New Gaming PC for Nephew.His 1st,Pic's attached.

[jboydgolfer]

Hello TPU,
***EDIT***
AMD idea scrapped, Going intel....Sorry for those who offered help, it was a matter which was out of my control, but I'm happy it turned out this way. Anyway, it's My nephew Colby's 1st PC...it'll be an i3 4xxx
GPU...7870 Ghz edition..(got it for $99USD NEW on Ebay
the rest is in the process of ordering.

I am going to be building a "from scratch" PC by the new year. I have decided for price purposes to go with AMD. MY issue lies here.....I have a good bit of experience building PC's based on Intel CPU's , but I am JUST short of completely ignorant when it comes to AMD's chip's, and more importantly they're capabilities. My main concerns are these....

This PC will be used for 1080 gaming of the FPS/action variety, and web surfing.Highest settings are NOT important, just as long as it will run playable frames, i.e. 35+fps (ballpark).
I have been leaning towards a FX, or NON APU AMD chip, and a dGPU, since as we ALL know that is the Safest bet when building a mainly gaming rig.However, I have been noticing that people are CLAIMING decent framerates, on 1080p games while running some of the "higher end" AMD APU's.

So My question finally.....is this for real, or a simple matter of people posting misinformation?
Can I actually invest in a 12 core APU(A10-7850K Kaveri) for instance, and get reasonable Frames in say....Battlefield 4?

As far as the rest of the PC is concerned, I really have no questions, since it really doesn't differ from an Intel build once You get away from the Processing unit's.

So in Closing, Can it be done, with a High end APU to achieve decent frames @ 1080p?

I'd really love to hear from an owner of a A10 with ACTUAL input to offer, and preferably no opinions from those with google answers, Since I can google on My own

Thanks ahead of time for any and all constructive replies.

 

[GhostRyder]

Hello TPU,

I am going to be building a "from scratch" PC by the new year. I have decided for price purposes to go with AMD. MY issue lies here.....I have a good bit of experience building PC's based on Intel CPU's , but I am JUST short of completely ignorant when it comes to AMD's chip's, and more importantly they're capabilities. My main concerns are these....

This PC will be used for 1080 gaming of the FPS/action variety, and web surfing.Highest settings are NOT important, just as long as it will run playable frames, i.e. 35+fps (ballpark).
I have been leaning towards a FX, or NON APU AMD chip, and a dGPU, since as we ALL know that is the Safest bet when building a mainly gaming rig.However, I have been noticing that people are CLAIMING decent framerates, on 1080p games while running some of the "higher end" AMD APU's.

So My question finally.....is this for real, or a simple matter of people posting misinformation?
Can I actually invest in a 12 core APU(A10-7850K Kaveri) for instance, and get reasonable Frames in say....Battlefield 4?

As far as the rest of the PC is concerned, I really have no questions, since it really doesn't differ from an Intel build once You get away from the Processing unit's.

So in Closing, Can it be done, with a High end APU to achieve decent frames @ 1080p?

I'd really love to hear from an owner of a A10 with ACTUAL input to offer, and preferably no opinions from those with google answers, Since I can google on My own

Thanks ahead of time for any and all constructive replies.

Well ill start with the APU part being someone who has built and tested multiple APU machines for friends including 3 7850K variants.

The A10 7850K can deliver excellent performance but you need to have high speed ram. I built a machine using that chip, an Asrock A88X ITX board, 8gb DDR3 2400, and a AIO 240mm cooler. I overclocked the CPU portion to 4.7ghz easily (Could have done more) and temps remained just fine, I then overclocked the GPU portion to over 1gz ( I cannot remember the exact setting) and the performance was actually quite shocking. I installed BF4 (Came free at the time and he wanted it) to try it out and I ran 1080p medium-high settings keeping around 40FPS with it (Some spiking around of course but actually pretty stable). He mostly plays steam games on it and some LoL which the thing does very well at 1080p using the iGPU.

Personally, depending on your budget though, my suggestion is if your trying to keep price down go for the Athlon 860K over it and a separate GPU as that will still end up being faster. I have played with an 860K and about to play with another for a friend and the first overclocked to 5ghz with surprisingly reasonable voltages (Well considering) and paired well with a second hand HD 7950. He games on 1080p and does ultra in many if not most games (MSAA normally is not on from what I have seen him playing at LAN events).

If you want AMD and to spend a bit more, getting an FX 8XXX is not a bad solution just becoming a bit dated as far as a platform goes. It still delivers great performance up to 1440p with the right cards.

 

[jboydgolfer]

yeah, the dGPU way is certainly the Safest way to go, but I just figured I'd ask someone who knew, before I made any decisions. I appreciate hearing from a person with experience. Thanks for Your time, and for Your assistance. I figured I MIGHT be able to save some $$ and skip the dGPU ....Me thinks I'm stuck with spendig that $$ though. well a Man can dream.
Newegg has the Richland 760K I believe it is, @ $100 usd. I'm beginning to wonder if I could pull off a Dual core..... a quad is clearly best, but I wonder what the performance would be with a dual instead of a quad.

 

[GhostRyder]

yeah, the dGPU way is certainly the Safest way to go, but I just figured I'd ask someone who knew, before I made any decisions. I appreciate hearing from a person with experience. Thanks for Your time, and for Your assistance. I figured I MIGHT be able to save some $$ and skip the dGPU ....Me thinks I'm stuck with spendig that $$ though. well a Man can dream.
Newegg has the Richland 760K I believe it is, @ $100 usd. I'm beginning to wonder if I could pull off a Dual core..... a quad is clearly best, but I wonder what the performance would be with a dual instead of a quad.

Meh, the 860K was at 89 on newegg and its a better deal (Newer architecture) if you can grab it. Personally I have only ever messed with one of the old 5XXX dual core unlocked variants before and to put it bluntly it was pretty poor in the performance category even overclocking it. It really does not have near enough power with only 2 cores available to drive anything but bear minimums with that architecture. I would not go lower than a quad on an APU because they just do not have the performance to back it up, if your interested in a decent dual core at that point I would say get the Pentium Anniversary chip and overclock that.

 

[Toothless]

I'd say go with the FX-6300 and a dGPU. The 6300 is a pretty solid chip and it ran in my rig before the board died due to bad board. 6300+GTX660 ran even AC4 on pretty good settings, staying above 40FPS. BF3 was about 70+FPS on medium/high settings. Multitasks pretty well if you're into that kind of thing.

 

[eidairaman1]

860K Athlon FM2+/6800K/7850. Other than that Major Toy Chips were the 555BE PhII X2, followed by the 550BE, 560BE, 565BE, 570BE and PhII X4 960T BE.
965-980BE were quads, 1090T/1100T were X6 units.

Then

4350,6300/6350,8320,8350,8370/E.

9 series are 220W parts

 

[TRWOV]

I second the 6300 route: it cost just $10 more than the 4300 but those $10 get you 2 more cores AND the full 8MB of L3 cache (4300 only has 4MB). Only a handful of games scale beyond 4 treads so you're not losing much for steeping down from an 83xx and the savings are substantial.

Regarding the APU you've got to understand that the iGPU offers barely adequate 1080p performance now but it will become less and less adequate as the time goes on so you might end going for a discrete GPU anyways. The APUs are amazing chips, I know that (my everyday rig is an Athlon 5350) but they have their limits.

 

[eidairaman1]

I second the 6300 route: it cost just $10 more than the 4300 but those $10 get you 2 more cores AND the full 8MB of L3 cache (4300 only has 4MB). Only a handful of games scale beyond 4 treads so you're not losing much for steeping down from an 83xx and the savings are substantial.

Regarding the APU you've got to understand that the iGPU offers barely adequate 1080p performance now but it will become less and less adequate as the time goes on so you might end going for a discrete GPU anyways. The APUs are amazing chips, I know that (my everyday rig is an Athlon 5350) but they have their limits.

He went intel...

 

[jboydgolfer]

I had to put the build on Hold due to a family emergency,but it will be getting ordered over the next day or So, and I'll be building it for My nephew, So I'll post pics of the build, and components.

STILL haven't pulled the trigger on ANY particular assortment of parts. I started leaning toward an i3 4xxx, because of the hyperthreading it should be pretty good, and then going from there, but I MIGHT still go AMD, dunno as of yet. I've been putting builds together on Newegg, and Amazon for the last couple weeks, and seeing what I get for My budget($450 or So USD).I've come up with a few, but I keep flopping.And neweggs Pre-combo'd deals are Terrible in MOST cases, they will have like all great components , and a TERRIBLE rosewill PSU, or a Good Corsair PSU, and terrible RAM, or some other combination of mostly good parts with a couple or ONE crap component. I submitted feedback to them saying they SHOULD include Customizable combo's.

 

[GhostRyder]

I had to put the build on Hold due to a family emergency,but it will be getting ordered over the next day or So, and I'll be building it for My nephew, So I'll post pics of the build, and components.

STILL haven't pulled the trigger on ANY particular assortment of parts. I started leaning toward an i3 4xxx, because of the hyperthreading it should be pretty good, and then going from there, but I MIGHT still go AMD, dunno as of yet. I've been putting builds together on Newegg, and Amazon for the last couple weeks, and seeing what I get for My budget($450 or So USD).I've come up with a few, but I keep flopping.And neweggs Pre-combo'd deals are Terrible in MOST cases, they will have like all great components , and a TERRIBLE rosewill PSU, or a Good Corsair PSU, and terrible RAM, or some other combination of mostly good parts with a couple or ONE crap component. I submitted feedback to them saying they SHOULD include Customizable combo's.

If you are looking for a complete build suggestion for around 500 or less let me put a quick one together for you and see what you think:

(I put this first one together for someone else first and its a bit above what you said but thought I would show you)
i3 4360 & Corsair vengeance 8gb (2x4gb) 1600 Combo
PC R9 270
Asrock H97m Pro4
Rosewill ARC 550watt bronze (Bit overkill but its a great value right now though you can go lower)
WD 1tb 7200RPM
CM N200 Case

~$579, its a bit above but thought I would throw it out there. It has a lot of rebates with it currently so if you include all those it would be ~500.

Alternatively more in your price group here is another suggestion:
Athlon X4 760K and Crucial Sport 8gb (2x4gb) 1600 (860K out of stock but I would get it if you can)
Asrock A88M Extreme4 (you can go lower I just like this boards price to quality)
PC R9 270

Rosewill ARC 550watt bronze (Bit overkill but its a great value right now though you can go lower)
WD 1tb 7200RPM
CM N200 Case (This is more filler for any $50 buck case

~512, again same as before there are a lot of rebates to drop it way lower.

This is just some things I found that are decent values right now. The PC R9 270 is a deal at $150 as your not going to find better for that price and actually the R7 265 is right around that ones price. The Rosewill Arc 550 is a bit overkill but considering other prices of PSU's and the fact this is a decent PSU its a good value right now and the 1tb WD drive is just the least expensive 1tb drive. The case is more place holder value as you can go a bit lower though I warn that on cheap cases below $50 you start to get some that are very mediocre which may not bother you but you notice a lot of little things pretty fast (But the point is I would just pick whatever case you think would look the best to you). As for the processors, Intel is going to be more powerful overall but at this area and 1080p an Athlon X4 processor is enough and does a great job which could help with the budget in getting a lot of better components in other areas.

Just a suggestion.

 

[jboydgolfer]

CPU finally came in today...they will all arrive over the next couple weeks, I thought I'd attach some pic's, since maybe others like PC (hardware)porn as much as I do..
Diamond 7870Ghz edition coming either tomorrow, or monday...."boing"

God I love new Hardware

 

[...PACMAN...]

yep can't beat some geek porn. Looking forward to finished build, hope it goes smoothly for you

 

[rruff]

CPU finally came in today...they will all arrive over the next couple weeks, I thought I'd attach some pic's, since maybe others like PC (hardware)porn as much as I do..
Diamond 7870Ghz edition coming either tomorrow, or monday...."boing"

Great choice of CPU and GPU for a budget gaming rig!

 

[jboydgolfer]

Got a few more pics....
Cougar MicroATX Gaming case...USB 3.0 front panel support, etc...My only beef is the Top mount PSU...but My choice of PSU will make it a breeze.
Seagate Barracude 1TB.... No frills HDD, but not bad for an 11Y/O's First PC..
Diamond Multimedia 7870Ghz edition.(Got lucky, and Found Diamond Doing a purge of they're inventory,and they were selling Brand new in box 7870 Ghz edition's for $99USD free shipping.) For the hundred bucks I COULDN'T pass it up. registered for the 5Year warranty too
NZXT 550Watt FULL modular PSU... 40+ amp 12+ single rail, etc.... You know the deal if Your here.(got it for $55 USD on the Egg...(WANTED to do a deal from a Fellow TPU'r , but got F'ed with some family shit, and went this way instead.)Either way, a GREAT PSU for ANY build, not to mention a first timers Rig.
and thats all until the MoBo comes in from Indiana... last I checked it was in Maryland, So another day or two till it reaches Massachussetts.
Enjoy , and I'll be CERTAIN to post the Pic's of the Final, and complete build....Seems silly that I've NEVER posted a finished build when I've done SO many ...

I apologize for the NOT so great image quality.... I couldn't be bothered to pull out my good cam. Also, TPU image hosting seems to be f'ed up for Me....error after error. I dunno.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811553011
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148840
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157512
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817116023
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819117447

And I'm just gonna Yank 8Gb's of RAM out of another of My PC's for this build.

 

[jboydgolfer]

The video quality was terrible after completing this build......I knew INSTANTLY what the problem was once I opened the case up ....

LOL .... I couldn't resist, Sorry. still waiting on the Damn motherboard...

 

[rtwjunkie]

Sure, I know it was a joke, but on a serious side, I don't think anyone who has built a system or two hasn't at some point discovered they forgot to hook something up!

Thanks for the posting, and I will be checking in on this. Love me some Geek Porn!

 

[jboydgolfer]

and........The MoBo is finally here..

im getting to work on it ASAP....and I'll post the finished look.BTW...I HATE Fed-Ex "Smart-Post"... add's new meaning to the term "Snail-Mail".

 

[jboydgolfer]

Took a while to get the time to post these up .. sorry. I was busy, the build went easy enough, I still have NO clue why Asrock put the HD audio header towards the back of the board, underneath the GPU....Was kinda tight being a smaller case with larger components, but aside from some minor cable management that my nephew had NO patience to let Me do, this baby is done...No space behind the Motherboard tray made it hard, The build quality of the case felt nice, materials were good, that motherboard is nice, but WTF Asrock?? Could You have made Your A-tuning or whatever any more ridiculously complicated??Worst fan controlling UI EVER. AXTU was perfectly fine, dunno why they changed it.
Seagate 1Tb Barracuda super easy.Seasonic, All I use is Corsair/Seasonic , no frowns there. It get great frames all day on newer titles like BF4/FC4/ I'm not the one benching them, but I've seen him playing them, and they look great. thanks For Your interest, and conversation till the next one.


His ass has been stuck to his PC chair since I handed it over to Him this past week..... I'd say it was a Real success, He's happy, and I had fun building it. Win-Win.

P.S. I feel it's worth mentioning that Cougar made this case fairly well, that GPU is JUST shy of 10 inches (255mm) , and as You can see I could have installed one that was another 5 inces longer. This is REALLY nice to see in a Mini Gaming tower. thanks to them. Also, the PSU had room to spare as well, and its a Standard ATX PSU.

 

[FireFox]

His ass has been stuck to his PC chair since I handed it over to Him this past week..... I'd say it was a Real success, He's happy, and I had fun building it. Win-Win.

Congratulations @jboydgolfer, Good Job

 

[...PACMAN...]

Very well done and good cable management. When I get back to the UK you have inspired me to build my nephews their first gaming PC, I'm actually getting excited for them whilst looking at parts I may even include them in helping to build it so they know how everything fits and stuff.

 

[jboydgolfer]

Thanks To those who followed my build. My gratitude to TPU.... all gone now....sorry.

 

[peche]

Thanks To those who followed my build. And to show My gratitude to TPU.... PM me for a gift.first come first serve. I have some games ... extras from indie gala

thats the main reason we are here!
To share, contribute, cheer and have fun dude!


Regards.