Does anyone actually game on an AMD APU?

[silentbogo]

APUs are not that bad.
I've only had a few older desktop APUs: A4-5300B and A6-5400K. Both are capable of runnning Portal and CS:GO @900p medium-low settings.
Mid-end Kaveri chips can handle almost anything @1366x768.

My cousin owns a laptop with A4-5000M onboard and he plays Skyrim on it (1366x768, Low), and that's a low-power Kabini APU.

Newer laptops with Carrizo chips on board can do mainstream gaming @1080p, considering there is an R5 240 equivalend sitting somewhere on the die (Dota 2, CS:GO, WoT, AION, WoW etc.).

 

[Sempron Guy]

Try reading reviews The R7 graphics built in on the A10 is still faster than the i3's igp. Also I used to own an itx set-up with an A8-5600k at it's core paired with a dual channel kit ddr3 2133. Played BF3 Dota 2, a bunch of post 2010 games and mostly NBA 2k14. Never failed me whatsoever. Here's my sample gameplay of it.

 

[Nosada]

My parents splurged a bit on a game room for 3 younger cousins of mine, 8, 10 and 12 years old. They play a lot of sandbox games and team-based shooters on it. They are all running A8-7600's, not overclocked, with 2133 Mhz memory (though I'd have to check how fast it's actually running). The only game so far that has been found to be truly unplayable, is ARK. All others are perfectly fine, the most surprising to me being Just Cause 2. Games like CastleMinerZ, Subnautica, JC2, Time of Dragons, Creativerse, Trove, Natural Selection 2, Star Wars the force unleashed, Robocraft, Savage Lands, Transformers, Iron Brigade, Strike Vector, Burnout Paradise, ... are their current favorites, and none of those has any issues running on medium@1080p.

All in all, the AMD APU's were a pleasant surprise for me, and made me realize what kind of huge premium we pay to get top of the line gaming machines, and when you sit in front of the screen and game, how little value those benchmarks actually have. All of this is obviously only true now, not way back when PC-gaming was about getting the most out of not-quite-yet-available hardware.

 

[rruff]

All in all, the AMD APU's were a pleasant surprise for me, and made me realize what kind of huge premium we pay to get top of the line gaming machines, and when you sit in front of the screen and game, how little value those benchmarks actually have.

That's one reason why I don't spend a lot on CPUs or GPUs. Most apps only know how to use one thread, so if you have two fast cores plus hyperthreading you are good the great majority of the time. GPU tests are often geared for the best system possible, so when they test low end hardware it's unplayable. But if you are the owner of that hardware, you just see where you have to put your settings to make a game run well, and more often than not it will be fine and look good. Even if a few recent games are unplayable, nearly all the older ones will be fine.

 

[GhostRyder]

Check that out; it's comparing the i3-6100 with the A10-7870K, which are very similar in terms of price. They are also very similar in terms of both overall CPU performance and overall GPU performance, both both are useless for "gaming" compared to a GeForce 750 Ti which at this point isn't even that great of a card, just the first number that popped into my mind for a dedicated GPU for comparison purposes. The Intel is pretty much the same price, uses half the power, has a quieter stock cooler, and can later be upgraded to an i5 or i7 while the AMD has no upgrade path, with no discernable difference in performance in terms of CPU and GPU between the two processors I mentioned. I'm also not going to include price of motherboard

I'm not trying to get into an AMD vs Intel debate (though I'm personally a diehard Intel fanboy), but I'm wondering if anybody actually uses an AMD APU for gaming? It just, to me, doesn't seem any different than gaming on the Intel integrated graphics which pretty much any gamer would not even think of doing. I will say I'm impressed how far integrated graphics have come for both companies.

The reason I'm asking is because AMD markets the APUs for gaming, though I don't think anybody would actually game on it. Again, not trying to start an AMD vs Intel flame war, just want to know if the AMD A10 makes a viable combination for a super low budget gaming rig (I say no, but maybe I'm wrong?). Thank you for any input.

"The new AMD A-Series APUs support the latest graphics APIs to bring next generation games to life. With support for these latest technologies in the latest AMD APUs, you can game at unprecedented levels of performance, with impressive effects and details."

Yes, a friend of mine was on a very tight budget so we managed to find some stellar deals on a 7850k, Asrock FM2+ A88X ITX board (Trust me, we got it for a steal on a sale at Fry's I believe) 8gb DDR3 2400, and some other stuff with it and he games on his 720p t.v very well with it. With a Hyper 212 cooling it and we overclocked the GPU and CPU (GPU beyond 1ghz) the machine plays everything at that resolution that he wants on high settings with decent enough framerate. Sure he does not play a ton of AAA games or anything (He mostly plays those on consoles) but for what he does its been great and if he needs to all hes got to do is grab a video card later. He's been playing on it for a year or two now I believe.

 

[cdawall]

That's one reason why I don't spend a lot on CPUs or GPUs. Most apps only know how to use one thread, so if you have two fast cores plus hyperthreading you are good the great majority of the time. GPU tests are often geared for the best system possible, so when they test low end hardware it's unplayable. But if you are the owner of that hardware, you just see where you have to put your settings to make a game run well, and more often than not it will be fine and look good. Even if a few recent games are unplayable, nearly all the older ones will be fine.

None of what you have said is true about anything modern. Most apps have been able to multithread since the mid 2000's.

 

[rruff]

None of what you have said is true about anything modern. Most apps have been able to multithread since the mid 2000's.

I'm talking about general use. When I look at processes, most of them don't seem to be bothering. They will just max out one core. The only times I see all of them being used are tasks that can easily be split like compression and video processing.

 

[cdawall]

I'm talking about general use. When I look at processes, most of them don't seem to be bothering. They will just max out one core. The only times I see all of them being used are tasks that can easily be split like compression and video processing.

Google chrome multithreads, office multithreads, etc. Don't trust windows processes all the time that is windows guess on utilization.

 

[newtekie1]

1. The FPS is noticable enough at least for me. Also this discussion is pointless, again, because 1866 isn't cheaper than 2400 DDR3. Seems to be rather a personal point, because someone here is using the wrong ram and is searching for excuses to do so. Well if it makes you happy, pretend that 2400 Ram is "as fast as 1866 Ram and the difference is not noticable". Sounds like Kindergarten and it pretty much is.

The RAM paired with my 7850K clocks to 2400MHz. There is just no point in running it there, so I run it at 1866, with no noticeable difference and leave the voltage at 1.35v instead of 1.7v needed for 2400MHz. If the 2400MHz made a noticeable difference, I'd run it at 2400MHz.

And no, 1-5FPS is never noticeable, to anyone.

2. This is the point, where it gets so theoretical, that I would rather wait and see what AMD is doing, then to theorize what will cost more and what will be implemented and how much the final cost will be.

3. My point holds true, that doing APU this way (with quad channel + 4 Rams / 4 Ram slots), will limit its use. Not everybody will be buying or has the money to buy 4 Rams and a suitable board for it. Those users will have the same problems with bandwidth limitation as now. Those users would rather want a HBM/L4 implementation to go the cheap route and have the performance still available. Maybe HBM will be cheap enough soon? Maybe not. You don't know. Also system memory doesn't replace discrete GPU Ram. There are some differences that are not to be ignored. A APU with HBM would surely be better, more ram, more bandwidth. Less hassle with Rams and mainboards.

And implementing HBM will limit its use more, because it will drive the cost up to the point that buying a dedicated card would be cheaper and better anyway. HBM is expensive to implement. You're talking about trading off 2 extra RAM slots for a far more complex socket and a much more expensive CPU. You're talking like implementing HBM won't cost anything, and THAT is kindergarten thinking. RAM is cheap, HBM RAM is not.

 

[rruff]

Google chrome multithreads, office multithreads, etc. Don't trust windows processes all the time that is windows guess on utilization.

Are you sure? What I'm talking about is *splitting* a specific task into multiple processes. A single thread task can run on multiple cores, but it won't complete the task any quicker than if it stayed on one. It just switches. I have a game that I know only runs one thread and it's easy to demonstrate. I can make it run on all cores and I'll see 4x25% CPU utilization when it's maxed out. If I confine it to one, then it will be 1x100%. Same speed.

If it was so easy to split most tasks we'd see a lot more scaling of performance with cores than we do.

 

[cdawall]

Are you sure? What I'm talking about is *splitting* a specific task into multiple processes. A single thread task can run on multiple cores, but it won't complete the task any quicker than if it stayed on one. It just switches. I have a game that I know only runs one thread and it's easy to demonstrate. I can make it run on all cores and I'll see 4x25% CPU utilization when it's maxed out. If I confine it to one, then it will be 1x100%. Same speed.

If it was so easy to split most tasks we'd see a lot more scaling of performance with cores than we do.

You aren't seeing anything, but what windows has made up for its cpu utilization. You do know there is no real meter on the CPU correct? It is a guesstimation made by windows.

 

[rruff]

And no, 1-5FPS is never noticeable, to anyone.

 

[rruff]

You aren't seeing anything, but what windows has made up for its cpu utilization. You do know there is no real meter on the CPU correct? It is a guesstimation made by windows.

Then I should see it in speed. And I don't.

 

[cdawall]

Then I should see it in speed. And I don't.

What? What does that have to what I said in any way? I said windows makes up what you see in task manager as far as cpu utilization goes. That has nothing to do with speed. If you use a single threaded app one core is used, if its mulithreaded mulitple cores are used. Whether or not the task scheduler bounces which core is being used has nothing to do with speed.

That's 4FPS which what he said...verbatim.

 

[rruff]

That has nothing to do with speed.

Speed is time to completion.

 

[cdawall]

Speed is time to completion.

Thank you for picking one line and misusing it.

 

[_JP_]

Yes, I do.
Needed a cheap quad and I like the idea of heaving an iGPU I can always fall back to, in case something happens to the actual GPU.
CPU-side, only Beam.NG stresses-out the cores a bit, everything else runs without a hitch.

 

[Vayra86]

Are you sure? What I'm talking about is *splitting* a specific task into multiple processes. A single thread task can run on multiple cores, but it won't complete the task any quicker than if it stayed on one. It just switches. I have a game that I know only runs one thread and it's easy to demonstrate. I can make it run on all cores and I'll see 4x25% CPU utilization when it's maxed out. If I confine it to one, then it will be 1x100%. Same speed.

If it was so easy to split most tasks we'd see a lot more scaling of performance with cores than we do.

What you are talking about is 'Out of Order Execution' or OoOE. This has been in CPU's for a long time. The 'thread swapping' that you can clearly see happening in task manager is not the same however. I believe that is just scheduling, combined with some algorithm to divide workloads evenly across cores, probably for longevity of components (even 'wear') or to promote smooth performance.

The real multithreading we ask for is virtually impossible, the render pipeline and the cpu instructions for gaming for example, are mostly sequential data. That means you can't just mix and match that data, it has to be executed in sequence, 'in order', in other words: you don't know what C is going to be, until you went from A to B first. You can't multithread that, because then you'd be working on C WHILE still determining the result of A > B. And processors can't predict the future

The best prediction we can put into a CPU is having it calculate all possible options beforehand - but this increases the load for the given instruction, so it is not always preferable and far 'slower' than just A+B=C.

It is for this reason alone that I will always recommend the fastest possible core for gaming, over more cores that will never reach similar clocks even if they're similar price (like the Skylake versus X99 debate). In the end, you will want that performance somewhere and no single game will ever be saturating more than four threads. It may be able to run up to 6 or 8 threads, but that doesn't mean having as many cores is directly a performance gain, again, due to the nature of sequential execution.

 

[rruff]

Thank you for that much better explanation of what I was trying to say!

 

[Kanan]

The RAM paired with my 7850K clocks to 2400MHz. There is just no point in running it there, so I run it at 1866, with no noticeable difference and leave the voltage at 1.35v instead of 1.7v needed for 2400MHz. If the 2400MHz made a noticeable difference, I'd run it at 2400MHz.

And no, 1-5FPS is never noticeable, to anyone.

So you're running your PC with the wrong settings to save absolute minimum energy (this alone is pretty laughable). And 1-7 or more FPS is still noticable, to me anyways. You are not God, you are just a random user in a board, sorry. This discussion is over, I don't have the time for this bullshit.

And implementing HBM will limit its use more, because it will drive the cost up to the point that buying a dedicated card would be cheaper and better anyway. HBM is expensive to implement. You're talking about trading off 2 extra RAM slots for a far more complex socket and a much more expensive CPU. You're talking like implementing HBM won't cost anything, and THAT is kindergarten thinking. RAM is cheap, HBM RAM is not.

HBM can be cheap someday if its frequently integrated in PCs/frequently produced for whatever reason, like with many hardware pieces in the past, the price goes down at some point. Seems you are badly informed again with your senseless definitive answers. I don't have the time to be your "archenemy" because you are offended that I explained optimal APU usage -- which is still with 2400 Ram on that particular CPU and not with your settings that are 1866 etc. -- and come here and start arrogant/unfriendly discussions with me about it.

You have no points, as I'm absolutely right with 2400 Ram being the optimum and as cheap as 1866 Ram or even cheaper. Waste of time discussing this further. And what AMD will do about their APUs, we will see - it's not up to you and your limited sight. You can continue this, but already your starting post failed, and you'll just fail again. Reminds me of that other discussion we had and that you lost miserably at the end.

 

[Vellinious]

I've played MechWarrior Online with a 7850k before. It was decent....

 

[LightningJR]

I have an Asus K55N with an A8 APU that does a ton of gaming at 1366x768... mostly strategy and racing games. Doesn't skip a beat. For a 3 year-old laptop it's been a champ!

hah, I have the same.


My PSU died in my PC so I am on an A8-4500M until my new PSU arrives.

I use overdrive to keep the GPU clock from decreasing and I also use PSCheck to remove all states lower than 2.3Ghz. At 768p I can play some games ok but I am not a AAA gamer by no means.

I can play DOTA2 just fine with FPS between 40-90fps, Diablo 3 isn't really playable, can stutter and drop to ~15FPS. The Binding of Isaac, Factorio, Banished and Game Dev Tycoon are all easy on a PC so I am fine.

The only thing I dislike is the laptop/apu's ability to do general tasks quickly, even with a SSD it's much slower to multitask, open web pages, multiple tabs, etc... Trying to listen/watch a YT video and do something else can be impossible at times. I keep having to bring the quality down to 480p/360p...

 

[newtekie1]

So you're running your PC with the wrong settings to save absolute minimum energy (this alone is pretty laughable). And 1-7 or more FPS is still noticable, to me anyways. You are not God, you are just a random user in a board, sorry. This discussion is over, I don't have the time for this bullshit.

It has nothing to do with saving energy and everything to do with prolonging the life of the RAM and IMC. Running the RAM at 1.7v can effect both.

HBM can be cheap someday if its frequently integrated in PCs/frequently produced for whatever reason, like with many hardware pieces in the past, the price goes down at some point. Seems you are badly informed again with your senseless definitive answers. I don't have the time to be your "archenemy" because you are offended that I explained optimal APU usage -- which is still with 2400 Ram on that particular CPU and not with your settings that are 1866 etc. -- and come here and start arrogant/unfriendly discussions with me about it.

"Cheap someday" is not cheap now, and that is what needs to be the case. We aren't talking about CPUs that are coming out in 5 years, these CPUs need to be competitive when they come out this year.

You are trying to personally attack me when you are making completely bullshit claims. HBM will be expensive to implement on Zen. There is no argument against that. To say "well it will be cheap eventually so implementing it now is cheap too" is a completely wrong statement. Just like pretty much everything you post...

You have no points, as I'm absolutely right with 2400 Ram being the optimum and as cheap as 1866 Ram or even cheaper. Waste of time discussing this further. And what AMD will do about their APUs, we will see - it's not up to you and your limited sight. You can continue this, but already your starting post failed, and you'll just fail again. Reminds me of that other discussion we had and that you lost miserably at the end.

Lost? I'm pretty sure I won that. I seem to remember everyone else agreeing with me, just like they are agreeing with me here. I don't see anyone else here siding with you, I didn't see anyone else siding with you then either. Hey, didn't that entire argument start by you claiming AMD, being the great company they are and being so much better than Intel, was going to include the Wraith cooler with all their processors? And, tell me how that worked out? That's right, they aren't including the Wraith cooler with all their processors. They are only including the cooler with high end processors, just like I stated.

Just because you say you won doesn't mean you did. You seem to live in this delusional world where what you say is instantly right. Most of what you say is wrong, you claiming you won the argument is just as wrong. Period.

 

[Kanan]

It has nothing to do with saving energy and everything to do with prolonging the life of the RAM and IMC. Running the RAM at 1.7v will effect both.

There is no point in doing such things, you seem to have no clue about tech if you do such things. The Ram will outlive it's use easily with normal settings used, there's no need in "prolonging its life" because it's relatively spoken, endless.

"Cheap someday" is not cheap now, and that is what needs to be the case. We aren't talking about CPUs that are coming out in 5 years, these CPUs need to be competitive when they come out this year.

We aren't talking about now. HBM will be frequently used soon, that's why I'm sure the prices will come down.

You are trying to personally attack me when you are making completely bullshit claims. HBM will be expensive to implement on Zen. There is no argument against that. To say "well it will be cheap eventually" is a completely idiotic statement. Just like pretty much everything you post...

Idiotic are many things here, but not these.

Lost? I'm pretty sure I won that. I seem to remember everyone else agreeing with me, just like they are agreeing with me here.

Then go back to the thread and look. You lost, because you lost the argument against me, it's not about others. And as far as I remember people were on my side, you had point's that made no sense, calling me a fanboy for example. There is no possibility that you won this argument, because you're still wrong. Talking about Kindergarten again, you seem unable to understand this easy fact. Or are you just dumb/intellectually limited? Maybe both.

I don't see anyone else here siding with you, I didn't see anyone else siding with you then either. Just because you say you won doesn't mean you did. You seem to live in this delusional world where what you say is instantly right. Most of what you say is wrong, you claiming you won the argument is just as wrong. Period.

No but I think you live in your own world, interesting point - maybe you excuse me of such things, because you do live in your own world. I'm not the one making bold statements like "I can't notice it and nobody can", you are. Same bullshit as ever with you. In the last discussion you made bold statements too and were wrong with them too. You don't change, you don't learn of your mistakes.
Also, everyone here that uses Ram clocked higher than you is somewhat siding with me, you're wrong with that too. There are always people silently agreeing and people that are agreeing openly. You just don't understand. Not everyone here wants to join the discussion and the same holds true for that other discussion as well.

Alright then, bullshit this thread too with your childs play. It's only about personal things again, because you can't accept, that "your" settings on "your" APU (1866) aren't optimal, that's the whole reason for you to start this argument against me. You're still wrong with it btw. No point in this discussion, as I already said.

PS. "Just like pretty much everything you post..."
Saying "pretty much everything" I post is bullshit, is a very good example of how childish you are. Coming from the guy whos doing stupid/99% pointless tests with old CPUs. Man you are so blind. Anyway please feel free to continue, I'll have my laughs.

 

[erocker]

5800K in my htpc. Yeah, I game on it sometimes.