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General Forums => Hardware and Software => Topic started by: Tac on October 17, 2012, 09:11:12 PM

Title: Whats the verdict on the APU/CPU chipsets?
Post by: Tac on October 17, 2012, 09:11:12 PM
I'm helping a friend upgrade his *really* old system.

I've been looking at: AMD A8-5600K Trinity 3.6GHz (3.9GHz Turbo) Socket FM2 100W Quad-Core Desktop APU (CPU + GPU) with DirectX 11 Graphic AMD Radeon HD 7560D

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819113281&name=Processors-Desktops

as a possible chipset for him.

But I honestly have no idea how these new things perform or even how they work.

Does this integrated 7560D Radeon use the system ram as video ram or does it come with its own...? (If it uses video ram then I assume he'd have to buy at least 16gb of ram no?)

Is this built in video card good enough for him to run game like lord of the rings online, Xcom (new one), battlefield 3 in at least medium video settings?

What's the cons of these chipsets/mobos?

Any wisdom appreciated :)
Title: Re: Whats the verdict on the APU/CPU chipsets?
Post by: Krusty on October 17, 2012, 09:12:12 PM
Don't waste money on an integrated graphics chip if you have a dedicated GPU. Then get a dedicated GPU.

You're losing processing power, period. Get the same chip with standard multiple cores and process more.
Title: Re: Whats the verdict on the APU/CPU chipsets?
Post by: cattb on October 18, 2012, 12:00:27 AM
There is quite a few reviews out about the AMD APU. The AMD APU will benefit from faster RAM and the APU does use the system RAM. DO some reading, the fm1 and fm2 are different sockets and the 85x fm2 is the board that a person is able to run video card  with the APU graphics ( crossfire). I am not sure about the Lano FM1 boards.

From what I have read the APU will play games at more or less at medium settings. Don't expect anything more then that out of the graphics.

Also just from what I have read 8 gig of sys RAM I think would be enough.

Possible downfall of FM boards. The sockets are differet from FM1 and FM2. When AMD comes out with its next APU, will they chnage the socket again? If they do then that makes the FM2 pretty much EOL ( end of line). WIth a Intel 1155, if a person started at a dual core there is the option to upgrade in the future.

I personally am looking to build a new HPTC and have been researching the APU and my options. Hope any of this may help and please do your own research.
Title: Re: Whats the verdict on the APU/CPU chipsets?
Post by: Reschke on October 18, 2012, 08:49:07 AM
cattb lets start comparing notes because I am beginning my quest to build a decent little HTPC as well but want to keep the costs down pretty low since games aren't going to be the key thing done on that system.
Title: Re: Whats the verdict on the APU/CPU chipsets?
Post by: guncrasher on October 18, 2012, 01:09:53 PM
cattb lets start comparing notes because I am beginning my quest to build a decent little HTPC as well but want to keep the costs down pretty low since games aren't going to be the key thing done on that system.

if that is the case, you cant beat a 400 system from best buy.


semp
Title: Re: Whats the verdict on the APU/CPU chipsets?
Post by: cattb on October 18, 2012, 02:55:24 PM
if that is the case, you cant beat a 400 system from best buy.


semp
with the exception of building it yourself and know what parts are going in the system
Title: Re: Whats the verdict on the APU/CPU chipsets?
Post by: Krusty on October 18, 2012, 03:00:50 PM
For that budget and that use, does it matter? You're building the most basic of systems. Even if you want to upgrade later, it would be just as cheap to replace it. I can understand his point. If you're building a 1-time disposable system, does it matter if you choose the parts yourself?
Title: Re: Whats the verdict on the APU/CPU chipsets?
Post by: guncrasher on October 18, 2012, 03:21:41 PM
it's always been if you want a low end budget system then buy the ones at best buy.  you cant beat a computer, keyboard, mouse and monitor for less than 500 bucks.  wont be the best but if you arent going to play games then it wont matter.

the problem with budget build it yourself computers is when you are ready to build a good set you are gonna find out that those budget parts you already have will not be good enough to upgrade.  not even the case.  perhaps the only thing you can salvage is the hd and cd rom.  which you can also salvage from the best buy computer (most of the time), along with a genuine copies of windows that you can transfer to your new system.

semp
Title: Re: Whats the verdict on the APU/CPU chipsets?
Post by: Krusty on October 18, 2012, 03:40:35 PM
If you are building with the intent of being to upgrade later you don't get budget bare bones. You get the case that allows future upgrades. You get the pricey motherboard that allows better CPUs. It allows you to insert PCIe video cards.

Then you've blown your entire budget on a mobo, case, and power supply.

So if you're going for bare budget NON-gaming HTPC, there's no need to worry about future upgrading. Just accept you won't. That's liberating in and of itself. You just save up for a 1-time expense and never fiddle with it again.
Title: Re: Whats the verdict on the APU/CPU chipsets?
Post by: cattb on October 18, 2012, 03:45:25 PM
it's always been if you want a low end budget system then buy the ones at best buy.  you cant beat a computer, keyboard, mouse and monitor for less than 500 bucks.  wont be the best but if you arent going to play games then it wont matter.

the problem with budget build it yourself computers is when you are ready to build a good set you are gonna find out that those budget parts you already have will not be good enough to upgrade.  not even the case.  perhaps the only thing you can salvage is the hd and cd rom.  which you can also salvage from the best buy computer (most of the time), along with a genuine copies of windows that you can transfer to your new system.

semp
so if build a intel I3 system its not upgradeable, hummm thanks i'll keep that in mind.
Title: Re: Whats the verdict on the APU/CPU chipsets?
Post by: Krusty on October 18, 2012, 03:55:40 PM
so if build a intel I3 system its not upgradeable, hummm thanks i'll keep that in mind.


If you want a system that you can upgrade later, you have to plan on that from the ground-up. Just looking at the CPU socket type doesn't help. Budget means low-end. You get the low-end CPU and the low-end motherboard with the low-end ram and the low-end everything....

So it doesn't matter if you have an i3 LGA1155. When you upgrade the CPU it's out anyways. If you upgrade the motherboard, there's no performance improvement without also upgrading the ram, CPU, GPU, so you end up doing a full upgrade anyways.

And when you do a full upgrade you don't have to stick to the same socket type.
Title: Re: Whats the verdict on the APU/CPU chipsets?
Post by: cattb on October 18, 2012, 04:08:49 PM
I can agree to apoint with you krusty, but I can't.

First of all a person should ask
 What am I going to use my puter for?
 How much do I want to spend?
 How long do I want to keep puter for and do I want to possibly upgrade?
 Would I possibly be using puter  for other projects, games etc in the future?

You just built a computer using all low end parts in your example, but we are not all the same with the same ideas. Every person may have a different situation which could change the variables.

Have a good day! :)
Title: Re: Whats the verdict on the APU/CPU chipsets?
Post by: Krusty on October 18, 2012, 04:11:20 PM
True. I was going off on the HTPC tangent, I suppose. Something where the other thread was influencing my thinking in this one.
Title: Re: Whats the verdict on the APU/CPU chipsets?
Post by: cattb on October 18, 2012, 04:29:55 PM
Yah, both these threads kinda ran together ( sortof). It did it to me to.
Title: Re: Whats the verdict on the APU/CPU chipsets?
Post by: MrRiplEy[H] on October 18, 2012, 04:36:43 PM
Unfortunately Intel is eating up sockets like cookies. There's no garantee that by the time your current purchase gets dated a new cpu will still be available for the same socket.

AMD has an excellent upgrade path with their socket - but that doesn't matter since they can't compete in performance outside lower midprice cpu's.
Title: Re: Whats the verdict on the APU/CPU chipsets?
Post by: guncrasher on October 18, 2012, 04:53:37 PM
so if build a intel I3 system its not upgradeable, hummm thanks i'll keep that in mind.


try building an i3 for less than 500 with a monitor and win7.


semp
Title: Re: Whats the verdict on the APU/CPU chipsets?
Post by: cattb on October 18, 2012, 07:18:50 PM
why? I have a monitor and win 7 ultimate 64 bit, win 7 pro 64 bit and 32 bit and xp 32 bit.

That comment was in regards to building something upgradeable and not about price.
Have a good day. :)

Title: Re: Whats the verdict on the APU/CPU chipsets?
Post by: guncrasher on October 18, 2012, 07:42:38 PM
why? I have a monitor and win 7 ultimate, win 7 pro 64 bit and 32 bit and xp 32 bit.

That comment was in regards to building something upgradeable and not about price.



because I was replying to reschke who wants a low end system that won't be used for gaming.   In his case a 500 or less puter from best buy makes sense.   heck if all you gonna do is email and some light browsing then a tablet would be better and cheaper.   mine cost 250. which I'm using right now.



semp
Title: Re: Whats the verdict on the APU/CPU chipsets?
Post by: cattb on October 18, 2012, 08:07:46 PM
because I was replying to reschke who wants a low end system that won't be used for gaming.   In his case a 500 or less puter from best buy makes sense.   heck if all you gonna do is email and some light browsing then a tablet would be better and cheaper.   mine cost 250. which I'm using right now.



semp
Heck if thats all a person is going to do. I agree with you and a tablet would fit all the needs.
Title: Re: Whats the verdict on the APU/CPU chipsets?
Post by: Tac on October 19, 2012, 11:44:22 AM
Given the fact that this chipset is the same price as a quad core AMD black edition @3.2ghz and the motherboards for each of them are about the same price range....and im building the system with 8gb as a starting point...

... and that my friend can, in the future, if he gets the APU chipset, merely buy a good video card and plug it into this system if he wishes to...


I guess my question was more of : Is the APU/CPU chipset comparable to the AMD black edition ? Im thinking my friend could save himself 200~300 bucks now and use the built in vid card to play his few games until maybe a couple of years from now when he would need to upgrade the vid card anyway.

But I don't know nor can I find any literature on the actual performance of the built in vid card in the APU/CPU set. As a rule I hate integrated stuff but this system does seem to get good reviews.

Its unknown territory for me and if it was a system for myself I'd get it but this is for a friend and I don't want to give him a lemon.
Title: Re: Whats the verdict on the APU/CPU chipsets?
Post by: cattb on October 19, 2012, 07:33:07 PM
Tac there is many reviews

http://www.legitreviews.com/article/2047/1/ (http://www.legitreviews.com/article/2047/1/)

goto google type in llano reviews   or trinity apu review   trinity a10 review   trinity benchmark   

some of the reviews compare against Intel built in graphics. I will tell you now the APU will beat the Intel built in graphics. The Intel CPU will eat up the AMD CPU in processing power.
Title: Re: Whats the verdict on the APU/CPU chipsets?
Post by: gyrene81 on October 21, 2012, 01:29:20 PM
Given the fact that this chipset is the same price as a quad core AMD black edition @3.2ghz and the motherboards for each of them are about the same price range....and im building the system with 8gb as a starting point...

... and that my friend can, in the future, if he gets the APU chipset, merely buy a good video card and plug it into this system if he wishes to...


I guess my question was more of : Is the APU/CPU chipset comparable to the AMD black edition ? Im thinking my friend could save himself 200~300 bucks now and use the built in vid card to play his few games until maybe a couple of years from now when he would need to upgrade the vid card anyway.

But I don't know nor can I find any literature on the actual performance of the built in vid card in the APU/CPU set. As a rule I hate integrated stuff but this system does seem to get good reviews.

Its unknown territory for me and if it was a system for myself I'd get it but this is for a friend and I don't want to give him a lemon.
if it's for gaming, like with aces high, it would be a waste of money. the apu chips were designed for basic home and business use in laptops and low end pc's. for basic computer performance, the a6 and a8 apu chips are equal to the black edition phenoms, but for the processes used in gaming even the bulldozer fx chips are better. the onboard graphics chips don't perform as well as their intel counterparts and you cannot disable them. the onboard chips were designed to allow a person to run a dedicated video card in a hybrid crossfire configuration and you have to be careful what you pair it up with.
Title: Re: Whats the verdict on the APU/CPU chipsets?
Post by: cattb on October 21, 2012, 08:32:05 PM
if it's for gaming, like with aces high, it would be a waste of money. the apu chips were designed for basic home and business use in laptops and low end pc's. for basic computer performance, the a6 and a8 apu chips are equal to the black edition phenoms, but for the processes used in gaming even the bulldozer fx chips are better. the onboard graphics chips don't perform as well as their intel counterparts and you cannot disable them. the onboard chips were designed to allow a person to run a dedicated video card in a hybrid crossfire configuration and you have to be careful what you pair it up with.

From my reading of different reviews of the AMD CPU. The AMD is better then Intel built in GPU. The processor is not as as fast as Intel. In some cases depending what software and processing, not even close.