Does anyone actually game on an AMD APU?

[newtekie1]

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.

Yeah, I've seen IMCs and RAM damaged from using high voltage. Running 1.7v through 1.35v DDR3 that doesn't have heatsinks on it in a mITX case with limited airflow isn't a good idea, so I don't do it. And since it makes no noticeable difference why should I?

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

Yes we are. We are talking about CPUs that will be released shortly. We are talking about CPUs that have to be price competitive when they come out. And HBM won't be used frequently any time soon. It will still be a high end feature, even on GPUs, that is expensive. That is why GDDR5X was created, because HBM is to expensive to implement on anything but the high end graphics cards.

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'm still wrong? You claimed AMD was going to include the Wraith cooler with all their CPUs, or rather you argued I was wrong when I said they wouldn't. And sure enough, they aren't including the Wraith cooler with all their CPUs. So how was I wrong again?

And you are a fanboy. You say shit like "AMD isn't Intel they won't use cheap coolers just because they can get away with it". That is something a fanboy says. Someone who actually knows what they are talking about, me, knows that AMD includes shit cheap coolers any time they can get away with it. I know this because, unlike you, I've actually used a shitload of AMD(and Intel) hardware from high end to low end. I don't rely on what I read on the internet, I don't have to reply with "nah, there are reviews on the net" because I've actually used and tested the things I talk about. Oh, and about those reviews, did you happen to see the review posted above that proved my statement correct? Those 4FPS are going to be sooooo noticeable!

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.

You didn't even manage to read my original post correctly. I clearly stated there was no noticeable difference, and you started an argument about how there was a difference and I was wrong to say there was absolutely no difference. Except I never said there was absolutely no difference, I said no noticeable difference. You were wrong, deal with it.

I'll leave this now, as the reviews show I'm right. The announcement by AMD about their coolers showed I was right in the last argument. So I can walk away knowing I was right both times. No need to keep going around and around with you wasting my time. Good day.

 

[Lionheart]

I use my PS4 a lot, does that count?

Jokes aside, APU's will really start too kick off once AMD finally launches Zen on 14nm & a FM3 platform. Just imagine a quady APU based off Zen that matches Haswell's IPC with HD7850 - HD7870 level graphical performance (excluding memory bandwidth performance) , might be asking a lot but a PC tech nerd can dream.

 

[Mussels]

I want to see how they perform in DX12, with/without pairing with intel IGP's.

The better multi threading and higher hardware usage could give them a kick in the pants.

 

[Kanan]

Yeah, I've seen IMCs and RAM damaged from using high voltage. Running 1.7v through 1.35v DDR3 that doesn't have heatsinks on it in a mITX case with limited airflow isn't a good idea, so I don't do it. And since it makes no noticeable difference why should I?

There is noticable difference, still. And nobody said to run the Ram on 1.7V. If you have 2400 / 1.7 Voltage Ram, your problem is the wrong Ram, not the voltage. Buy proper hardware for proper use. End of story.

Yes we are. We are talking about CPUs that will be released shortly.

months != now. "shortly" != now. So we are not, no. Do you have problems with your own language? "In months" isn't "now".

We are talking about CPUs that have to be price competitive when they come out. And HBM won't be used frequently soon. It will still be a high end feature, even on GPUs. That is why GDDR5X was created, because HBM is to expensive to implement on anything but the high end graphics cards.

That doesn't change anything about my point, that HBM will be cheaper soon and can be used in APUs soon, too. Also there are different APUs for different people. Did AMD say there will be Quad Channel APUs? This is moot speculation on your part. As I see quad channel APUs and quad channel mainboards, and quad channel Ram kits are too expensive. So if I'm wrong, you are certainly too. More likely that APUs will stay dual channel DDR3/4 then, like it's now. But this is only speculation.

I'm still wrong? You claimed AMD was going to include the Wraith cooler with all their CPUs, or rather you argued I was wrong when I said they wouldn't. And sure enough, they aren't including the Wraith cooler with all their CPUs. So how was I wrong again?

You were wrong with many things. And as far as I know, I dropped the point with the Wraith Cooler being included with all CPUs/APUs pretty fast. The biggest part of the discussion wasn't about this, though.

And you are a fanboy. You say shit like "AMD isn't Intel they won't use cheap coolers just because they can get away with it". That is something a fanboy says.

No. You are a idiot, that's why you can't see all my pro-Nvidia / anti-AMD posts / pro Intel / anti Intel etc. posts. As I said earlier, you're blind. I pity you again. Must be hard to be so limited.

For you only, again: a fanboy never says anything bad about his brand. And never says anything good about the enemy (nvidia) - every idiot knows that, but not you. You are way off with your bullshit, still. Nothing changed on that regard.

Someone who actually knows what they are talking about, me, knows that AMD includes shit cheap coolers any time they can get away with it. I know this because, unlike you, I've actually used a shitload of AMD(and Intel) hardware from high end to low end. I don't rely on what I read on the internet, I don't have to reply with "nah, there are reviews on the net" because I've actually used and tested the things I talk about. Oh, and about those reviews, did you happen to see the review posted above that proved my statement correct?

You? Your tech knowledge is average maybe (goes and makes tests with old CPUs that experienced users already know what would happen - that's you). You're full of shit, that's you. Just because I write about reviews on the net, you conclude that I didn't use numerous hardware? Idiot. Go on and live in your dream world, you just countered yourself again. Fool.

And your statement is wrong, 2400 Ram helps the APU pretty much, up to 10 fps is a very solid gain, and very noticable. Again, it must be hard to be as limited and dumb as you are.

You didn't even manage to read my original post correctly. I clearly stated there was no noticeable difference, and you started an argument about how there was a difference and I was wrong to say there was absolutely no difference. Except I never said there was absolutely no difference, I said no noticeable difference. You were wrong, deal with it.

It's not about "no noticable difference"anymore, it's about you saying 1-10 fps is "not noticable". You are wrong again, deal with it. The second discussion you are losing, just because you are a negative turd / hater.

btw I'll put you on ignore now I'm over this shit. You've proven to me that you're hateful turd and a waste of time. Enough of it. Have fun with your strange life.

 

[Kevinda5th]

I have an A8 4500m with 8gbs of ram and I play Metro last light, Wolfenstein the new order and Old blood at 900p on medium setting no problem. Metro last light was all most unplayable at low setting 720p till the Omega drivers came out and then I got 10 more FPS easy. I'm currently running Catalyst 15.7.1 and I'm very surprised at the games I can play after reading a review saying the game is not playable with the 4500m and 7640g.

 

[cdawall]

Yeah, I've seen IMCs and RAM damaged from using high voltage. Running 1.7v through 1.35v DDR3 that doesn't have heatsinks on it in a mITX case with limited airflow isn't a good idea, so I don't do it. And since it makes no noticeable difference why should I?

I have blown CPU's and ram from to much voltage on multiple occasions across multiple brands for both CPU and ram. It really isn't hard just like every other thing in a PC. I honestly would do the same thing you do. 4FPS isn't worth the effort. Hell my gaming tower runs 4.4ghz and its XMP profile for the ram.

 

[GoldenX]

Same opinion here, and I could be running them at 1900, that's as far as I can make the IMC stable.

 

[cdawall]

Same opinion here, and I could be running them at 1900, that's as far as I can make the IMC stable.

I got 2133 stable on my a6-7400k took to much voltage imo. I run that at 1600 all low volt just not enough to make it worth while.

 

[GoldenX]

I got 2133 stable on my a6-7400k took to much voltage imo. I run that at 1600 all low volt just not enough to make it worth while.

Gotta ask you, how are the dual core APUs in performance? The only one I tried is an old A4-4000, can play Metal Gear V in 1024x768 (CRT) at 20-25fps.

 

[Frick]

You have no points, as I'm absolutely right with 2400 Ram being the optimum and as cheap as 1866 Ram or even cheaper.

Where I live this is absolutely not true, it being as cheap or cheaper. If I were to build an APU system it would be the A8 7670K + 1866 Mhz memory, because if I'm building a cheap ass budget system I want to spend as little as possible.

 

[Kanan]

Where I live this is absolutely not true, it being as cheap or cheaper. If I were to build an APU system it would be the A8 7670K + 1866 Mhz memory, because if I'm building a cheap ass budget system I want to spend as little as possible.

I built a 7850K + Asus MB + 2400 Ram (G Skill Ripjaws) cheap build office PC anno 2014 (just after the APU was newly released) - the Ram was as cheap as 1866 Ram, there was no difference. It's 2016 now and prices are even cheaper. That Ram made zero (0) problems btw. - it did NOT heat up and did not run under high voltages. I'm only talking about prices in Germany btw, maybe USA too. 10 to 20% more performance isn't something to sniff at. And coming from 25 fps to 30 fps IS in fact a noticable difference unlike some stupid person here is saying to justify his suboptimal build and problems with his system, because he is incompetent. I'm still laughing at his blabbering about he being the big expert though. He disqualified himself pretty well, I didn't have anything to do with it.

Enjoy your APU builds, I enjoyed it for the brief time I had it here.

 

[Frick]

He disqualified himself pretty well, I didn't have anything to do with it.

I'm just gonna go ahead and say you're doing a pretty good job of that yourself man. No offense but man you're cranky.

 

[LightningJR]

I'm just gonna go ahead and say you're doing a pretty good job of that yourself man. No offense but man you're cranky.

Eat a Snickers.

 

[cdawall]

Gotta ask you, how are the dual core APUs in performance? The only one I tried is an old A4-4000, can play Metal Gear V in 1024x768 (CRT) at 20-25fps.

It still has a pretty weak gpu, but it is a decent bit more powerful than my Athlon 5350's. It will run most things at lower settings and 720p

 

[Vayra86]

Kanan, about this HBM availability and expecting it to come to Zen or an APU anytime soon (in one of the upcoming Zen iterations, first gen): No. Just no. Not going to happen. The only HBM I would *maybe* expect in the absolute top end model is HBM1 stocks that are left over in sufficient quantity. But even that is highly doubtful. An interposer + HBM memory on a CPU die that *also* has expensive cache and other IC's?? That is a massive investment - not to mention a true feat of engineering.

HBM2 is still very early and it is the only iteration of HBM that will suffice for high end GPU in 2016. Fury X limited at 4GB, they can't do that again for a Polaris release, if they do that, it will be pushed down one or two price tiers and will just be a rebranded Fury at lower price. So where is HBM? HBM will be found on top end GPU, anything below that will utilize GDDR5X which is more than fast enough for the coming gen and 4K / medium-high settings, which is exactly where the new gen of GPU's will be at for high end. Ultra/4K is for the absolute top end, or might even still be an Xfire/SLI route instead. With DX12 supporting GPU coupling, and with MS's UWP denying the ability to run Xfire/SLI, it seems less likely we will be pushed towards that for 'the good 4K experience'. It won't sell as well as a single card solution.

All cards below 4K/ultra spec performance simply do not NEED HBM. Not HBM1, not HBM2. They are fine with GDDR5X or even GDDR5, which is already proven to be just fine for anything up to a 980ti. There is no bus saturation going on with that card, so there is no incentive to push HBM on it, besides the TDP budget of the die.

So what about APU's? The above also goes for them, but APU's have and will NEVER be on the top end of performance, again due to limits in TDP budget. Cramming two functions into one die means sharing the TDP budget between CPU/GPU. It also means it's an either/or performance boost. No single sane company will put HBM on a die that will never be bandwidth limited to that degree. In that sense, newtekie has a valid point saying the 1-5 fps difference for 1866 versus 2400, while 'noticeable', is not something that will make an APU suddenly a great choice for gaming. Dropping expensive HBM on that does not change a thing, maybe the difference will increase to 1-9 fps at best. It still won't change the market segment of the APU, and the APU will be wasting all that bandwidth because it can never bring the processing power to use it.

The general consensus with graphics performance is that they are constrained through memory bus width or DDR type (remember DDR3 gpu versus GDDR5 for example). Therefore, it makes absolutely zero sense to put HBM on them and remove this means of constraining performance. HBM that is not used optimally, is totally wasted silicon.

All this is completely *regardless* of the actual market price of HBM. It is irrelevant, because HBM is too efficient for this price segment. Nobody needs it, nobody will want it, and the APU's can never get close to offering that amount of data processing to actually make use of it. Proof for that can easily be found in the performance comparison of APU versus mid-range GPU, which top out at 128-192 bit bus for the best offerings on measly GDDR5. You cannot justify HBM here.

 

[Dragonsmonk]

btw I'll put you on ignore now I'm over this shit. You've proven to me that you're hateful turd and a waste of time. Enough of it. Have fun with your strange life.

The only one who has proven to be arrogant and aggressive is yourself. From one German to another - Germany isn't the center of the world, stop making all of us look like pricks.
And there is an €8 difference in price (checked on Mindfactory.de) - 1866 and 2400 for and 8GB stick. For someone on a tight budget that can be a lot for a, depending on the use of the APU, marginal - non noticeable gain.

 

[Eric_Cartman]

I built a 7850K + Asus MB + 2400 Ram (G Skill Ripjaws) cheap build office PC anno 2014 (just after the APU was newly released) - the Ram was as cheap as 1866 Ram, there was no difference. It's 2016 now and prices are even cheaper. That Ram made zero (0) problems btw. - it did NOT heat up and did not run under high voltages. I'm only talking about prices in Germany btw, maybe USA too. 10 to 20% more performance isn't something to sniff at. And coming from 25 fps to 30 fps IS in fact a noticable difference unlike some stupid person here is saying to justify his suboptimal build and problems with his system, because he is incompetent. I'm still laughing at his blabbering about he being the big expert though. He disqualified himself pretty well, I didn't have anything to do with it.

Enjoy your APU builds, I enjoyed it for the brief time I had it here.

Dude, rule #1 of internet arguing is the person that degrades to posts filled with insults is the one that lost.

Put your tail between your legs and walk away before your childish antics get you banned.

 

[Mussels]

kids, enough.

the useless fighting is done. from here on i *will* edit any insulting posts in embarassing ways, followed by infractions.

 

[GhostRyder]

I forgot to also mention, gaming on APU laptops is actually decent enough. I have a friend who got a used laptop (He needs a laptop and only had a very tiny budget) with an A8 7410 and its decent on the 720p screen its equipped with. He mostly plays League of Legends and a few steam games so it does that job pretty well. Upgraded the ram in it to 8gb and that helped quite a lot.

I also have a cousin who recently got a good deal on a newer FX 7600p laptop and she games quite a lot on it (Again 720p screen though) with good results. It's definitely not an Ultra Gamer edition machine but it can play pretty much anything at medium settings with decent FPS.

 

[cdawall]

kids, enough.

the useless fighting is done. from here on i *will* edit any insulting posts in embarassing ways, followed by infractions.

I just want you to know it is taking a large amount of self control to not egg this on just to see said embarrassing edits.

 

[bug]

After going through 3 pages of comments, it seems most posters agree an APU is absolutely fine for gaming. I wonder why do AMD and Nvidia bother building discrete GPUs, if that's the case.

The answer to the original question is pretty simple though: if you're in a specific niche, an APU will do, if you're not, it won't.

 

[cdawall]

After going through 3 pages of comments, it seems most posters agree an APU is absolutely fine for gaming. I wonder why do AMD and Nvidia bother building discrete GPUs, if that's the case.

The answer to the original question is pretty simple though: if you're in a specific niche, an APU will do, if you're not, it won't.

They can play games, they cannot play them at higher settings or higher resolutions. They are good for cheap boxes, just not the best.

 

[bug]

They can play games, they cannot play them at higher settings or higher resolutions. They are good for cheap boxes, just not the best.

Um, well, I'm still delaying playing Witcher3 because I don't like how it works on my 660Ti (I can get steady 30-40fps at 1920x1200 with many things maxxed out, but it just doesn't feel right). So let's just say "can" is in the eye of the beholder.

 

[silentbogo]

After going through 3 pages of comments, it seems most posters agree an APU is absolutely fine for gaming. I wonder why do AMD and Nvidia bother building discrete GPUs, if that's the case.

The answer to the original question is pretty simple though: if you're in a specific niche, an APU will do, if you're not, it won't.

IGPs are still less powerful than the most of low-end GPUs. Basically you are paying a premium for saving space and reducing total power requirements.

 

[cdawall]

Um, well, I'm still delaying playing Witcher3 because I don't like how it works on my 660Ti (I can get steady 30-40fps at 1920x1200 with many things maxxed out, but it just doesn't feel right). So let's just say "can" is in the eye of the beholder.

I can play carmageddon on my i7 laptop with integrated graphics doesn't mean I don't fire up my desktop to max it out.

IGPs are still less powerful than the most of low-end GPUs. Basically you are paying a premium for saving space and reducing total power requirements.

To be fair the AMD APU's are as fast as midrange GPU's considering that's the entire reason for this thread it is reasonably pertinent.