A10-5800K disappointment

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ls1m

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Nov 19, 2012
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10,510
I was trying to save money, and now I reget it :(

Current system specs:

Rosewell R5 case
Asus F2A285V Pro motherboard
AMD A10-5800K APU (cpu/gpu on-chip)
Coolmaster Hyper 212 CPU cooler (left-over from a previous build)
Added two Corsair AF-120 top chassis fans
Corsair 2x4gb 1333 memory modules oc'd to 16xx
Corsair CX600 power supply

Overclocked with Asus AI suite to 4.4 GHz
3dMark11 score: P1695 http://www.3dmark.com/3dm11/5412525

I built an AMD family computer about a year ago, with a 6-core AMD processor and NVIDIA GeForce GTX-550 TI
It just ran a 3dMark11 of P2787 http://www.3dmark.com/3dm11/5504067

I'm looking for options now. I bought two copies of Rage to test it on. Love the game; it's smooth as silk on the family computer, but on my new build it's choppy. So, my options are:
- buy faster RAM
- buy an HD 7660 & do the dual-graphics thing
- disable the on-chip GPU and put in a real graphics card

I'm leaning towards the last option. Question: is it possible to disable the on-chip GPU? If so, will it still take an overclock? Asus's utility seems to assume that it's the only GPU in the system. Not sure what will happen if I install a discrete card...

Any advice is welcome, EXCEPT, please don't tell me "told ya so" or "if you wanted a gaming computer, why the fxxx did you get an APU?" I do NOT want to replace the motherboard or CPU. It's running very stable right now, and my only complaint is that the graphics performance isn't up to what I was hoping.

I can afford a graphics card, not TOO expensive, but enough to get me, oh, past the 3000 score on 3dmark11?

Thanks
-Mark

 
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jay2tall

jay2tall

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Apr 9, 2007
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I would go with the 3rd option as well. Nothing beats a good old single dedicated card. Something like an AMD 7850 or better would do the trick. I believe option 2 with a 6670 (that's what pairs with the APU) would get you roughly the same performance as a 7770ish. Option 1 would buy you a little better graphics performance.

Not to twist the knife or anything, but is there any option to return the APU and motherboard? That is all you would really need to replace or potentially find someone that is looking for that setup and sell it for a discount. Just some options. Maybe someone on Craigslist if willing to trade of buy it from ya.
 
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DarkSable

DarkSable

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Sep 27, 2012
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Yep, the last option works great. Yes, you can in fact disable the onboard GPU and gain a whole lot of overclocking headroom.

Just as a question, what about option 4... replace the family computer with the APU
rig? It should be more than enough for basic use, and you'd get a bit better setup that way.
 
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elohelz

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Oct 23, 2012
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+3 for the third option, I think that would make the most pronounced effect.

Also, just from my experience, putting a lot of money upfront in a build has always worked very well for me. I built my first gaming rig when I was in 10th grade. Spent about $1400 on it buying the best parts I could afford. I'm 24 now and replacing it with an updated build for the first time. $1400 over 8 years isn't too bad IMO, especially with the way technology flies. Of course I wasn't playing any of the latest games on blazing specs, but it ran well enough that I was ok with it up until this point.
 
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ls1m

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Nov 19, 2012
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I can't trade with the family computer because my son uses it for game design - the whole reason why I bought (what I thought was) a high-end graphics card for it. My laptop with its single core and 2gb of memory needed replacing, so I went on Newegg to just basically duplicate the one I had built before, but then I saw that (*^^#(@#!!! video about the new APU's and though it'd be even faster; I've never liked the built-in graphics on the mb, but figured the on-chip ones would be really fast since it doesn't have to go through the bus... stupid decision, but now I'm stuck with it. It improved alot with overclocking, but if I get the gist of what I've been reading, even adding faster ram and going dual-graphics won't get me where I want to be.

Thanks for the advice; I think I'll look into the 7850. Do you think sticking with AMD for the gpu card is a good idea?
 
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jay2tall

jay2tall

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Apr 9, 2007
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The 7850 will work fine. PCI-e 3.0 is backward compatible with PCI-E 2.0. I run a 3.0 card in a 2.0 slot.
 
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ls1m

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Nov 19, 2012
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Really... gosh they don't make things easy do they. Thank you all for the advice. I feel wiser - or maybe I'm just getting loopy from working all day on a stupid database... but that's another story...
 
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ohiou_grad_06

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Dec 19, 2006
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Get the 7850 you will love it! I just built a new system with an fx 8120, which despite the reviews runs great at 4ghz with the 7850. But for one night I used the 7850 with my older Athlon quad core at just 3 ghz, even there performance was not bad considering an older generation chip that was entry level then. Grab a 7850, aftermarket cooler for your CPU, and overclock that puppy as high as it will go, then you can save up for a new board/CPU for later if you like.
 
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ls1m

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Nov 19, 2012
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10,510
OK I'm convinced :) It's starting to make me dizzy, moving around in the game, with the choppy movements.

Couple of questions: any favorite brand? and will my corsair CX600 power supply handle the new load? I was going to add one more 120mm fan - the case came with two intake fans in the front (for the hard drive cage) & one exhaust on the back, I added two intake fans on the top (positive pressure) & they put fresh air right in front of the fan on the aftermarket cooker (hyper 212 - CPU temp never gets above 50-50 degC even overclocked), and to feed the graphics card some cool air I was going to add one more fan on the bottom, blowing air up from below the case. If I'm looking at the pictures right, I think the graphics card fans face down, so that should work you.

Thanks again :)
 
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jacobsta811

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May 26, 2012
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You have enough power supply for a GTX 680 -a 7850 won't even come close to maxing it out. I actually have an A10-5800k with a 7850 1gb - works great. CPU at least when overclocked seems to be no slower than a similarly priced i3. I bought the A10-5800k and some of that Samsung DDR3-1600 1.35V ram that is supposed to overclock really well. While I could and did drop the timings at 1600 to like 8-8-8-22, it wouldn't boot at *all* at 1866, no matter how much voltage applied or how loose the settings. So I just decided to get a decent standalone card instead of spending more money on different RAM, etc.
 
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butremor

butremor

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Oct 23, 2012
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Really, a10's igpu needs at least 1600 mhz ram, preferably 1866 to show full potential.
Looks like you didn't do full research. AFAIK igpu can be disabled, which also would result in lower power consumption. 7850 is a great choice if on tight budget.
 
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ls1m

Honorable
Nov 19, 2012
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10,510
Actually, I originally bought some fast RAM but had to return it because the computer kept crashing. From my research, I concluded that I would never get the kind of grapics performance that I could get from a discrete card, no matter how much time & money I sank into faster RAM and overclocking.

So, this weekend I got an Asus 2gb Radeon HD7850, and I LOVE it! Ran a P4812 on 3dmark11 (vs. P1695 on the APU). There's no bios option to defeat the on-chip gpu; it just auto-detects and turns itself off if there's no monitor attached to it. I'm still mad at myself for trying to save money; I can see a new motherboard/cpu/ram in my future...

My CPU runs a lot cooler now. During the game, I was getting up to 52degC, and now it only hit 44. I re-ran the Asus overclock utility, but it still won't go over 4.4GHz. Oh, well... this'll do me for a while. Thanks everyone for the help!

-Mark
 
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