computer for my son---I have these parts(7850k)-opinions?

J

JNavy89GT

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
Apr 25, 2001
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AMD 7850K cpu
Asus A88XM-E motherboard
Mushkin PC2400 memory
HD-??? will get an SSD of some sort. i have a Mushkin 240gb SSD, but every single damm one of the 120gb Chronos drives(7 total) have died in under 6-8 months of use-so likely will not use.

case-one of my spare cases

USE: He wants his own pc for playing Diablo III. I was talking to him about multiplayer and now he's hell bent on us playing together :). Good kid hehe! He's 7 years old BTW.

So for Diablo III, running at probably 1080 res on one of my spare 22" LCD's, do you think the GPU will be enough to let him play at higher detail settings or do you think I'll need to upgrade the vid card?
 
You need a video card to play D3 at high detail @ 1080P

I saw a big performance improvement in Rift performance going from a GTX 660 to a GTX 970. D3 is one of those games that really sucks (to me) at lower frame rates.
 
damm. I was hoping the APU would do it.

I have a Dell All in one the family uses and it has some i7 cpu and a Nvidia 640 or 650 gpu and it does OK at medium/high details at 1080 but will chug down at times yes.

I may have to just see how it goes, and get a 270x later, or let him have my 280x and I could upgrade ;).
 
Give him your 280x so you can upgrade!

You really don't want your kid having a better GPU than you, now, right? ;)

Lots of 290s on Ebay for ~$200 these days. It doesn't get better than that.
 
rofl yeah.

$ is so tight around Christmas though that I may have to wait so I can save a bit more. I also hesitate to put the 280x in there due to power demand. The case I think I'll use has an older PSU and not sure how it will handle the 280x. I was thinking a 270x would be much better wattage/heat/draw.

Still undecided though. Maybe I could put my Nvidia 670 in there, that would be a lower heat/wattage and should push Diablo III fine.
 
If you are going to give him yours and upgrade, wait for the 3xx that are on their way soon.
 
I think you can get by with what you have. Sure, you will have to turn things down a bit here and there, but overall it seems like it will work OK: http://www.3dnews.ru/822274
I can't read the majority of the review but the graph speaks for itself.
 
pgaster said:
I think you can get by with what you have. Sure, you will have to turn things down a bit here and there, but overall it seems like it will work OK: http://www.3dnews.ru/822274
I can't read the majority of the review but the graph speaks for itself.
Click to expand...

He didn't say he wants to "get by", he said:

will be enough to let him play at higher detail settings
Click to expand...

So sure it will run, however it will not play optimally. Diablo will run on damn near anything, however plays pretty poorly on lower spec hardware.
 
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I'd go into the for sale sub-forum and take a look around.

There are a bunch of really good deals on higher end GPUs and power supplies.
You know you'll get stuff from an honest source and well cared for.:D
 
I'd look into used cards like a GTX 760, 660, 670, etc.

Perhaps even a 560 or 570 if the price is good. A 570 is still a strong card today for almost any game at 1080p.

I don't see a need for you to spend hundreds on a new card to give your son the 280x if your 280x works for you. Too many people on this site upgrade not because they have a performance issue, but just because they can. It's a valid thing to do if you have money to spare, but don't let them spend your money otherwise. 280x is still a current-gen architecture and it would be a waste to upgrade beyond it if you're not playing GPU-intensive games that need more.
 
That hardware should do the job just fine, save for the IGP.


I would be initially inclined to suggest a Radeon 250 and go Dual Graphics (hybrid XFire), but you'd be much better off performance-wise with finding a used AMD 78xx, 79xx, 270, 280, or NVidia 560ti 446C or greater (750ti would stand out from a lower cost, lower power, and good performance perspective) for around $90-130.
 
dandragonrage said:
I'd look into used cards like a GTX 760, 660, 670, etc.

Perhaps even a 560 or 570 if the price is good. A 570 is still a strong card today for almost any game at 1080p.

I don't see a need for you to spend hundreds on a new card to give your son the 280x if your 280x works for you. Too many people on this site upgrade not because they have a performance issue, but just because they can. It's a valid thing to do if you have money to spare, but don't let them spend your money otherwise. 280x is still a current-gen architecture and it would be a waste to upgrade beyond it if you're not playing GPU-intensive games that need more.
Click to expand...

I'd look at used cards too. I happen to have a year old GTX 760 for sale :D

Basically, I'd look for a card that was originally $200-$275 (in the past year or so) for a used price of $140-$175. Some manufacturers even offer life time warranty, just make sure it's transferable.
 
Used R9-270(X). They can be found for less than a hundred bucks. Sure most of them have been mined with, but almost always they'll work fine for years to come.

If you want a card that hasn't been mined with, get a GTX 5XX series. They have been getting really cheap lately. I've seen one or two GTX 570s for less than $90.

Edit: saw your kid is only 7. Get a GT 550 Ti or something around there.
 
According to this graph, a Radeon HD 7750 averaged 50 FPS on Diablo III at High Quality and 1920x1200. Since 1920x1080 should be slightly less demanding and a 7750 is approximately in the same performance class as the iGPU on an A10-7850K (obviously the iGPU is constrained by memory, though 2400MHz DDR3 should alleviate that to some degree) you might be able to get away with it until you have some free capital to use toward a dedicated GPU for your son's PC.

I use an A10-7850K in my media center PC with 8GB DDR3-2133 and I game on it at 1080p without many issues. I haven't tried Diablo III on it, but when I was running it on my other PC I don't remember it being that demanding graphically. Admittedly, I didn't get very far because the game was crap, so it is possible that I just never got to a point that was potentially able to stress the graphics sub-system.

A few videos on YouTube claim playable framerates on an A10-7850K at 1080p as well. I guess it will mostly depend on what your definition of "higher detail settings" is and/or what is the minimum quality you guys are willing to settle for.
 
MrCaffeineX said:
According to this graph, a Radeon HD 7750 averaged 50 FPS on Diablo III at High Quality and 1920x1200. Since 1920x1080 should be slightly less demanding and a 7750 is approximately in the same performance class as the iGPU on an A10-7850K
Click to expand...

I believe this is the biggest fib I've read on the forum all week.

See here, where the Kaveri APU + DDR 2133 ram is slower than an R7 250 GDDR5 (the r7 250 is up to 70% faster).

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu/display/amd-a10-7850k_11.html#sect0

Now, the r7 250 has:

1000 core, 384 shaders/24tmus/8rops

Thi is comparable specwise to the Kaveri APU, so it shows just how starved for memory bandwidth things are when th GDDR5 version beats it so badly (notice the GDDR3 versiioin has te same performance)

And the 7750 has
800 core, 512 shaders/32 tmus/16 rops,

So the 7750 will be faster tha the r7 250, especially at higher resolutions like 1080p with MSAA enabled (to take advantage of those extra ROPS). It should be close to twice s fast as Kaveri.

The Kaveri GPU is fast, but don't act like it's the second coming or anything. It's definitely not as fast as $80 discrete cards.
 
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lol now you guys are tempting me to get a 270x or so. if I do that I may just give him my old 920/.i7 setup then. too many choices lol.

Actually, now that I think of it. I may just try to load Diablo III on my daughters AMD 7850k setup. I build her an identical rig last year, that's how I ended up with the 2nd set of parts, as it was a "Good deal" that I couldn't pass up :rolleyes: If that runs it well enough I may call it good. If not it may be onto a discrete card and who knows on the cpu/mobo.
 
I had pretty much the same set up and it would chug on D3 when the enemies got thick @ 1080p.

But it wasn't horrible, and lived with it for about 6 months.
 
defaultluser said:
I believe this is the biggest fib I've read on the forum all week.

See here, where the Kaveri APU + DDR 2133 ram is slower than an R7 250 GDDR5 (the r7 250 is up to 70% faster).

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu/display/amd-a10-7850k_11.html#sect0

Now, the r7 250 has:

1000 core, 384 shaders/24tmus/8rops

Thi is comparable specwise to the Kaveri APU, so it shows just how starved for memory bandwidth things are when th GDDR5 version beats it so badly (notice the GDDR3 versiioin has te same performance)

And the 7750 has
800 core, 512 shaders/32 tmus/16 rops,

So the 7750 will be faster tha the r7 250, especially at higher resolutions like 1080p with MSAA enabled (to take advantage of those extra ROPS). It should be close to twice s fast as Kaveri.

The Kaveri GPU is fast, but don't act like it's the second coming or anything. It's definitely not as fast as $80 discrete cards.
Click to expand...

I stand corrected and thank you for pointing out the details. Most reviews don't compare the iGPUs to any discrete cards, so it can be tough to gauge. It does appear to be in the neighborhood of a DDR3-equipped 250 at least.
 
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The apu will be fine. Diablo3 is incredibly CPU limited. Its a blizzard game, so basically single core with a few threads getting marginal use. You won't me maxing details or anything but it will play it. If you want great performance, get highest single threaded you can, I really can't stress that for d3 enough. Even my 2700k @ 4600mhz limits d3 for me on occasion.
 
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