Advice on upgrading an AMD A10 6800k based system

[hyperionel]

Hello guys,

I recently made a mistake and rushed into buying a new system without extensive research.I ended up with AMD's A10 6800k APU and so far i am not pleased with its performance, I should mention I play games frequently, recently tried TERA online and was disappointed.

I started researching and I found out how I can improve my APU's performance like buying higher frequency RAM's or going into dual graphics with an 6670.

I realize I should have not gone APU in the first place but the deed is done and im looking for cost effective ways to move away from the APU step by step.With money being an isue and for any regular cpu i also need to buy a new motherboard because its on the FM2+ socket I'm torn between buying a discrete medium-high end graphics card like ATI 78xx series or just improving the iGPU by buying higher frequency RAMS (my rams are pretty bad 2x4gb 1333mHz).

I am not happy in the current state because every game seems to stutter when set to very high even League of Legends which is not considered a high demanding game,the stutters are very small but they're there. Also TERA online was a nightmare, on very low setting i could pull 40 fps max when not moving, on very high 10-12.

I was hoping you guys can give me some advice on how to improve this system step by step because the money are pretty tight now and i cant afford a Motherboard&CPU&GPU.

Sorry for any grammar mistakes, english is not my first language and thanks for being an awesome community.

 

[WhiteSnake91]

ahh I see. 7850 wouldn't be bad and technically even better than the 7790 that's roughly in the new xbox one console. 7850 isn't that bad, haven't checked it in many recent games but should play on 1080p high well. I remember it playing bf3 on ultra 1080p 60fps fine

 

[WhiteSnake91]

I can't find stock of the GTX 650 Ti Boost or the HD 7850 ANYWHERE (US). Are they discontinued? If so, thats a shame.

It seems like both NVIDIA and AMD are trying to rip us off by creeping up the R7 260x and the GTX 650 Ti (which by the way loses out on a lot of features against the boost version) prices to where the 650TiB and the HD7850 prices were.

yeah it's sad, alot of prices on stuff have skyrocketed when I see them in stock. I've seen 650ti boost go for more than the 660ti/ GTX 760 cost, and most of the AMD high end side has skyrocketed due to bitcoin miners thinking they'll get rich off this new currency lol.

 

[hyperionel]

ahh I see. 7850 wouldn't be bad and technically even better than the 7790 that's roughly in the new xbox one console. 7850 isn't that bad, haven't checked it in many recent games but should play on 1080p high well. I remember it playing bf3 on ultra 1080p 60fps fine

My real concern is if i will be fine CPU wise since i am not really sure how to go about disabling the GPU in the APU and wether the CPU is powerfull enough compared to other quad cores out there.

 

[swifty_morgan]

yes............. keep your apu and get a 2gig 7870 or better card................did you look at that video I posted?............

 

[WhiteSnake91]

well, I'm not going to say it's the best out there, but it's not the worst either. In the future you can choose to upgrade to amd or intel.

The athlon x4 750k that many have recommended online for 1080p gaming on a budget is basically your cpu just without the graphics built in lol. So you're not THAT bad off. Plus your CPU boosts to 4.4ghz by itself


you don't have to turn off the built in graphics, my bro hasn't. When you plug in a gpu the computer already knows to use it. Obviously plug in your DVI/HDMI cable to the new gpu you get though.

 

[hyperionel]

yes............. keep your apu and get a 2gig 7870 or better card................did you look at that video I posted?............

I did actually I just forgot about it since ive seen a ton of hardware related videos lately.

 

[swifty_morgan]

list all your hardware. include power supply and monitor.............. give specific problems.

 

[hyperionel]

I finally got the money to order new RAM memory since i dont have enough for a video card and my current memory is boroughed and im thinking of getting Kingston HyperX Predator 8GB Kit 2x4GB DDR3 2400MHz CL11 but i am not really sure that my ASUS A88XM-PLUS motherboard can support that since it says it only supports up to 2133/2400(O.C) and im not sure what that means. Thanks again you guys have been a great help.

 

[WhiteSnake91]

it'll support 2400mhz ram. You'd even see an FPS increase in games because the AMD APU's need fast ram. It makes me cringe when I see people pair an APU with wimpy slow 1333mhz ram 😛

 

[hyperionel]

im really changeable... so my budget is somewhere around 150$ in this money i can either buy the above mentioned 2x4gb 2400mHz or buy a (hd 7770 1gb ddr5)/(Gainward GeForce GTX 650 1GB DDR5 128bit) and a 4gb 1333 mHz memory (since the current memory is not mine)
i really dont know which way ill get more gaming performance also if you can suggest me a better graphics card in this price range it would be nice

 

[WhiteSnake91]

only if you're using the built in graphics do you need fast ram, since your getting a gpu fast ram isn't needed. But do buy another 4gb stick because 8gb ram total is really best for gaming.

since 4gb ram costs around ~40 now, that leaves about ~$110 for the gpu.


try to find HD 7790 for that price, it's better than the 7770. But if all you can afford is the 7770, it'll serve you well. It's about as strong as the older GTX 460 and that used to be the go to card back in the day lol. It can play on 1080p well, and if you're on a lower resolution you can likely play everything on ultra. Even on 1080p you can do ultra and have 30+fps more often than not.


the 7790 is what's in the xbox one new console, so you'll be set for years with that.

 

[hyperionel]

only if you're using the built in graphics do you need fast ram, since your getting a gpu fast ram isn't needed. But do buy another 4gb stick because 8gb ram total is really best for gaming.

since 4gb ram costs around ~40 now, that leaves about ~$110 for the gpu.


try to find HD 7790 for that price, it's better than the 7770. But if all you can afford is the 7770, it'll serve you well. It's about as strong as the older GTX 460 and that used to be the go to card back in the day lol. It can play on 1080p well, and if you're on a lower resolution you can likely play everything on ultra. Even on 1080p you can do ultra and have 30+fps more often than not.


the 7790 is what's in the xbox one new console, so you'll be set for years with that.

heh the 7790 is around 180$ in my country i taught about it myself but i need something more budget oriented and since the holidays just passed and almost everything is out of stock lately my options are limited tough i did find a nice 7770 Ghz edition 1gb DDR5 for just 120$


Another curious thing is today i got to test a discrete graphics card , the saphire hd 4850(dont think they make them anymore since i couldnt not find one for sale, it has 256 bit BUS, 1gb DDR3,pixel shader 4 i think) and surprisingly i saw little performance improvement i ran the Passmark where i scored 1800 with only the APU and it scored 1847 with the discrete graphics card and in0game little to no improvement at all

 

[WhiteSnake91]

the 7770ghz is decent, you could certainly do much worse than a 7770ghz edition 😛

 

[hyperionel]

Will the 7770ghz definately disable the integrated GPU?

 

[WhiteSnake91]

I don't see why it wouldn't, you should be fine

 

[con635]

only if you're using the built in graphics do you need fast ram, since your getting a gpu fast ram isn't needed. But do buy another 4gb stick because 8gb ram total is really best for gaming.

since 4gb ram costs around ~40 now, that leaves about ~$110 for the gpu.


try to find HD 7790 for that price, it's better than the 7770. But if all you can afford is the 7770, it'll serve you well. It's about as strong as the older GTX 460 and that used to be the go to card back in the day lol. It can play on 1080p well, and if you're on a lower resolution you can likely play everything on ultra. Even on 1080p you can do ultra and have 30+fps more often than not.


the 7790 is what's in the xbox one new console, so you'll be set for years with that.

heh the 7790 is around 180$ in my country i taught about it myself but i need something more budget oriented and since the holidays just passed and almost everything is out of stock lately my options are limited tough i did find a nice 7770 Ghz edition 1gb DDR5 for just 120$


Another curious thing is today i got to test a discrete graphics card , the saphire hd 4850(dont think they make them anymore since i couldnt not find one for sale, it has 256 bit BUS, 1gb DDR3,pixel shader 4 i think) and surprisingly i saw little performance improvement i ran the Passmark where i scored 1800 with only the APU and it scored 1847 with the discrete graphics card and in0game little to no improvement at all

What was your 3d graphics score by itself with the apu on passmark?

 

[Cazalan]

The 6800K was designed to be paired with DDR3-2133, so that would be the first step. You can get a 20-30% performance gain using top rated memory. DDR3-2400 would give some future proofing.

LoL is not a very demanding game, so you should be fine with just that memory upgrade.

 

[WhiteSnake91]

with as much as ram has shot up in prices since last year, he'd be better off even getting an actual 7770 gpu, same price roughly

 

[swifty_morgan]

7770 is too slow and under performing.

 

[hyperionel]

7770 is too slow and under performing.

Can you please suggest anything better in that price? I heard really good things about this video card but i dont want to rush into buying parts. Again its the sapphire radeon hd 7770 ghz edition 1gb ddr5.

I care to mention i don't want the games running on ultra i just want them to run smooth at around 60 fps on 720p i really hate framedrops and with the apu im getting plenty atm.

 

[swifty_morgan]

should have said that in your initial post.......... buy the 7770.

 

[hyperionel]

Thank you guys for everything, i just placed the order for the 7770 Ghz....there was only 1 left in the stock and i couldn't find a cheaper one so i hope it will be fine

 

[WhiteSnake91]

ah I didn't know you would only be on 720p as well...on 720p would probably be on ultra fine.

I know what 7770 isn't the best card ever, never said that. But the guy said the 7790 is $180 in his country and that's the only next step up...here it's about $10-20 more than the 7770

 

[Simon Horne]

Hi I have 6800 it will do tera l have memory ay 2133 mgz thats your problem for sure anything under 1866 is to slow apus get big performance boist from high speed memory I have G skill tridrnt x 2400 runnning at 2133 hooe this is of some help should be getting 40fos on high settings at least