A8-3850 Radeon HD 5670

[wmich50]

Hello,
Need a budget system suitable for Inkscape, GIMP, and MyPaint on Linux.

Have just ordered a Shell Shocker deal that includes:
APU AMD | A8-3850 2.9G 4M FM1 %
MEM 4G|G.SKILL F3-10600CL9S-4GBNT R

The MB has PCI Express 2.0x16 slot
and a PCI Express x1 slot
and I have a NVIDIA GeForce GT 240 which is PCI Express 2.0

Wondering if memory upgrade or new discrete gpu or both would be helpful in improving performance with graphic editing programs on this system

Thanks

 

[Raiddinn]

Try it with out a discrete graphics card. The processor built into the A8 is a very strong one. The best available that is built into a processor.

If it doesn't perform to your liking, you could look at getting another 6670 to add in. I think the 6670 is most like what comes on the A8s. If so, that is definitely what you should add in as a second graphics processor. You should be able to verify this pretty easily if it gets to this point.

 

[k1114]

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gaming-graphics-card-review,3107-7.html The integrated is about equal to a 6450. Having used the hd 3000, which is a good deal worse than the 6550d, in photoshop easily handling hi res 4k+ images, the 240 is plenty. You will want at least 8gb ram. I would suggest getting the same ram so you know it is compatible with the one in the combo.

 

[Raiddinn]

8GB is good if you have a 64 bit OS. Especially with RAM intensive programs being used.

However, I don't think I would insert a GTX240 in the computer in any event. I would just say use the one built into the A8 or to crossfire it with another similar ATI card instead.

 

[k1114]

Those programs don't support cf. He has a 240 already which is better than the integrated so why not use what he already has and save some cash in not buying another card? I would agree the integrated would handle it though.

 

[wmich50]

Thanks for the responses. Just now ordered another 4 GB memory.
Will try both with and without the Nvidia card when the system gets here.

My old system is Athlon 3800+ with 3GB memory
Vector editing the problem, so I don't know whether the CPU or the GPU
is the worst bottleneck. Probably both.

Thanks again.

 

[horaciopz]

Well in my opinion.

A 6670 1gb GDDR5 is more powerful than a GT 240 512MB GDDR5 and the best thing is that you can Crossfirex the 6670 with the A8 integrate GPU and get a better performance, lets say something like 6750...

For video editing for sure I would go over a 6670 instead of a GT240, its not only more powerful, it is, also newer and Supports Directx 11 which the Nvidia's card doesnt support...

 

[Raiddinn]

I don't know, I guess I just think if someone gets an A8 then they should use the graphics on it and not using it would be like admitting you failed somehow during the PC building/buying process.

Just how I look at it anyway.

It is built into the processor and has some advantages based on that. If it is indeed the same as, say, a 6670, then it would be better to use the one on the processor instead of disabling the processor graphics and using a 6670 in a PCIE slot.

It would have lower heat and should have much more bandwidth when interacting with the processor, for two.

The ability to use newer directX is nice too. Also, it may or may not help to crossfire with the programs that they are using, but they could also change to other programs or the programs could be re-written to use crossfiring.

Anyway, I like it the best to just remain with no graphics cards in an A8 system, second most to have an equivalent ATI card to crossfire, third most to disable the A8 graphics and use some other card instead.

 

[wmich50]

Right. This is a Linux machine. Directx not important. I just want a good environment to do graphics editing.

 

[grumbledook]

Remember to get faster than 1333 ram, the system benefits far more from it than intel and amd's other offerings.

 

[horaciopz]

Ok so I just failed Lol ! I didnt read carefully so I missed the linux part.

Well I have to say you're okay with that build. Try with the onboard video from the A8, it pretty good, later use your GT240 if you think you are going to need some more power. Gotta say that if you are going need more power you did not make a great choice getting an A8, you should have gotten other kind of processor and use your actual GT240 since your programs wont use Crossfirex or Linux use Directx... for that money an I 3 with a bugdet mobo and 8GB ram would run faster your aplication...

 

[wmich50]

Actually I had already ordered an FX4100 and motherboard when the A8 deal showed up on New Egg.
I canceled that order and bought the A8 system.
At least I won't have to keep seeing that ugly beige case and I'll have usb ports in the front.

 

[horaciopz]

Theres a good thing, you got an FM1 mobo which will lead you to some new processors with diferent socket from amd, the Llano series you could get as upgrade a A10 or some other cpus from "trinity" the new architecture of APUs from AMD which will be 50% more powerfull...

 

[k1114]

Theres a good thing, you got an FM1 mobo which will lead you to some new processors with diferent socket from amd, the Llano series you could get as upgrade a A10 or some other cpus from "trinity" the new architecture of APUs from AMD which will be 50% more powerfull...

Fx4100 is am3+ which will work with the coming vishera. Trinity will be fm2 and there are place that say it may or may not be compatible with fm1. Amd claims 20% faster which is normal for any new release from intel or amd. http://www.anandtech.com/show/5013/details-on-trinity-amds-next-gen-apu Trinity is the platform codename, piledriver is the architecture.

Vector graphic editing software are cpu calculated but I wouldn't say an i3 would be much better. Any modern cpu should handle it with ease. The software uses very little gpu.

 

[Raiddinn]

I would say it is a good thing you didn't get the FX processor. The A8 Llanos work a lot better out of the box than FX processors do.

In any event, you should probably be fine as it is.

 

[Raiddinn]

Remember to get faster than 1333 ram, the system benefits far more from it than intel and amd's other offerings.

Do you have a source for this?

The benchmarks I have seen using real world games and productivity apps don't show even 1 FPS difference or 1 second difference in any program between 2133 RAM and 1333 RAM.

The only things that did show differences were archiving programs like Winzip and the difference was about 7 seconds out of 3 minutes.

If you have seen other testing with real world programs that differs from the ones I have read, I would definitely like to see it.

A good rule of thumb to go by is that your RAM is not ever your bottleneck even with 1333 RAM. The only way you would see even 1 FPS difference would be if your RAM was bottlenecked and it is extremely difficult to build a system where that is the case.

- Edit - Clarity

 

[k1114]

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/amd-a8-3850-llano,2975-6.html What Raiddinn is referring to is with a sandy bridge or even nehalem. Apu's ipgu will actually benefit with faster ram. After all, the igpu uses the ram as vram so when you have faster ram, you have faster vram. You think this would be true for intel's ipgu but it's not. Maybe they're just too weak to benefit. Although ram speed is not too important for those uses, more ram is better than faster ram for you.

 

[Raiddinn]

Ok, I concede that in some corner case, it could be better to have slightly faster RAM. Even so, I am not convinced that this would be one of those cases.

You would have to have a budget low enough where it didn't make sense to stretch for a 2400 and a real video card, but also high enough budget to be able to waste a lot of money on RAM after you had all your other parts from quality maker/models

You may also have to play games on settings so high that the game is unplayable even with faster ram having a benefit. Even if you got that far, the difference probably wouldn't be noticeable.

That being said, thanks k1114 for backing up the other guy's statement with at least that example.

 

[k1114]

The link showed the integrated on mw2 which is not even that intensive(it was playing 40fps with 1333) and from 1333 to 1600 is usually $5. That speed difference was 5 fps and was kind of unfair since cas wasn't the same so the fps difference could be higher. But I would agree as I said in my last post, for his case more ram is better than faster ram.

 

[Raiddinn]

The people in the article were suggesting using 1600 CAS 7 which averages closer to $70-75 for 8GBs compared to regular 1333 which is more like $40, or about 2x. For a budget Llano system that is a pretty large swing.

Anyway, it would be easier to come up with $5 than $35 and it would get a couple more FPS at least. However, we are definitely on the same page that 4 -> 8GB > 1333 -> 1600

 

[k1114]

2x4gb 1600 cl 8 is $55, 1333 cl 7 is $49 both at 1.5v. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820226295 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231440 But we should stop this it's going off topic.