Author Topic: Upgrade question  (Read 454 times)

Offline Tac

  • Platinum Member
  • ******
  • Posts: 4085
Upgrade question
« on: November 17, 2012, 10:50:48 AM »
Hello,

I've got a friend who has an old AMD Athlon II dual core 2.2ghz on an Asus A7N motherboard , 2 gigs ddr800 (I think) ram. Vid card is an Nvidia 9800 (something).

He enjoys playing Oblivion/Skyrim and Lord of the Rings Online (he's not much of a gamer though) and the current system runs both at minimum levels with some difficulty.

He's very low on funds and is looking for an upgrade. Below is a combo deal (less than $100 for all this) I found and while logic tells me this surely has better performance than his 8 year old computer I'm ignorant of the LLANO CPU's. Is this Llano better than his current dual core athlon 2? equivalent?

MSI A55M-P33 FM1 AMD A55 (Hudson D2) Micro ATX AMD Motherboard with UEFI BIOS

AMD A4-3400 Llano 2.7GHz Socket FM1 65W Dual-Core Desktop APU (CPU + GPU) with DirectX 11 Graphic AMD Radeon HD 6410D AD3400OJHXBOX

1x    G.SKILL Value 4GB 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model F3-1600C11S-4GNT
(I upgraded my ram recently so I have 4 gbs of this same ram to give him)


Offline gyrene81

  • Plutonium Member
  • *******
  • Posts: 11629
Re: Upgrade question
« Reply #1 on: November 20, 2012, 09:16:56 AM »
the llano, trinity and zacate chips were designed for business and mobile systems. they are great for office use and basic home systems where the user would surf the web, maybe stream videos and music, check email and maybe play something like wow on low/medium settings. graphics intensive loads are not their best function.

personally, all things considered and keeping the cost minimal, i would opt for an a4 5300 trinity fm2 cpu with the msi fm2-a75ma-e35 a75 micro atx mobo, to get a higher per core cpu speed and a better onboard graphics chip.
jarhed  
Build a man a fire and he'll be warm for a day...
Set a man on fire and he'll be warm for the rest of his life. - Terry Pratchett

Offline Debrody

  • Platinum Member
  • ******
  • Posts: 4487
Re: Upgrade question
« Reply #2 on: November 20, 2012, 09:41:21 AM »
The APU's CPU part is much stronger than the athlon x2, but the GPU is weaker than the NVidia 9800, even if he chooses the A-10 APU, what is MUCH more potent than the A-4.
« Last Edit: November 20, 2012, 09:44:35 AM by Debrody »
AoM
City of ice

Offline Bino

  • Platinum Member
  • ******
  • Posts: 5938
Re: Upgrade question
« Reply #3 on: November 23, 2012, 07:11:23 AM »
According to Tom's Hardware, "...The Radeon HD 7750 is the fastest graphics card you can get right now that doesn't require an auxiliary power input; it draws all that it needs from a 16-lane PCIe slot. If you're upgrading an older machine with limited power supply capacity, that's an attractive point to consider..."

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gaming-graphics-card-review,3107-2.html


"The plural of 'anecdote' is not 'data'." - Randy Pausch

PC Specs

Offline Tac

  • Platinum Member
  • ******
  • Posts: 4085
Re: Upgrade question
« Reply #4 on: November 23, 2012, 11:41:51 AM »
Yep. I picked up a 7770 this weekend for 99 bucks. Im really happy. My friend will be getting my old Gt240 ..he can upgrade his vid card on his own later on.

I posted another thread with another set of CPU's i'm comparing to see which one would be best for him. Comments there appreciated :)