My current desk top machine is like 2005 AMD Athlon 2.1 GHZ. Get tired of the dogginess of drives - although it's almost all doggy at this point.

With my current APU, would it bottleneck me if I bought a smoking graphics card and nother power supply?

Also, with most NewEgg stuff - if I order it and don't test it within 30 days and it's DOA, it's mine? Kind of reason that drove me to just pull the trigger to be able to get it all together and tested while I could still return some stuff.

I seem to have more fun building the machine than playing the games.
 

tennis4789

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Jul 12, 2013
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10,510
Windows 7 Experience Index 1.0 to 7.9 scale.

Processor - 6.4
Memory - 7.0
Graphics Aero - 4.5 (not sure y so low)
Gaming Graphics - 6.1
Primary Hard Disk - 7.9

Dual monitors one using HDMI and one using VGA - Works pretty good - plugged in my 46 inch TV and my 24 inch Dell monitor - wasn't quite able to run two videos at 1080. Real close to running good though.

Pretty happy with my $323 build. Fast drive bit small but soooo FAST! Haven't mailed my $20 case rebate from Newegg yet.

11 days to complete build from order date!

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Did some tweaks -

Overclocked & Only used Dell monitor
Moved memory so it was in slot 1 & 3 vs. 1 & 2.

Processor - 6.6
Memory - 7.1
Graphics Aero - 6.6
Gaming Graphics - 6.6
Primary Hard Disk - 7.9

Best low voltage card out there looks like might work with my 400 watt PS - HD 7770 - maybe with crossfire if i decide to add another later - waiting for good sale price and free software. - About $80 to $100 on NewEgg -

Things I used to benchmark all FREE for 30 days at least:
Unigine heaven benchmark - good eye candy really taxes the card my FPS as low as 6 at some points.
Passmark Performance Test 8.0
Passmark Burn in Test V7.1
Prime95 -

Anything else FREE that might be a entertaining to run?? Maybe try an XBox 360 emulator.

Fun to build the machine now if I could just get into playing games on it! It does surf the internet fast.

The memory I got does not test out very well. Might think about faster if I had it to do again or maybe 1 good 8 gig stick vs. 2X4gb.

Should be able to play most games for some time.

I did order a Logitech wireless keyboard with the mouse as part of the keyboard. LS400 $23 from Meritline.
Logitech K400 Wireless Touch Keyboard with Built-In Multi-Touch Touchpad Refurbished - Pure laziness control TV from afar.

I did use the DVD drive to install Windows 7 & will probably use it to play DVDs they look really sharp on the 46 inch 1080 via HDMI. Not a big Blue Ray fan but would not have been much more.

Bottom Line - For about $450 not including OS - can have a gaming machine that should handle all except the most graphic intensive & work very slick as a home theater.

Any Comments/Questions??/Suggestions.



 

tennis4789

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Jul 12, 2013
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10,510
Added Sapphire HD 7770 1 GB GDDR5 HD 7770 about $80 AR from Newegg - Card my Power supply should handle

New Windows Experience Index Dropped to
6.2 overall - Processor went down to 6.2 - Fix or just way it is? Maybe getting loaded bit from new graphics card.

Processor 6.2 (was 6.6)
Memory 7.1 (same)
Graphics (+1)
Gaming Graphics (+1)
Disk 7.9 (same)

Passmark went up to about 1930 vs. 1600
Uigine Heaven went to about 22 fps

All in all nice improvement. Faster processor would have been nice. Maybe later. Crossfire would be kind of cool too.

Did add a ps2/ps3 generic controller - pain in the arse to figure out how to configure it but finally did.