AMD A10 7850K APU vs Intel Core i5 HD4600 for gaming?

[Charlise]

Which will be a better performer guys? I will be playing games like League of Legends, World of Warcraft, GTA V, The Sims 4, NFS, NBA 2k15, Dota 2 (mostly LoL and WoW). Of course I am not expecting ultra, even low settings will be just fine for me and I will be playing at maybe 1366×768 or 1600×900 monitor depends on what I get. Thanks!

 

[theyeti87]

If you are not planning to add a dedicated GPU to the i5 build, the A10 is the way to go.

LoL and WoW alike don't require tremendous graphics horsepower, but you will want to make sure you have at least 8GB of system memory if you opt for the A10.

GTA V is more demanding of your system, but you should be able to play it with reasonable framerates at reduced eye candy.

 

[Charlise]

I plan to buy a GPU later on with the i5, and now I am itching to play those. Will the HD4600 of the i5 hold up in the meantime for the games that I had listed with maybe low graphics and 1366×768 max resolutiin?

 

[boosted1g]

The i5 does doughnuts around the a10 which in real world tests does not even measure up to an i3.

Now the i5 will not be able to play much of any games with its integrated graphics, you will need a dedicated GPU pretty much from the start. It will do low settings with 1386x768 resolution on most games, but some like GTA V will flat out just not allow you to play.

In the long run though the i5 is cheaper.
To squeeze every last drop of performance out of the A10 you will need high frequency ram and a good cpu cooler to overclock as well as generating more power and heat. So at best you come out at equal cost to max your A10 out to still be significantly slower then the i5.

 

[spdragoo]

http://anandtech.com/show/9217/the-amd-a8-7650k-apu-review-also-new-testing-methodology/7

Using integrated graphics alone, the A10 will beat even an i7-4790K, let alone an i5-4590K, even in games like GTA V.

And it's doing it for a much cheaper price, as the i5 & i7 are much more expensive than the A10. Which means you always have the option of including a dedicated GPU in your build for the same price as an integrated-only Intel build (or being able to afford an even better dedicated GPU than the Intel build would allow).

However, if you're looking at games other than Total War; Attila, GRiD, GTA V, or Alien Isolation, you might have to look up the integrated-only benchmarks for a better comparison.

 

[boosted1g]

Yes, the integrated graphics of the i5 is significantly weaker then the A10.
This advantage is very quickly obliterated by adding in a dedicated GPU, at that point the cpu performance of the i5 will be significantly better then the a10 (or any fm2 cpu).
The network I am on right now blocks anything "gaming" so I cant lookup any gaming benchmarks, but if you went to 3dmark or other site you would see how much better the i5 performs over the a10 once a gpu is installed.

The fm2 platform is fine for mild gaming when you have no desire to use a dedicated GPU or play above medium settings. As soon as you aspire for more you going to hit a brick wall (I think the sign on that wall said reality) and have to upgrade to a different platform to get better performance. Much cheaper to just do it right the first time.

 

[Anthony Jan]

Some of the comments here are utterly WRONG and will just mislead you. As someone who uses APU's and did an extensive research with benchmarks, listen to me carefully and decide.

To cut the story short, GO FOR THE AMD A10! It is WAAAAAAAY more powerful than the i5 IN TERMS OF GAMING (which is your sole purpose).

Now you need to understand something very important. You are talking about two APU's (the i-Core and A-series processors are APU's). An APU is a processor that has an integrated Graphics Chip (CPU + GPU combined). Therefore, it is assumed that you are not planning on buying a dedicated graphics card. If you plan on buying a dedicated graphics card then why on earth would you buy an APU?

Now if we're talking about APU's performance in GAMING, then the A10 would even beat the i7 (but perhaps not the $1100 i7, the latest one, I do not know its gaming capability, but you're seriously not planning on buying that overpriced chip, right?). Even my old A8-7600k can play Crysis 3 smoothly on med-high settings, non HD, on a friggin slow 1600Mhz RAM. The i5 can't do this. This is because the i-Core series have lame graphics chip, they focused on the raw power of their CPU which is indeed better than AMD's CPU raw power. But APU's are for GAMING purposes, that's why it includes a graphics chip obviously, so the only thing that counts is their gaming performance. If I want raw CPU power, I would have bought an AMD's powerful OCTACORE processor for a still cheaper price than i5, and then I'd use the spare money to buy a graphics card.

And someone even said that the A10 will cost more in the long run because you will have to get a fast RAM (2133Mhz RAM) and a good cooler. This is a terrible misinformation. You need a fast RAM whether you go for i5 or A10. But the good thing about the A10 is that it would benefit much greatly with a fast RAM but the i5 barely would (i5 has a LOCKED memory size and slow clock speed, the A10 uses system RAM so faster RAM means faster A10). As for a cooler, there is no need to overclock the A10 since it is way more powerful than the i5. Only the i5 needs overclocking to catch up a little. But here's the best thing about the A10-7860k: it comes with a free cooler!!! You can now overclock its iGPU to around 1000Mhz to significantly increase your FPS to further beat the i5 into a bloody pulp.

So please, I hope I'm not too late, be a wise buyer. Intel is overpriced yet AMD delivers more power at a cheaper price. Without AMD, Intel could freely rip us off.

 

[Anthony Jan]

And let me tell you a story. Like I said, I have the old A8-7600k with just 1600Mhz RAM. I can run heavy games like NBA2K16 very smoothly on high settings, non-HD (I don't see the point in spending a lot for HD, little difference anyway). Then a guy came to me to sell his secondhand i5 PC setup for $135 (an i5 already costs at around $199) because his son won't or can't play games on it. But... i just bought my AMD setup for less that price, and I won't be able to play games on that i5 unless I buy a medium level video card which will cost me another $135.

But here's the truth. I can just buy a 2133Mhz RAM for $54 (it's cheaper here in my country) to upgrade my A8 setup further so I can play Battlefield 4 on it with 40-70 FPS (impressive isn't it). So if his i5 PC has a 2133Mhz RAM then I'll just buy the RAM for a much cheaper price because it is used.

 

[DSzymborski]

First off, you're giving someone advice for a question asked two years ago. And second, you assumed the poster wasn't planning on buying a dedicated graphics card when in fact they said they intended to later.

 

[logainofhades]

I would say you are quite late, as this thread is nearly 2yrs old. Don't necro old threads, either. /closed.