CPU Anyone have experience with AMD APUs? Considering one for a light gaming build

[CC Ricers]

I'm considering downsizing my gamer build for now, since I don't do a lot of heavy gaming, and if I would game I'd have the option to just take my PC to the living room and plug to the TV (this is a uSFF build after all ) And I'm very interested in trying out one of the AMD APU's.

Here's what I was thinking of for my build:

* AMD A10 7860K
* MSI A88XI AC motherboard
* 8GB Samsung wonder RAM (1600 Mhz OC)
* storage: Sandisk m.2 128GB SSD
* HD-PLEX 160W power setup

I picked the 7860K for its lower cost and TDP compared to the 7890K. I also plan to overclock the R7 GPU to about 1Ghz so the lower TDP could give me more headroom. The SSD will be plugged in a simple m.2 to 2.5" SATA enclosure for compatibility.

For games I'll normally play at 768p, maybe higher for some games if they aren't GPU intensive enough. Does this sound like a good start for a APU build? Would you change anything?

 

[confusis]

I just sold my 7860K rig so;

Faster RAM is worth the cost. I say 1866 at a minimum. The below is for an older APU but the improvement is still accurate in most cases.

My 7860K was solid enough to play Minecraft on high at 1080P, and coped with most other games at 1080p.

 

[CC Ricers]

I have Arkham City so I could test my results against that graph right as I finish the build My RAM speed and timings are very close to the 1600mhz @ 9-9-9-24, so yeah good call on getting faster RAM.

Even though timings are loosened up on the higher clocks, the clock speeds alone still make a noticeable positive impact it seems. The chart doesn't say by how much the GPU was OC'd in the first item. Did you try to OC yours? Do you think it would be reasonable to get it up to 900-1000 Mhz?

 

[Thehack]

Hey. I have built one.

The performance of one is really only fit for 720p gaming at decent frame-rates. Memory speed is definitely more important.

However, with Raven Ridge so close, I think you should hold out for a Raven Ridge build, unless you're willing to take a loss. We can expect Raven Ridge to bring RX 460 class graphics to APU.

You should wait for an AM4 ITX motherboard to be available, and use it with an A12-9800 for now.
Here's my build:

 

[CC Ricers]

I'd be okay playing at lower resolutions while waiting for Raven Ridge. I don't expect it to come out until Q3 of this year, anyways.

And I thought A12 Bristol Ridge APUs are only available with pre-built OEM PC's?

 

[Thehack]

I'd be okay playing at lower resolutions while waiting for Raven Ridge. I don't expect it to come out until Q3 of this year, anyways.

And I thought A12 Bristol Ridge APUs are only available with pre-built OEM PC's?

http://www.anandtech.com/show/10705...and-am4-analysis-a12-9800-b350-a320-chipset/2

Available at some point. Probably a month into Ryzen once motherboard production stabilizes.

If you're in a hurry, I would look around for used, as it's a dead platform and you're relying on the APU. I happened to find some clearance mobos at micro center as well.

 

[Kmpkt]

From what the rumour mill is churning out the new AMD APUs are going to be beefy. Apparently HBM on die and very quick graphics. Unless you're desperate, I'd personally wait. AM4 is going to have a much better feature set and it sounds like these NPUs are only a couple months off (like X300).

 

[Thehack]

From what the rumour mill is churning out the new AMD APUs are going to be beefy. Apparently HBM on die and very quick graphics. Unless you're desperate, I'd personally wait. AM4 is going to have a much better feature set and it sounds like these NPUs are only a couple months off (like X300).

We're looking at second half of 2017 at the earliest, so it's not coming anytime soon. I'm guessing a couple months after the full release of Ryzen and Vega.

 

[Phuncz]

My guess would be August or November. APUs sell well for educational systems (for "learning") and considering the server chips and laptop chips (no clue if these are APUs) seem to be targeted before the APUs.

 

[Gadgety]

I put together an A8-7600 build for my kid. The APUs are very memory sensitive. 2133 gets you a 10% improvement in performance over 1866. The A8 could only go to 2133. Tests showed performance improvement was pretty linear with each memory speed increase on Kaveri. In addition dual rank memory yields up to 6% better performance than single rank. Taken together that's quite an improvement. It was hard to find, and to identify DR memory, though.

 

[IntoxicatedPuma]

Also have an A8 7600, even paired with r7 240, performance is not stellar. For compactness, a low profile rx460 or gtx 1050 will give much much much better performance. I eventually put a gt 740 in my girlfriends APU build.

 

[Thehack]

Also have an A8 7600, even paired with r7 240, performance is not stellar. For compactness, a low profile rx460 or gtx 1050 will give much much much better performance. I eventually put a gt 740 in my girlfriends APU build.

They are only a class above intel's IGP. An RX 460 has almost 3 times the stream processors and doesn't get bandwidth bottlenecked.

 

[cleveland]

Also have an A8 7600, even paired with r7 240, performance is not stellar. For compactness, a low profile rx460 or gtx 1050 will give much much much better performance. I eventually put a gt 740 in my girlfriends APU build.

If you wanna squeeze the most out of that hybrid crossfire, you should be pairing that a8 with the r7 250 (Oland XT), the one with ddr3 memory. They have EXACTLY the same number of stream processors and work wonders when doing the job together. Also, in regard of SFF, there's a half height single slot version of this GPU.

Just be warned: its really not cost effective and the frame pacing is a real pain in the ass in some game titles.

 

[IntoxicatedPuma]

Tried to find an r7 250 with ddr3 when I got it but had no luck. The performance gains over an r7 240 probably would have been pretty minimal anyways. As mentioned by another user, I think memory bandwidth is the limiter on APUs, hopefully DDR4 or HBM will solve that.

 

[CC Ricers]

I have a R7 240 and yes it doesn't seem super stellar when I tried it with benchmarks on 768p But I haven't tried playing any actual games on it.

As far as APUs go though, I was already set on avoiding A8 and lower. The A10-7860k has 512 shader thingies compared to 384 on the A8-7600. May be closer to R7 250 in performance. In theory it should be, but I'm just guessing since they are both GCN 2nd gen.

 

[Josh | NFC]

I've bought two and tested three. They are garbage. I am very disappointed...you are much better off finding a chip with Iris Pro graphics and you can even use cheap memory.

I had to cancel my Youtube video because it was a negative nacy AMD bashing 45 mins.....

 

[zovc]

On my 4790K, I am able to play Resident Evil 5 in 720p at 30fps. Integrated graphics have made pretty big jumps since then. If you compare using userbenchmark's GPU comparisons, you can see pretty drastic performance differences since then...

All that said, you can get a cheap-as-possible processor (Skylake Pentium) for ~$65 and try to scratch together the less-than $200 for a 1050(Ti), even possibly Galax/Palit's fanless one.

 

[cleveland]

I know i'm starting to be a little obnoxious here about hybrid crossfire and such, but the A8-7600 has way more similarities with the R7 250 thant the a10-78xx alternatives. Check that out:

GPU side
http://xfxforce.com/en-us/products/...s/amd-radeon-r7-250-core-edition-r7-250a-zlj4 (STREAM PROCESSORS: 384; 1600 MHz memory)

APU side
http://products.amd.com/en-us/searc...or-Desktops/A8-7600-with-Radeon™-R7-Series/62 (GRAPHICS CORE COUNT: 384)

http://products.amd.com/en-us/searc...-Desktops/A10-7850K-with-Radeon™-R7-Series/10 (GRAPHICS CORE COUNT: 512)

I GUESS the indication to pair the R7 250 with the A10-78xx is more about marketing and sales than real compatibility and efficiency.

 

[Thehack]

I know i'm starting to be a little obnoxious here about hybrid crossfire and such, but the A8-7600 has way more similarities with the R7 250 thant the a10-78xx alternatives. Check that out:

GPU side
http://xfxforce.com/en-us/products/...s/amd-radeon-r7-250-core-edition-r7-250a-zlj4 (STREAM PROCESSORS: 384; 1600 MHz memory)

APU side
http://products.amd.com/en-us/search/APU/AMD-A-Series-Processors/AMD-A8-Series-APU-for-Desktops/A8-7600-with-Radeon™-R7-Series/62 (GRAPHICS CORE COUNT: 384)

http://products.amd.com/en-us/search/APU/AMD-A-Series-Processors/AMD-A10-Series-APU-for-Desktops/A10-7850K-with-Radeon™-R7-Series/10 (GRAPHICS CORE COUNT: 512)

I GUESS the indication to pair the R7 250 with the A10-78xx is more about marketing and sales than real compatibility and efficiency.

There's no point in crossfire an apu. You are better off just getting a pentium or cheap athlon and a low profile GPU. So yeah it is all marketing.

 

[cleveland]

There's no point in crossfire an apu. You are better off just getting a pentium or cheap athlon and a low profile GPU. So yeah it is all marketing.

I don't know about the country where you live, but here in Brazil, the performance/price ratio of this kind of build is heavily favorable towards the kaveri hybrid crossfire.

I got 2 APU builds that i use mainly for daily tasks and casual MOBA gaming:
- F2A88XN + A8-7600 + R7 250 LP + 2x4 GB Kingston HyperX 1866 MHz (CL 10) + SSD Samsung EVO 250 GB
- F2A88XN + A10-7860K + 2x4 GB Corsair 2133 MHz (CL 9) + SSD AMD 240 GB

Both serve well to my needs and are as fast as I need them to be.