AMD APU Performance?

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Melee

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I'm trying to help a friend find a decent replacement for his old Athlon he bought in 2009. He's on a budget and would like to keep the cost below $100 for a CPU and Motherboard, if possible. My first instinct was to try to find him a used Phenom II X4 955/965 BE since I owned one in the past and they are great for the price. I can't find anything comparable from Intel in that price range.

However, his graphics card is also quite weak (it's an old 5450 512mb, I believe) so I came across the AMD APUs which are supposed to have impressive integrated graphics so I'm hoping to get some opinions on them. How well do they actually function as Processors and are the Graphics as admirable as made out to be?

Thanks!
 
Which processor is he looking to get?

I can tell you that the AMD A8-3850 that I bought last year does a fair job on 3D games, that I was able to play Star Wars: The Old Republic at 1920 x 1080 resolution with a decent framerate, moderate eye candy. It offered about the same performance as the old GeForce 9600 GT that I had tried in the motherboard, and this was using DDR3 1333 memory at conservative settings.
 
You're not going to get "impressive" anything below $100 new total. Save up and get something that'll at least last a while.

$60 msi fm2-a75ma-e35
$85 amd 750k quad-core (no internal gfx)
$105 radeon 7770 ge 1gb
 
Melee said:
I'm trying to help a friend find a decent replacement for his old Athlon he bought in 2009. He's on a budget and would like to keep the cost below $100 for a CPU and Motherboard, if possible. My first instinct was to try to find him a used Phenom II X4 955/965 BE since I owned one in the past and they are great for the price. I can't find anything comparable from Intel in that price range.

However, his graphics card is also quite weak (it's an old 5450 512mb, I believe) so I came across the AMD APUs which are supposed to have impressive integrated graphics so I'm hoping to get some opinions on them. How well do they actually function as Processors and are the Graphics as admirable as made out to be?

Thanks!
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As long as you don't plan on doing heavy photo or video editing then I think you will enjoy the APUs. Many APUs will be able to play most games on medium settings and if he ever wants to upgrade to a stronger GPU then the option is there.
 
100 bucks is gonna be tough.

If he can swing 150 there are a ton of options.

I have a couple of APU computers, and I have been super happy with them.
 
If you and your friend live near a Microcenter store, you can get an A6 and an MSI mATX mobo for a little over $100.

I built for a coworker an APU rig with an A10 and an MSI mITX mobo. She is really enjoying it.
 
Unabomber said:
Which processor is he looking to get?

I can tell you that the AMD A8-3850 that I bought last year does a fair job on 3D games, that I was able to play Star Wars: The Old Republic at 1920 x 1080 resolution with a decent framerate, moderate eye candy. It offered about the same performance as the old GeForce 9600 GT that I had tried in the motherboard, and this was using DDR3 1333 memory at conservative settings.
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He is relatively new to building computers which is why I'm helping him out. I think his current pc is a 2009 model that was prebuilt by HP and purchased at Walmart. However, I've been doing this as a hobby for a long while but the only CPUs I have a lot of experience with are the Phenom II x4s, Thubans, i5s, and i7s. If he had a larger budget, I'd be better equipped to help. He doesn't need anything extreme, just something that will run most or all games at medium settings or so.

xorbe said:
You're not going to get "impressive" anything below $100 new total. Save up and get something that'll at least last a while.

$60 msi fm2-a75ma-e35
$85 amd 750k quad-core (no internal gfx)
$105 radeon 7770 ge 1gb
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Well, he just bought the 5450 I mentioned earlier without asking about it so he's kind of stuck with that at the moment. I believe his dad is the one buying it as he is a full time college student, even during the summer, so looking to keep it in the $100-$150 range total. However, I told him I'm pretty sure he could sell his current parts for a small amount to recover some of the cost.

Simmonz said:
As long as you don't plan on doing heavy photo or video editing then I think you will enjoy the APUs. Many APUs will be able to play most games on medium settings and if he ever wants to upgrade to a stronger GPU then the option is there.
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I believe he does occasional youtube videos on a few games he plays but definitely not anything heavy in terms of editing. And yes, I read that you are able to Crossfire the APU with certain dedicated graphics cards which is an extremely convenient feature to have.

stealthy123 said:
100 bucks is gonna be tough.

If he can swing 150 there are a ton of options.

I have a couple of APU computers, and I have been super happy with them.
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If he could swing $150, I might even try to help him out if I can, then what would you recommend? I think his case is a Micro-Atx so it would need to be a mAtx motherboard. Otherwise, I'm all ears.

nads said:
If you and your friend live near a Microcenter store, you can get an A6 and an MSI mATX mobo for a little over $100.

I built for a coworker an APU rig with an A10 and an MSI mITX mobo. She is really enjoying it.
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He moved away a few years back and lives in San Antonio, TX now. I live in Virginia. Neither of us are close to a Microcenter, unfortunately. I know the closest one to me is around 5 hours away in Ohio.

Which A10 and MSI Mobo combo did you set up for her and how much did it cost, if you don't mind me asking? Intel's CPUs are just too expensive and if he upgrades the CPU and Motherboard, he would still be stuck with that 5450 which is going to greatly limit any performance increase which is why the APUs make so much sense here.


Thanks for your help, everyone!
 
I am not sure about how powerful the Trinity series of APU are because I have not built a system on the FM2 platform. But I did purchase my youngest daughter an ASUS K55N laptop for Christmas. The laptop has an A10-4600M APU and 8G of ram. She plays WOW, DDO, Neverwinter, Risen, Skyrim, GTA IV, and Saint Row The Third with at least medium settings at 1366x768. I would assume that the desktop version of the Trinity processor should be able to play at medium settings at 1080p,
 
I've had really good luck with both the Llano and Trinity APUs. The 'Dual-View' (read: hybrid Crossfire) is actually pretty nice, but you'd only really see a noticeable boost in DX11 games IIRC. With that in mind, there are only a few discrete cards that support the Dual-View, and if you're building with that in mind there's not much reason to not go for broke. The HD6670 is the highest compatible with Llano, and I believe the 7750 (which is effectively a retooled 6670) is the highest card for Trinity. All of that said, out of the box both APU's do play very well at medium settings with modest resolution (even full HD on less intensive games). I've been able to get very manageable framerates on a lot of newer games with only a few real sacrifices in eyecandy. Just remember to pair it with good memory, as I'm pretty sure that is what is used for the VRAM.
 
Currently top of the line APU is A10 6700/6800k and cost 150$ while now A10 5800k costs now 130$

The main difference between Trinity and Richland is memory support, clocks and power consumption.

If you plan to overclock then get A10 6800k, a very good air cooler and overclock it to all as high as possible. You can achieve 4.8Ghz and overclock GPU to 950mhz and then you get most out of the chip and higher chances that you can play at 1080p.

http://forum.oktabit.gr/topic/oktabit-vero-w-pc-mainstream-a6800a#comment-115079

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wtq2cDpbi80 - Battlefield 3 Custom Settings Multi Player 720p 40-60 average fps
 
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dcds1 said:
I am not sure about how powerful the Trinity series of APU are because I have not built a system on the FM2 platform. But I did purchase my youngest daughter an ASUS K55N laptop for Christmas. The laptop has an A10-4600M APU and 8G of ram. She plays WOW, DDO, Neverwinter, Risen, Skyrim, GTA IV, and Saint Row The Third with at least medium settings at 1366x768. I would assume that the desktop version of the Trinity processor should be able to play at medium settings at 1080p,
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That's quite impressive. I have tried to use the integrated graphics on my 3770K and 2600K previously (both HD4000) and they are awful. lol They honestly struggle to run the simplest of games, such as League of Legends on the lowest possible settings. Those are the same types of games he plays so I'm glad to hear that these work well with them.

redivulpis said:
I've had really good luck with both the Llano and Trinity APUs. The 'Dual-View' (read: hybrid Crossfire) is actually pretty nice, but you'd only really see a noticeable boost in DX11 games IIRC. With that in mind, there are only a few discrete cards that support the Dual-View, and if you're building with that in mind there's not much reason to not go for broke. The HD6670 is the highest compatible with Llano, and I believe the 7750 (which is effectively a retooled 6670) is the highest card for Trinity. All of that said, out of the box both APU's do play very well at medium settings with modest resolution (even full HD on less intensive games). I've been able to get very manageable framerates on a lot of newer games with only a few real sacrifices in eyecandy. Just remember to pair it with good memory, as I'm pretty sure that is what is used for the VRAM.
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Well, with the "Hybrid Crossfire", I thought it was just a nice option to have for upgrading should he want to some time in the future if he gets a little extra cash. I'm assuming the APU itself can handle most of it since he doesn't play extremely demanding games like Crysis, Metro, etc.

How much memory would you recommend to pair with the APU? Would 4GB or 8GB do the trick or is that still too low?

iAMunderDog said:
Currently top of the line APU is A10 6700/6800k and cost 150$ while now A10 5800k costs now 130$

The main difference between Trinity and Richland is memory support, clocks and power consumption.

If you plan to overclock then get A10 6800k, a very good air cooler and overclock it to all as high as possible. You can achieve 4.8Ghz and overclock GPU to 950mhz and then you get most out of the chip and higher chances that you can play at 1080p.

http://forum.oktabit.gr/topic/oktabit-vero-w-pc-mainstream-a6800a#comment-115079

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wtq2cDpbi80 - Battlefield 3 Custom Settings Multi Player 720p 40-60 average fps
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Thank You for the info. Do they drop much in price on the used market? As I said, the cheaper the better but I also don't want to recommend that he get something that is barely an upgrade and waste his money. As you guys said, it's normally best to save up but since his computer is pretty much giving out on him and he has a lot of homework every day, I want to set him up with something strong and dependable while still being able to game decently when he wants.


Thanks so much for all the help! I'll read more on the A10s and see what kind of prices I can find. :D
 
I've got 8 in mine, mostly because the low profile Samsung memory I got for the system came in a pair. I'd recommend that, as it'll be shared by the GFX part of the APU. You'll be able to set up to 2GB of VRAM (though unless he'll be using surround view or Eyefinity or whatever, you'll probably not need THAT much).
 
You can catch sales on these too. I almost bought an A10 6800 for $79 during the 4th sale. If I was in his spot I would have. I am just waiting for FM2+ which should be out in a few months I believe.
 
kaveri may well arrive Q1 2014 now, but it would be nice if the FM2+ platform arrived before that tho.

don't see why not, the 890 boards designed for the thuban hex-cores arrived some months before the CPU itself arrived.
 
Those Kaveri being delayed rumors are bogus, but it's very likely you'll see FM2+ boards available before Kaveri actually releases. I think this happens most of the time for both AMD and Intel, though I could be wrong. Definitely looking forward to the new A88X chipset.
 
Time to start savin' up for an FM2+ board!

I haven't used ASUS boards before, but I've heard good about them. Do you guys think an A75 FM2+ ASUS board would be good? I'll probably be going for a uATX board.

Edit: It's interesting that it has a PCIe 3.0 controller now. Do you guys reckon it's possible Steamroller FX will work in Socket FM2+? That would be friggin' awesome if so.
 
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I've been looking at the APU's for a HTPC/Steam big picture. Even the best APU (A10) would struggle to get a decent frame rate at 720p. You throw some cheap and slow DDR2 or 3 on top of that and you bottleneck it even more.
 
tempted by the idea of picking up an FM2 m/b now along with a richland X4 for peanuts, and then replacing the X4 with a kaveri A series when they arrive.
 
I don't think they're available just yet. I was just pointing out that if R3MF wants to get a Richland and a Kaveri, he'll need an FM2+, otherwise he'd have to get a new mobo+CPU when Kaveri drops.

EDIT: ASUS apparently has one, but so far Amazon doesn't have any FM2+ mobos in stock. Personally, I'm going to get an FM2+ and a Kaveri when they hit the retail chains for the living room PC.
 
For those of you considering Asus anything, maybe you should check the Asus Warranty thread in video-cards. Apparently Asus warranty is the equivalent of toilet paper, so if you own or plan to buy Asus products you better hope they never fail, because if they do you may be in for a nightmare trying to get them repaired or replaced under Asus so-called warranty.

Just FYI.
 
SocratesScrotum said:
For those of you considering Asus anything, maybe you should check the Asus Warranty thread in video-cards. Apparently Asus warranty is the equivalent of toilet paper, so if you own or plan to buy Asus products you better hope they never fail, because if they do you may be in for a nightmare trying to get them repaired or replaced under Asus so-called warranty.

Just FYI.
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Oh yeah, been there since day one. I won't get an FM2+ until the others make them. ;)
Thanks for looking out. :)
 
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Thanks for pointing that out. I might just stick with AsRock then, even their low-end boards are top-notch.

This seems to be more evidence that those "Kaveri delayed" rumors are bogus.
 
bigdogchris said:
I've been looking at the APU's for a HTPC/Steam big picture. Even the best APU (A10) would struggle to get a decent frame rate at 720p. You throw some cheap and slow DDR2 or 3 on top of that and you bottleneck it even more.
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I am truely not sure if you are trying to spread fud because you are an intel fan boy or just don't know. I personally have not played any games on a FM2 system in steam big picture. I have played games on a A8-3500 FM1 system in steam big picture. On some of the newer games you have to turn the settings down to medium but it will still run at 30+. And any game from a couple of years ago and older, should have no problem at all playing at high or max settings while maintaining 30+fps. The only game I have tried playing that became a slide show at times was Civilization V.

Just doing a search on the IGP of the A10-5800K shows it staying above 30fps in alot of games. I seen on techpower up it shows some games down in the single digits but techpower up doesn't tell you what display setting or graphic level setting in the games. Guru of 3D shows you FarCry 2 and Resident Evil. Xbit Labs show you Battlefield 3, F1 2012, Hitman Absolution, Metro Last Light, and Tomb Raider.

Personally I think AMD has made an awesome all around system with these APU's. How can anyone complain when you can play games, encode, surf the internet, or about anything you want to and at full load be under 150 W. You might have to purchase software that uses the strengths of the apu, but in the end it is well worth it.
 
^Yeah, his post is definitely erroneous. Even Trinity A10 would destroy most games at 720p with Med-High/High/Ultra settings. Tests with Richland A10 show 30fps+ at 1080p in many modern games with a decent level of eye-candy enabled. That alone, when you consider it's all just running purely off a chip that is the size of an oreo cookie, is insane.

Also there's no Fusion APU's that can even use DDR2 since none of them have any memory controllers for that, no MOBO's with DDR2 sockets or anything either. The key to performance is to get some nice dual-channel RAM that is 1866 or 2133 and OC it to 2400 for best iGPU performance.

Kaveri, with it's GCN 2.0 GPU, improved memory controller, and architectural improvements will be very interesting. Either way my next rig will be based around Kaveri as I don't really care about playing Crysis 3 at 9000p resolution (I've played the Crysis games anyway and most of them are very boring.)
 
NaroonGTX said:
^Yeah, his post is definitely erroneous. Even Trinity A10 would destroy most games at 720p with Med-High/High/Ultra settings. Tests with Richland A10 show 30fps+ at 1080p in many modern games with a decent level of eye-candy enabled. That alone, when you consider it's all just running purely off a chip that is the size of an oreo cookie, is insane.

Also there's no Fusion APU's that can even use DDR2 since none of them have any memory controllers for that, no MOBO's with DDR2 sockets or anything either. The key to performance is to get some nice dual-channel RAM that is 1866 or 2133 and OC it to 2400 for best iGPU performance.

Kaveri, with it's GCN 2.0 GPU, improved memory controller, and architectural improvements will be very interesting. Either way my next rig will be based around Kaveri as I don't really care about playing Crysis 3 at 9000p resolution (I've played the Crysis games anyway and most of them are very boring.)
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I'd say it's better to just buy the 2400. Seems you can get it for around the same price as 2133.

An overclocked Richland 6800k and DDR3 2400 RAM on a large 720 monitor/TV (24"-28") would make for a pretty sweet and cheap gaming setup.

Then again a Pentium G2020 or something like that costs like 70 bucks, and then you can get a GHz edition 7770 for 90 bucks or less. A heavily OC'd Richland on 2400 RAM I think can eek out 2-2200 on 3DMark 11 while a stock 7770 would do 3500.

So for around the same price you can expect a lot more performance.
 
Kaveri's GPU is said to be on par with the 7750, but it's obviously not been confirmed yet.

Wonder if there will be BGA boards released on the desktop.
 
NaroonGTX said:
Kaveri's GPU is said to be on par with the 7750, but it's obviously not been confirmed yet.

Wonder if there will be BGA boards released on the desktop.
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7750?? I have mixed feelings about that... On one hand, it's great to see integrated GPUs at that level, but at the same time, intel is catching up, slowly. Their $600+ BGA-only integrated graphics are on-par with a GTX650m, so I'd hope Kaveri has a GPU that can trounce a 7750 at least...
 
if AMD update the APU-crossfire for Kaveri I imagine the addition of a 7790 would make a potent combination.

512 GCN2 shaders on the APU backed up with some DDR3 2400 synced over a lower-latency PCIe3 connection to 896 GCN2 shaders on the discrete GPU.

should be able to handle any HTPC gaming duties.
 
KazeoHin said:
7750?? I have mixed feelings about that... On one hand, it's great to see integrated GPUs at that level, but at the same time, intel is catching up, slowly. Their $600+ BGA-only integrated graphics are on-par with a GTX650m, so I'd hope Kaveri has a GPU that can trounce a 7750 at least...
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Very true. On the other hand, the AMD part won't cost $600. But all Intel needs to do is add those same graphics to the lower-priced parts, and BAM! That would be it.
 
The Intel parts are ludicrously expensive, and from what I understand, the die size is pretty massive. Seeing their current pricing/model scheme, they'd never release the same GPU on some lower-priced parts. Then the thing is BGA-only, so you'd have to be damned sure you're satisfied with the investment... Though Kaveri's flagship A10-7800k would probably be $150 (Richland would most likely get a slight price drop) and there wouldn't be any reason to spend more on the Intel solution.

Kaveri should be able to Crossfire with at least the 7750, and probably the 7770. Being able to Crossfire with the 7790 would be amazing, since the 7790 alone is already a pretty nice card. I don't think Kaveri alone being on par with the 7750 is too far-fetched, though obviously it wouldn't be as fast at the versions that have GDDR5.
 
The Intel parts are ludicrously expensive, and from what I understand, the die size is pretty massive. Seeing their current pricing/model scheme, they'd never release the same GPU on some lower-priced parts. Then the thing is BGA-only, so you'd have to be damned sure you're satisfied with the investment... Though Kaveri's flagship A10-7800k would probably be $150 (Richland would most likely get a slight price drop) and there wouldn't be any reason to spend more on the Intel solution.

Kaveri should be able to Crossfire with at least the 7750, and probably the 7770. Being able to Crossfire with the 7790 would be amazing, since the 7790 alone is already a pretty nice card. I don't think Kaveri alone being on par with the 7750 is too far-fetched, though obviously it wouldn't be as fast at the versions that have GDDR5.
 
Either way, I'm going to be scoring a Kaveri when they drop. I'm pretty excited for this. I'll probably build a couple of LAN party computers with it.
 
dcds1 said:
I am truely not sure if you are trying to spread fud because you are an intel fan boy or just don't know. <snip>
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NaroonGTX said:
^Yeah, his post is definitely erroneous.<snip>
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Why would I be looking at the APU if I was an Intel fanboi? Some of the benchmarks were OK but others were horrible. I'm just saying that APU's are not at the point yet where, in my opinion, you can say hands down they offer a great gaming performance. I think they are very close (especialy if AMD ships the one being used in the PS4) but it's not there yet.

I'm not going to drop $4-500 for a system that may perform the way I want and I can't recommend that others do that either, so I said what I said.
 
What we were saying is that you weren't looking very well, or you just had ridiculously high expectations is all. Of course these APU's won't max out Crysis 3 at 1080p and pull 60fps. But you can play just about any modern game at 1080p settings and get very playable framerates with decent amount of eyecandy enabled.

Of course, it depends on what *you* define as "great gaming performance". Usually "performance" refers to actual framerate, and thus playability. These current APU's can do that. But if you want to play the latest games with all eyecandy enabled, all settings turned up to max, at 1080p or above, you shouldn't be looking at APU's to begin with. Just saying.
 
Yeah I was going to say that "great gaming performance" is rather relative to the eye of the beholder. We're damn picky around here, but 99%er plebs like my brother saw my 560 (non-Ti) in action a few weeks ago and was totally blown away. I did not mention the Titan in the other PC hahaha
 
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