I've been getting a lot of advice and suggestions. One of my online friends mentioned this AMD A8-3870K Unlocked Llano 3.0GHz Socket FM1 100W Quad-Core Desktop APU (CPU + GPU) with DirectX 11 Graphic AMD Radeon HD 6550D AD3870WNGXBOX
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819106001&Tpk=N82E16819106001
and pairing it with a Radeon 6950.
I got a few questions.
1)Has anyone used this before? What do you think? If not, Why do you think it sucks/good?
2)With just the Radeon HD 6550D on the chip (with no discrete video card)... is it better than the EVGA e-geforce 8800GT 512mb that I am planning to use for a few months on whatever new computer I am going to get? Could it run current games at high, or at least medium setting? If it is better, I'll just not bother putting in the 8800GT.
3)When paired with a Radeon 6950, could it provide decent gaming for years to come at medium to maybe high settings?
4)Would the CPU/GPU get really hot and require better cooling?
5) What would be a comparable Intel Core i chip for this? Comparing just the chip (not GPU)
My friend also said there is going to be a new APU chip coming out soon that would use a new socket, so upgrading would be difficult. But I am on a budget and this is what he is suggesting. He's been using this APU for almost a year.
Since I am building my first comp... the last few days was quite confusing, lots of info, losing track of builds, scary, and stressful XD... thinking of what build to do. It is also a scary feeling because things can go wrong, especially since I would be working with a lot of components at once. If something did go wrong I wouldn't know what to do @_@... since there is no returns and only limited exchanges for the same item. It could end up being a broken 600 dollar rock.
I do do some PC maintenance on all the computers in the family.. dedusting PSU fan, changing new PSU, taking out vid card to dedust , taking off the HSF to dedust, general dedusting. I never really touched the motherboard, CPU, HDD, and ROM. Although, I might have changed the motherboard battery once... but I don't remember lol.
Regardless, I will post my final build, when I have it, just to verify things are not incompatible or that something is herp derp fail to get.