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About LinkBacksI don't understand why it bothers you.Originally Posted by cam1986
I don't understand why it bothers you.
What bothers me?
That's a bonus for cost, but 1600MHz RAM isn't going to get the best out of the GPU in the 7870k. Here's a few reviews looking at memory speed impact on AMD IGP performance:
A10 5800K
http://hexus.net/tech/reviews/ram/47...-8gbxl/?page=4
A10 7850k
http://www.hardcoreware.net/kaveri-m...mance-scaling/
http://www.pcper.com/reviews/Memory/...ics-Benchmarks
Memory speed has a significant impact on IGP performance. Coupling an A10 7870k to 1600MHz RAM is basically hobbling it - you're just throwing 20% of the potential away. If you'd been buying memory I'd've recommended 8GB (2x4GB) of minimum 2133MHz RAM - shop around the price differential to 1600MHz RAM is only about a fiver. But when it becomes the difference between free RAM and buying a kit...
If you're getting free 1600MHz RAM, it changes the value proposition quite a lot. It's not going to get the best out of any APU, even the A8 7600, and I definitely wouldn't buy a more expensive APU than that. I know this isn't what you want to hear, but actually at that point you might be better served by a discrete GPU, coupled with either an Intel dual core or a socket FM2+ Athlon quad core. You really need to consider the system as a whole; that RAM is going to impact on how the system as a whole performs. if that's an unchangeable factor in the build, you should take account of it in the other components...
Having the GPU on it's own chip instead of alongside the CPU.
A8 7600? Why that one?
Thanks but i want a small case. Those are too high. The Raijintek Metis ITX looks just right for my needs.
It's a quad core with a decent IGP, and it's only £65
You're getting free RAM which is relatively slow, and will restrict the performance of other components. That makes this a budget build. If you're not going to invest in the fast RAM that will get the best performance out of the A10 7870k (8GB of DDR3-2400 is around £45), you may as well save the money for something else - £40 can buy you an entry level Android tablet, or a nice meal out, or a case of good wine: whatever you fancy.
1600MHz RAM is going to seriously hamper IGP performance: essentially that one choice loses you 20% of the potential gaming performance of the system. Even on the A8 7600: http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/cpu...veri-review/11
The A8 7600 is a good processor, it's got more than enough performance for everyday tasks and light to moderate gaming at 720p (it's a damn sight faster than the A10 4600M in my laptop, and that's more than adequate for all my general computing and gaming), and critically - and I can't stress this enough - it's only £65. It's phenomenal value. I'm sure it will meet your expectations. And you put £40 back in your pocket for another day.
Ok, thanks for info and advice. I will have a think about that as you are saying the A8-7600 with 16gb 1600 Ram would be better that the A10-7870K with the same ram?
I don't think he is saying it is better, just far better value. If you want the best integrated graphics, then that would be the £300 Intel chip which is utterly appalling value for money. The 7870K is a good chip (though I still think the 65W TDP ones make for an easier to live with system), but the value is questionable compared to a graphics card.
Let's look at the Intel case because extremes are always easier. For £300, I can get a R9 380, and have about £130 left over for a cpu which gets me a 7870K, a top end i3 with change to spare or if I save up another tenner I can get an entry level i5.
What does that 380 give you? Well apart from the obvious graphics being about a magnitude faster that card would have 4GB of its own RAM on it which takes a big load off the main system ram (cache on Intel, but the effect is the same). That is 4GB of very fast ram, for free, with faster graphics thrown in.
With the 7870K the case isn't as clear, but you still are paying a lot of money for graphics capability and that money could be diverted into a graphics card to give a more capable system.
Once you get down to £65, well the graphics capability is a bargain. Frankly, if something struggles to play on a 7600 then a 7870K isn't going to be great either. On top of that, I think I said earlier, a 65W apu is going to be easier to cool in a small case.
My home server runs an A8-6500, which is sort of the predecessor of the 7600. I have several APUs in the house, a Llano 3870K, a 5800K and the 6500 and of the three the 6500 is the one that impressed me the most. I bought it as it was the cheapest quad core I could get, it runs a virtual machine farm with VMs to give three Minecraft servers, a house video surveillance system, email and file storage, all running 24/7 and it hardly pulls its cores out of sleep mode to run that lot.
Your "my system" tab says quad core AMD, which one is that out of interest?
System tab is out of date sorry
Nail. Head. *thunk*
The 7870k is faster than the 7600. No doubt about it. Even with the slow memory.
Even with fast memory I'd question whether the 7870k is fast enough to warrant the extra £40 over the 7600, but if you want a computer with the best integrated graphics available (without spending £300 on a Broadwell-C i7) that's the 7870k with DDR3-2400 memory. There's a certain amount of inherent value in having something that is "the best", after all.
The thing is, if you're using DDR3-1600, you're not getting the fastest integrated graphics available. At which point you're spending the extra £40 on just an incremental increase compared to the 7600. Have a look at the comparison at anandtech bench http://anandtech.com/bench/product/1497?vs=1270 and note how close the two processors are in most things, including the integrated graphics tests, which were done using DDR3-2133. With slower memory that gap will be even closer on the graphics.
So for me, if you're not specifically looking to get the absolute best IGP performance available, the extra £40 isn't well spent.
So, the question is "what do you want?"
If you want the best graphics performance available without getting a discrete card (ignoring Broadwell-C with it's huge price premium) then go for the A10 7870k, thank your mate for the offer of free RAM, but turn him down and buy 8GB of DDR3-2400 while the prices are rock bottom at ebuyer
If you want a good value system that will be perfect for general day-to-day computing and handle recent games at low settings, take your mate's DDR3-1600, get an A8 7600, and put that spare £80 (the saving on the APU plus the saving on the RAM) towards something nice.
I will stick with the 7870K and the 1600 ram for now. I can always sell that ram and get the 2400 later. Money is tight. Ordered the case already.
You can try to overclock the memory modules as well
Never tried thatYou can try to overclock the memory modules as well
Would say it is easier than the CPU overclock.
I over clocked even the RAM in my NAS (faster frequency, higher latencies,lower voltage).
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