What MoBo for APU A10 7850k

Status
Not open for further replies.

I need helpz

Honorable
Dec 26, 2013
133
0
10,680
I want to do some gaming, with the APU. And the APU have GPU in it so it saves me some money. Im will to play games at a low or medium setting. And I will upgrade the components as time goes on. Please tell me what MoBo is good, and I will be doing some overclocking too.
Your help will be appreciated.

PS. I know this is not related but do you think I should get A10-7850k or 6800k. Remember I will not be getting GPU because I don't know what will go with the APU.
 
Solution


Depends, the 7850K isn't a good buy right now due to it's inflated cost, $160 USD would be more realistic instead of $190 USD. Are you able to wait for the A8-7600 / 7700? I've found that ASRock always makes solid low cost APU boards and since the whole purpose of...
Get the a10-7850k u won't be sorry. It's an extreme upgrade. 30% on the gpu side and 15% on the cpu side and has a lot more features with it as well. And pair it with an asrock fm2 extreme 6 + make sure it's got the fm2+ version or kaveri want work in it. And some Kingston hyper x predator 2400 ram modules and Ur golden! Get liquid cooling Cuz the high speed ram is too tall and a good air cpu cooler won't fit right. Corsair h100i is good value...
 


yes, i do wanna OC it. because i want to use it to multi-task (two monitor one gaming one socializing). also, is it good for gaming and can i crossfire it or should i buy another GPU for it?
 
It should do those things just fine. Just remember the 2400 mhz ram because that's what will make it shine on the graphics end. As far as crossfire goes. Amd hasn't release an official supported list of gpu it will crossfire with yet I'm sure it won't be long tho.
 


Buying an APU isn't saving you anything. You could get a haswell Pentium G and a 1gb R7 260x or HD 7790 for about the same cost as the APU is going for on newegg right now, and game far better. A 2gb version would run you about $10 more.

Newegg is selling the 7850k for around $190 as of earlier today.

This is far superior for games.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: Intel Pentium G3220 3.0GHz Dual-Core Processor ($64.97 @ OutletPC)
Video Card: XFX Radeon R7 260X 2GB Video Card ($135.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Total: $200.96
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-01-20 20:25 EST-0500)
 


Depends, the 7850K isn't a good buy right now due to it's inflated cost, $160 USD would be more realistic instead of $190 USD. Are you able to wait for the A8-7600 / 7700? I've found that ASRock always makes solid low cost APU boards and since the whole purpose of getting an APU is for low cost / low power design's I tend to recommend them. You also need decent memory to go with it, 1866 at a minimum but 2133 is the same price and gives better iGPU performance.

Also what form factor are you building this for?

Full Size
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157468

Micro-ATX
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157463

Mini-ITX
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157464

Side Note:
Stay the f*ck away from i3's, people can twink them (everything in background disabled, all services disabled, antivirus disabled, nothing else open except the benchmarking application) for benchmarks but in actual day to day use (background services enabled, antivirus enabled, web browser with a few tabs open in background, instant messaging application or TS / Vent open) they have a very hard time. The days of "dual core is all you need" are long gone, get four cores at a minimum. The i5-4570 or 4440 are pretty good but kinda expensive if your doing a low cost build.
 
Solution



Currently and officially, the new Kaveri APUs support the R7 240/250 GPUs. Thus far performance with the crossfire/dual graphics is looking good, but I'd wait for further analysis before considering it.

Info from this article: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/a10-7850k-a8-7600-kaveri,3725-8.html
 
If you want to spend the least amount of money for the construction of this build, I would go with the MSI A88XM-e45 Fm2+ motherboard on Newegg. Why? Well firstly, if you buy it on Newegg you get a copy of Battlefield 4 (for a limited time only though, hurry and get it), Secondly, after shipping, it is the exact same price as its sibling, the MSI A88Xm-e35 Fm2+ mobo. Thirdly, the new MSI FM2+ boards are outrageous for what you're getting and what you will benefit from, including:
-Military Class 4 rating brings you strongly stable boards from different weather conditions and temperatures
-Has PCI 3.0
-Super Charger, for charging usb devices at much faster speeds
-USB 3.0
-Cool n' Quiet, for reducing noise from your system
-Fast Boot
-Other extras
And finally, it supports dual graphics and HD Radeon cards. On my opinion, this board is the best option with Kaveri while being at a low price.
 
I would take this combo over a 7580k and that MSI board any day. I think it is definitely worth the extra $6. If you factor in the lower cost for ram for the Intel system vs the AMD one, it probably would come out about even if not cheaper to go with the Intel build. APU's just flat out are not worth the money.

Intel
PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: Intel Core i3-4130 3.4GHz Dual-Core Processor ($99.99 @ Microcenter)
Motherboard: ASRock B85 Pro4 ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($77.55 @ Newegg)
Video Card: Asus Radeon R7 250 1GB Video Card ($89.24 @ Amazon)
Total: $266.78
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-01-25 12:28 EST-0500)


AMD
PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: AMD A10-7850K 3.7GHz Quad-Core Processor ($184.17 @ Amazon)
Motherboard: MSI A88XM-E45 Micro ATX FM2+ Motherboard ($75.99 @ Mwave)
Total: $260.16
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-01-25 12:29 EST-0500)
 


But the performance would be as close as the price , as i checked.
 
A 7850k is nowhere near the GPU performance of an R7 250 which is pretty much an HD 7750. It is about on par with an R7 240 at best, which is slightly faster than a 6670. Not to mention the better upgrade path on the Intel side. On the CPU side, a 7850k won't compete with an i3. A 750k @4.3ghz couldn't beat an ivy i3 in games. Kaveri is not going to fare any better against Haswell.
 


I agree that the 7850k at nearly $200 plus a new motherboard requirement would make you want to consider other options. However, MicroCenter is now selling the 7850k for $129.95 and one of the bundled motherboards is free (mATX, A55 chipset; A88 chipset ATX for $65.)

 
That Microcenter deal is the one way that it makes it worth getting one. I admit that is a pretty damn good deal right there. Almost wish I had seen it before I bought my second FX 8320 for $99 and another cheap gigabyte board for WoW rig #4. It would have saved me some cash for sure.
 


I'm tired of hearing about intel. they arent in the APU market, and they just dont compete with AMD's FX series in terms of Price to Proformance ratio.

The 7850k, however, has ups and downs all its own. Needing higher ram for faster proformance leaves you at a new budget consideration. 2400 Mhz and higher speed ram cost some big bucks, with a pair or corsair vengeance pro 8 GB ddr3 2400Mhz CL10 chips costing $250+. The proformance cap seemed to be at 2133Mhz in early tests, but once people got the balls to test 2600Mhz chips, it opened a new MOBO can of worms.

As an added cost you have to consider cooling. An older Thermaltake Frio Advanced runs about $50 and does a pretty good job with the 7850k, keeping it cool enough to get and extra .5 Ghz out of the cpu side and an extra 200+ Mhz out of the gpu side at the same time. Of course higher ram peed means hotter ram chips, so excelent case cooling or a ram cooler is advised. Water cooling is also a good option these days but it doesnt work well in all case designs. buy a compatible case or go with fans.

Your descrete GPU choice can come later when you get the 7850k, running at easily playable speeds on most games at 1080p on low settings. The ability to comunicate via pcie bus with newer R7 and R9 cards makes the choice an easy "how much do i want to spend?" for to price, the MSI R9 270X is a good choice, having an option for 2GB or 4GB, and clock speeds over 1Ghz. The GNC and Mantel features of the 7850k are also important to read into, as the support for mantle is increasing the framerates in most games, and GNC is to heart of why this chip is worth the money, allowing it to compute without overhead to do things with the CPU and GPU at the same time.

As for a MOBO, if you think you want to tweak your memory controler to allow for 2600Mhz Ram, you'll need a MOBO that can handle it off the bat. limits of 2133 and 2400 are common. If you don't want to worry about extreem ramspeeds, Gigabyte, Asus, ASRock, and MSI offer a few great MOBOs each in the FM2+ socket, Some of which do in fact support 2600Mhz ram.

Look for something you like that has the specs you need, read reviews, buy informed. Dont get caught in the AMD VS. Intel war. APUs are breaking new ground with kaveri. enjoy the enovation.
 
You can get sick of hearing about Intell all you want. APU's still are not where they need to be. Even a 750k and a discrete GPU are a better buy and I don't particularly like them either. 750k is slower than a Phenom II X4 965, clock for clock. Kaveri is about even, maybe slightly better. Hands down, you can get a dedicated CPU and GPU for about the same cost, and will outperform a 7850k. The IGP of Kaveri can, in no way, compete against an HD 7770.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: AMD A10-7850K 3.7GHz Quad-Core Processor ($178.99 @ NCIX US)
Motherboard: Biostar A58MD Ver. 6.x Micro ATX FM2+ Motherboard ($49.99 @ Amazon)
Memory: G.Skill Ares Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-2133 Memory ($94.99 @ Newegg)
Total: $323.97
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-03-03 13:18 EST-0500)


PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: AMD FX-6300 3.5GHz 6-Core Processor ($118.48 @ OutletPC)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-78LMT-USB3 Micro ATX AM3+ Motherboard ($54.99 @ Microcenter)
Memory: G.Skill Ares Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($69.99 @ Newegg)
Video Card: Sapphire Radeon HD 7770 GHz Edition 1GB Video Card ($89.99 @ Newegg)
Total: $333.45
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-03-03 13:18 EST-0500)


PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: Intel Core i3-4130 3.4GHz Dual-Core Processor ($116.97 @ OutletPC)
Motherboard: MSI H81M-P33 Micro ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($49.98 @ OutletPC)
Memory: G.Skill Ares Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($69.99 @ Newegg)
Video Card: Sapphire Radeon HD 7770 GHz Edition 1GB Video Card ($89.99 @ Newegg)
Total: $326.93
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-03-03 13:18 EST-0500)
 
I'm tired of hearing about intel. they arent in the APU market, and they just dont compete with AMD's FX series in terms of Price to Proformance ratio.

Lots of fanboys running around that like to piss on the other teams fans. I try to keep it at a minimum.

@Login, your being VERY dishonest with that memory price. 8GB of DDR3-2133 is $70 USD cheap and $80USD normal price. $95 USD is just you trying to use the old "more expensive memory blah blah" angle which has already vanished. Prices between DDR3-1600 and DDR3-2133 are largely similar with the DDR3-1600 occasionally dipping down $10 USD due to manufacturers selling off excess inventory. I could cite that same CPU you picked at $124 USD or even $140 USD (someone has it posted for that) but it would be dishonest as you found a cheaper outlet for it.

In any case, the 7850K is a bad purchase at it's current price point. It's DDR3 memory interface will never compete with a GDDR5 equipped card and those are running $90~100 USD. It's still cheaper then the Intel build, but not by enough to offer a better value. It's why I told the OP to hold off for the A8-7600 which should be priced around $120 USD. If OP can't then the A10-7700K offers a significantly better value at $149.99. The performance is essentially the same as a 7850K. The real problem with Kaveri is that the iGPU is too strong for the memory interface on the system, many of the 512 GCN cores are going underutilized. 384 GCN cores seem to be a much better match for 128-bit DDR3-2133 memory. So for value I'd place them as 7600 > 7700 > 7850. There does exist the opportunity to overclock both the 7700K and 7850K and both do gain some performance with the 7700K pulling a lot of value. Since we're talking APU's I'm assuming a SFF or other restricted environment that isn't conducive to overclocking.

You do realize the 750K is just an trinity A10-5700 APU with a defective iGPU that's been disabled? It's, quite literally, saying that "An APU is better then an APU". They go for about $80 USD each and are being sold at a deep discount to recoup costs from defective dies. The Phenom II x4 965 is a 140W CPU that MSRP'd for about $150 USD on release.
 
I chose the memory for its lower latency. The cheaper 2133 was of a higher latency that would affect the performance of the APU. I chose what I felt was the best kit without going overboard on price. Being dishonest would have been choosing 2600 ram. We know 2400 does little compared to 2133. A low latency 2133 would beat out a higher latency 2133 or 2400. I cut corners enough on the motherboard, I wasn't going to on ram as well.
 


Your not cutting corners going with the cheaper memory, your propping up a price point to make a point, that's dishonest. Did you know GDDR5 has a higher latency then regular DDR3? That 7770 dGPU has a higher memory latency then it's cheaper DDR3 brothers. Doesn't matter because GPU's are largely bandwidth bound, small latency differences have minute effects. CPU's are latency bound but primarily from their cache systems and not main memory.

:Edit:

Got into the math and computed the actual latency for the different memory quoted here.

Code:
DDR3-1600 CL9 = 11.25ns
DDR3-2133 CL9 = 8.44ns
DDR3-2133 CL10= 9.38ns
DDR3-2133 CL11= 10.31ns
DDR3-2133 CL12= 11.25ns

It gets hard to push memory under a 10ns command response time due to the serial nature of the chips on the DIMM. You need very high quality chips to make it happen, and that demands a premium. That premium doesn't make sense in a budget environment, and you know it. The difference between an 8.44 and 9.38 response time is too miniscule to make must of a difference.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/gaming-software-graphics-cards/641254-amd-llano-6620g-benchmarked-various-ram-configurations.html

Kinda old but they go into the difference between CL11 DDR3-1600 and CL9 DDR3-1600. The difference between CL9 DDR3-2133 and CL10 DDR3-2133 or even CL11 DDR3-2133 is even smaller still.
 
I cut corners on the cheap motherboard. Is this more to your liking then? No matter how you look at it, the price/performance still isn't there. The extra $25ish is worth it. A 7770 is far better than even an R7 240.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: AMD A10-7850K 3.7GHz Quad-Core Processor ($178.99 @ NCIX US)
Motherboard: Biostar A58MD Ver. 6.x Micro ATX FM2+ Motherboard ($49.99 @ Amazon)
Memory: G.Skill Ares Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-2133 Memory ($79.99 @ Newegg)
Total: $308.97
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-03-03 15:44 EST-0500)
 
*Cough*

In any case, the 7850K is a bad purchase at it's current price point. It's DDR3 memory interface will never compete with a GDDR5 equipped card and those are running $90~100 USD. It's still cheaper then the Intel build, but not by enough to offer a better value. It's why I told the OP to hold off for the A8-7600 which should be priced around $120 USD. If OP can't then the A10-7700K offers a significantly better value at $149.99. The performance is essentially the same as a 7850K. The real problem with Kaveri is that the iGPU is too strong for the memory interface on the system, many of the 512 GCN cores are going underutilized. 384 GCN cores seem to be a much better match for 128-bit DDR3-2133 memory. So for value I'd place them as 7600 > 7700 > 7850. There does exist the opportunity to overclock both the 7700K and 7850K and both do gain some performance with the 7700K pulling a lot of value. Since we're talking APU's I'm assuming a SFF or other restricted environment that isn't conducive to overclocking.

Use the $149.99 A10-7700K or project a $120 USD A8-7600. Suddenly things look completely different. Even a $135 USD 6800K looks good.

Honestly the two parts in a PC you ~never~ go cheap on are the motherboard and PSU. Use quality MB's of approximate value in all builds. There are some nice $60~75 USD MB's that offer a solid set of features and are of good quality. You can go cheap on everything else, but never go cheap on MB or PSU.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.