Mobo/CPU/RAM - Rebuilding the heart.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

One of these motherboards are quite solid:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/M5A97-EVO-R2.../dp/B008RPZ5H8

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/offer-lis...&condition=new

They are more overclocking orientated motherboards but my mate with an earlier version of the EVO was running one with a Phenom II X6 for months unde heavy load running bioinformatics stuff fine.

You will need a discrete card with the AMD setups though.

[Galant]

Discrete card?

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Discrete card?

The AM3+ chips don't have an IGP.

[dfour]

How about:


AMD Piledriver FX-6 Six Core 6300 Black Edition 3.50GHz £80

or faster

AMD Piledriver FX-8 Eight Core 8320E £105

Asus M5A97 EVO R2.0 £67
TeamGroup Elite Black 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C11 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit £60

Would recommend a better cooler like a deepcool lucifer (if you can find one) or a Hyper 412s (or better).

Good enough for causal gaming

MSI GeForce GTX 750 OC 1024MB GDDR5 £83

Better especially for 1080p gaming

MSI GeForce GTX 750Ti OC 2048MB £108

Better still but uses more power.

Sapphire Radeon R7 265 Dual-X 2048MB £100

or

Sapphire Radeon R9 270 2048MB GDDR5 £114

FM2+ build

AMD A10 AD785KXBJABOX 7850K Black Edition £114


Asus A88XM-PLUS Motherboard (Socket FM2+) £55

HyperX 8 GB 2400 MHz CL11 DDR3 HyperX Beast £72

Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO £25 (possibly a bit overkill on a 45/65 watt chip)

No need for a separate graphics card on this build.

[DanceswithUnix]

Why an 8320E when the 8320 is £5 cheaper and faster?

[dfour]

lower TDP as he live in Gibraltar so easier to keep cool without anything to exotic.

[Galant]

I'll review all of this. Cheers.

Any thoughts on one of those AMD chips (8320/8350) with gfx vs. i5 4460 without gfx card (one can always be added later)?

[dfour]

depending upon what graphics card would depend upon what would be faster i suppose and in hat program/game.

Dont forget the FM2 build will be faster graphically without a gpu than the i5 4460 will be without a gpu.

[DanceswithUnix]

depending upon what graphics card would depend upon what would be faster i suppose and in hat program/game.

Dont forget the FM2 build will be faster graphically without a gpu than the i5 4460 will be without a gpu.

A 7850K APU should be about the same price as an Athon X4 860K and an R7 250 combo, but the Athlon has either the same performance when CPU limited or when using OpenCL or gaming the discrete graphics has twice the grunt.

Remove the space from the link below for relevant benchmark (Hexus doesn't like the link):

http://www.overc lock3d.net/reviews/cpu_mainboard/amd_athlon_860k_black_edition_cpu_review/6

[dfour]

Theoretically the a10 should win as it packs 512 stream vs 384 on the 250 or 640 on the 250X model but it doesnt pan out like that

In our Gaming tests we used Tomb Raider, Hitman Absolution and Sleeping Dogs. We used the same settings we used in our Kaveri Review and, you guess it, the 860K with the R7 250 gives significantly better performance than the 7850K APU in all the games tested.

Nice catch Dances.

[scaryjim]

They don't specify, but I'd put money on their R7 250 - priced at £60 - being a GDDR5 version. The massive boost in memory bandwidth compared to the A10-7850k is what makes the difference in gaming benchmarks. Also the R7 250's 384 shaders run at over 1GHz, while the A10's 512 run at 720MHz. 512x720 = 368,640, 384 x 1000 = (unsurprisingly) 384,000. So the R7 250 has more arithmetic grunt and more bandwidth: it *should* be faster than the A10's IGP....

[DanceswithUnix]

The GPU is no longer fighting the CPU for memory accesses or thermals, so to some extent it unleashes the CPU. For gaming the APU seems a non starter.

The oddity is that the 7850 when doing straight CPU stuff seems to be very slightly faster than the Athlon X4 despite them both being 3.7 to 4.0GHz chips. Probably down to motherboard tuning or something, there isn't much in it but those graphs do show a difference.

Which is all very interesting, but I still think the Fx8350 is a bargain if you can stand the extra power consumption (which in my full ATX case isn't a problem).

[Pob255]

the A10 7850 works well at lower resolutions, esp 720p, 1080p only on lower demanding games (older or less graphically intense than AAA games tend to be)

As always it depends on the games you play and how many shines you want.

However yes adding a discreet card, even a lower-mid end one like the R7 250 is going to be better than the ondie gpu, but you're still adding £60-70 to the budget for that card and the performance gain isn't that great, you really want to be looking at an R7 260x, around £90, at least for decent gaming.

If you're thinking of putting in a graphics card then I'd not look at the amd apu's and at a low end i5, probably the 4460 as a price vs performance point the amd fx 8320 is also good but does tend to use more current and produce more heat than the i5 4460

[Bonebreaker777]

Recently bought R7 260X MSI 2GB (today) for £80. Shame it didn't came with any game (is it odd or it is just me?).

Currently in testing with OC using Afterburner (Catalyst 14.9.1 beta has no performance tab) 1200Mhz for core, 6400Mhz memory. 12h Furmark burn-in <- will report back how did it go.

Just wanted to say, if dedicated card the either R7 260 1GB (performance between the old 7770 and 7790) from eBuyer £64 or XFX R7 260x 2GB from Scan for £80. Would say the price performance ratio in both cards is pretty much the same what means the amount you pay extra for the 260X you get equivalent amount of extra performance for it.

Otherwise I can only echo the suggestions about the CPU.

[Pob255]

remember he's in Gibraltar, prices and availability may not match the uk

why I often give rough average prices not specific deals

[DanceswithUnix]

Recently bought R7 260X MSI 2GB (today) for £80. Shame it didn't came with any game (is it odd or it is just me?).

My wife's 2GB MSI 260X came with a couple of games. I think it is all down to timing of when it was made.

If it is any consolation, she didn't think much of the games.