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A10 APU? Tight budget gaming PC

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  • AMD
  • CPUs
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April 16, 2014 9:17:55 AM

Hey guys!

Do you think its a good idea to buy an AMD A10 7850 APU with integrated graphics for a gaming PC?
This PC is for a friend and he is on a very tight budget (500-550$) and wants to play Titanfall on it. He wants to get a nice GPU for Christmas but until Christmas he already wants to play some games. So I thought its a good idea to buy this APU and throw in a gaming GPU on Christmas.
(maybe a 270x or 280x)
Im not really sure if this is a good idea.
Is the CPU strong enough for the GPU? (Bottleneck)
Is the APU good enough to play games like Titanfall on medium?

Thanks for any answer!

EhmAitschKay

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April 16, 2014 9:24:02 AM

I'd pick up an Athlon 760K and dGPU instead. CPU is basically the same, but you normally get a faster GPU for the price and can use it elsewhere later. RAM speed doesn't make as much difference, either.

US? Need Windows?
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April 16, 2014 9:24:29 AM

EhmAItschKayNY said:
Hey guys!

Do you think its a good idea to buy an AMD A10 7850 APU with integrated graphics for a gaming PC?
This PC is for a friend and he is on a very tight budget (500-550$) and wants to play Titanfall on it. He wants to get a nice GPU for Christmas but until Christmas he already wants to play some games. So I thought its a good idea to buy this APU and throw in a gaming GPU on Christmas.
(maybe a 270x or 280x)
Im not really sure if this is a good idea.
Is the CPU strong enough for the GPU? (Bottleneck)
Is the APU good enough to play games like Titanfall on medium?

Thanks for any answer!

EhmAitschKay


Not on medium I don't believe. The APUs are designed for Minecraft playing, and other low GPU games. It is better to build slowly, then to buy cheap and need to upgrade later. Here is a problem I could see happening. You use an APU. You get a good GPU. Later on, you want a better, faster, more gaming oriented CPU like the FX line. You will have to ditch the old board, and get a new one. I made the same mistake with my system, buying the cheaper components, the realizing they would explode when I overclocked. I am in ~$300 for a water cooling loop, and ~$200 for a new motherboard.
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April 16, 2014 9:27:07 AM

I can run Battlefield 4 @ 720p on Medium with Mantel on my 7850K.

It should handle Titanfall, the requirements are not very high. It's going to depend on the speed of your RAM, and it performs significantly better at lower resolutions. 2133 Mhz RAM will make a huge difference.

I have yet to find a game I cannot run at all. I play Diablo III, Street Fighter IV and Starcraft II with no issues.

I agree with the second post though, buy a cheaper CPU and pick up any dedicated GPU if you plan to game.
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April 16, 2014 10:04:14 AM

If he is planning to get a good GPU for the holidays I'd suggest he use his current GPU with this instead:

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: AMD FX-6300 3.5GHz 6-Core Processor ($109.99 @ Amazon)
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO 82.9 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler ($35.98 @ Newegg)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-970A-UD3P ATX AM3+ Motherboard ($81.98 @ SuperBiiz)
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws X Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1866 Memory ($79.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Seagate Barracuda 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($69.98 @ OutletPC)
Case: Cooler Master HAF 912 ATX Mid Tower Case ($49.99 @ Newegg)
Power Supply: Rosewill Hive 650W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply ($77.31 @ Amazon)
Optical Drive: Asus DRW-24B1ST/BLK/B/AS DVD/CD Writer ($19.98 @ OutletPC)
Total: $510.20
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-04-16 13:03 EDT-0400)

if he can swing an extra %80 or so a boot SSD can be added to this list. Add a nice GPU later. An R9 270 or 280 with a Samsung Evo or Crucial M500 SSD in the 120-250GB range would be a good fit.

Note: That motherboard has 8+2 power, great for overclocking and able to support an 8 core CPU later if he needs to upgrade that. Just be aware the 970 series boards don't do crossfire or SLI well with just 1 x16 slot supported. You need a 990 FX board to get 2 x x16 GPUs going. So get the best single GPU he can afford for this setup.
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April 16, 2014 11:29:47 AM

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: Intel Core i3-4130 3.4GHz Dual-Core Processor ($118.97 @ OutletPC)
Motherboard: MSI H81M-P33 Micro ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($49.98 @ OutletPC)
Memory: G.Skill Ares Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($64.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Seagate Barracuda 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($54.99 @ Amazon)
Video Card: HIS Radeon R7 250X 1GB Video Card ($99.99 @ Micro Center)
Case: Corsair 200R ATX Mid Tower Case ($49.99 @ NCIX US)
Power Supply: EVGA 600B 600W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply ($54.99 @ NCIX US)
Optical Drive: LG GH24NSB0 DVD/CD Writer ($15.98 @ OutletPC)
Total: $509.88
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-04-16 14:29 EDT-0400)
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April 16, 2014 9:32:58 PM

Thanks for every answer!
He has no GPU at the moment because he uses a Laptop.
I think well just go with the FX6350 bundled with the Asrock 970 extreme3 and a Radeon HD 6450 2gb for 205$. Is that a better way? We woul upgrade the GPU later this year.
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April 16, 2014 9:34:32 PM

Radeon HD 6570 2gb is in this price range too.
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April 17, 2014 4:32:39 AM

6570 is a terrible card, but it will make for a better overall system when he upgrades. The A10-7850K isn't terrible, I just wouldn't depend on it as my primary gaming rig if you plan to play new games. I use it for a HTPC.
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April 17, 2014 6:20:19 AM

EhmAItschKayNY said:
Thanks for every answer!
He has no GPU at the moment because he uses a Laptop.
I think well just go with the FX6350 bundled with the Asrock 970 extreme3 and a Radeon HD 6450 2gb for 205$. Is that a better way? We woul upgrade the GPU later this year.


Your budget was 500-550, my build met that. A 250x is a rebadged HD 7770. It would allow for gaming now. The system also has enough upgrade potential to get something better later. AM3+ is pretty much a dead end now.
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April 17, 2014 9:39:08 AM

And if we go with the Intel 4670k and integrated HD graphics 4600? Is the internal graphic strong enough to handle Titanfall on medium an min. 30 FPS? We would throw in a nice GPU later this year.
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April 17, 2014 10:13:32 AM

hello EhmAitschKay

A new A10 apu is a great cpu for budged gaming. with directx 12 and mantel well on its way we whont be needing a huge cpu anymore. also keep in mind that an A10 apu can use its gpu for more than just gaming it replaces the cpu in some ways what can make them even vaster then an I7 in some tasks. even with an dGPU in the system. this is because a dGPU cant help the cpu. its just a slave of the CPU! And in the new APU's the gpu and cpu work together as 1.
Adding a dGPU is still posible and you will still benefit from the onboard APU.
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April 17, 2014 10:23:53 AM

EhmAItschKayNY said:
And if we go with the Intel 4670k and integrated HD graphics 4600? Is the internal graphic strong enough to handle Titanfall on medium an min. 30 FPS? We would throw in a nice GPU later this year.


No, not at all
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April 17, 2014 11:00:00 AM

I built a pc for my cousin on a small budget and found an FX 4130 tray edition for $39, and a MSI 7770 for $90...blows an A10 7850K out by far.

Plays battlefield 4 on a mix of medium / high settings at 1080p.
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April 17, 2014 11:48:53 AM

Coolmax PSU's are junk, you want two sticks of ram for dual channel, and the 750k is not a very good gaming chip. Its lack of L3 cache hurts it to the point where it is slower than an old Phenom II X4 at the same clock speeds. This would be a much better build for you.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: Intel Core i3-4130 3.4GHz Dual-Core Processor ($118.97 @ OutletPC)
Motherboard: MSI H81M-P33 Micro ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($49.98 @ OutletPC)
Memory: G.Skill Ares Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($64.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($49.99 @ Amazon)
Video Card: Sapphire Radeon R9 270X 2GB Video Card ($209.98 @ NCIX US)
Case: Xigmatek Recon ATX Mid Tower Case ($29.99 @ Newegg)
Power Supply: EVGA 500W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply ($44.99 @ Amazon)
Optical Drive: Samsung SH-224DB/BEBE DVD/CD Writer ($15.98 @ OutletPC)
Wireless Network Adapter: Encore ENUWI-2XN45 802.11b/g/n USB 2.0 Wi-Fi Adapter ($15.92 @ Amazon)
Total: $600.79
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-04-17 14:47 EDT-0400)
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