"New" build.. Should I upgrade from E7200 to AMD A8 5500?

[Stangman]

Hey guys, I've searched and searched, and I finally give up! So, a question for you guys.

Currently I have an Asus P5QL Pro with an E7200 (with 4gig ram, and geforce 9500, but inconsequential for this question I think).

I'm going to do a format and reinstall to clean it up a little and to do more audio recordings.. Maybe a game or two, but who knows about that.

I can very easily come into an Acer AX3475-EF328 http://www.acer.ca/ac/en/CA/content/model/DT.SKJAA.003.

Now from the 'benchmarks' I've looked at say the A8 5500 is far superior. However, some of my friends told me it's a laptop chip, and as such, it's not really worth the upgrade from my current system. I mean, if it's better, but only slightly I'm not sure if I want to bother with a complete reinstall of everything, etc.

The other problem is it's a small form factor, with some unknown motherboard by Acer that I can't figure out (1 PCI graphics slot, which is taken by the AMD HD 7350), and 1 miniature PCI slot that holds the Wifi card.. Which is a small slot I've never seen before, so I'm not even sure what I could fit in there anyways. I mean, I could always just buy a new motherboard if I need to upgrade, but what's the point at that point. It's also appears to have 3 Sata drives (strange?).. It's got a DVD, and 1 hard drive, and I'd be adding 1 more HD, so those are full.

So pretty much, my question boils down to, E7200 with P5QL Pro (Forget about overclocking for now), vs the A8 5500 laptop(??) and unknown Acer motherboard.

Thanks guys!

 

[assasin32]

Your friends are mistaken it is not a laptop CPU. it is a desktop cpu, what they may mean is its a CPU with a built in GPU, and these ones in particular are meant more for budget PC's and HTPCs.

Benchmark or slightly higher end A8 vs the e7200
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/676?vs=62

With that being said I would just recommend building your own PC. A quick example of something you can do is this. You can go cheaper by swapping the case and mobo.
http://ca.pcpartpicker.com/parts/partlist/

And from my understanding from a couple quick glances online I think the gpu in this a10 will be superior to that radeon 7350.

 

[Stangman]

Thanks for the reply! The reason I'm hellbent on using this (Well, debating, rather, not hellbent) is because I have it sitting here..

So I was going to swap the mobo and cpu into my current (large) case so I can still have better cooling and 2 hard drives (the case it's currently in has no room for an extra HD).. So pretty much use the new A8-5500 in my old case..

BUT, of course, I don't want to go to the hassle of doing that, and a backup and OS reinstall if it's not really any better.. Plus I'd be losing my 3 monitor capability I have right now, which isn't a big deal, but..

 

[assasin32]

Actually you can run 3 monitors off this build, I messed up the link earlier so here is this build which uses the a10 and a85 chipset both of which are required to drive 3 monitors if I remember correctly. As having the CPU and a lesser motherboard chipset won't allow you to do this. Though a quick double check on this information won't hurt as it's been awhile since I read about this.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: AMD A10-5800K 3.8GHz Quad-Core Processor ($129.99 @ Newegg Canada)
Motherboard: ASRock FM2A85X Extreme4 ATX FM2 Motherboard ($89.99 @ Newegg Canada)
Memory: A-Data XPG Gaming Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($55.49 @ Newegg Canada)
Storage: Seagate Barracuda 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($69.79 @ DirectCanada)
Case: NZXT Source 210 Elite (White) ATX Mid Tower Case ($49.99 @ Newegg Canada)
Power Supply: Corsair Builder 430W 80 PLUS Certified ATX12V Power Supply ($24.99 @ NCIX)
Optical Drive: Lite-On iHAS124-04 DVD/CD Writer ($17.79 @ DirectCanada)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 8 (OEM) (64-bit) ($100.92 @ TigerDirect Canada)
Total: $525.95
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2013-05-05 23:42 EDT-0400)

Quick way to drive the price down is to swap out the case, I just found a halfway decent case with usb 3.0, if you don't care about that it's easy to save money there.

As for this being worth it, it depends on what your using the computer for. For normal internet, word, etc your e7200 is more than good enough. For gaming it depends on what games your planning on playing. I know my e2180 oc to 3ghz and 320mb 8800gts aren't really cutting it anymore for the newest games, I was good till last year but now there are some games which I can't play at a playable FPS at my 1080p resolution. And while building a rig like this has crossed my mind, I decided it's better for me if I just build an AMD machine based around an AMD FX CPU such as an FX 8320 and dedicated gpu because I do more cpu intensive tasks these days.