Hello all, I am planning on building a new rig in the near future and was wondering about the choice of CPU. I was looking into the AMD 5800K for the CPU, but I also plan on getting a dedicated GPU in the future. This got me thinking, should I get a standard CPU or go for the APU option?
cpu if you can afford it
If plan on getting a GPU, just get a CPU now and pull the trigger on a dedicated card later.
I should have put this in the orignial post but I plan on getting the Pc built and then buying the dedicated GPU later on. I would like to be able to game and use the Pc before hand. the GPU in question is the Radeon 7850 2g version.
It depends on what you are going to be doing. If you are planning on doing some office work, and only getting some discrete graphics it may be in your favor to go with an APU. Otherwise pick up something in the AM3/AM3+ series of CPUs. Most of those will play games just fine. You should be able to get a great price on an FX-6300, but if you can wait it out then get the next generation of CPUs in the steamroller line up for probably as good of a price as the Piledriver lineup.
Both are great options, but if you cant afford a GPU and CPU now, I suggest going with a APU, since you're not going to be able to game until you get a GPU. If you get an APU now, you'll be able to get a GPU later, and have an IGPU/GPU hybrid Crossfire X that will be quite good for 1920 x 1080 on medium-High for most games that have been released recently. And your APU, while being not the best possible CPU option, will do fine for gaming and everyday tasks. You on't be able to do anything CPU intensive such as encoding, video editing and such. And at the risk of being called a fanboy, if you can get a decent Haswell CPU with and IGPU, it will be a very nice CPU and also have Nvidia GT level performance as well. Hope Iwas of help.
Let me make sure I'm reading this correctly. You are currently trying to decide whether you want to purchase an APU now and then add a Radeon HD 7850 later, or buy a different CPU from AMD and add the graphics card later as well. Let me make this response simple. If you have a graphics card currently that will function during the interim, then go ahead and purchase the CPU. If you can wait to use your computer for a few months while you save up money to purchase the accompanying graphics card, then buy the CPU. If you must have a new CPU and graphics now, then buy the APU. But do try to buy something Richland based, the graphical boost and higher native clockrates make it worthwhile.
Yeah, I have an FX-6100 CPU, and it ROCKS! I don't care that benchmarks show it gets X fps lower than the newer architechure. I picked mine up for $105 dollars, partnered it with a Radeon 7850 (its all in my build specs), and it roars! Both the CPU and the GPU are FAR overclockable too, so you can get lots of free performance extra (unless you get an "unlucky" chip.) I would either go with an FX chip and wait to get a GFX card (ps, APU's are AMD's only CPU with integrated graphics. If you choose any other AMD than an APU, you with have no monitor until you pop in a GFX card!), or go for the APU and run hybrid crossfire with it running another Radeon GPU like Hagame1015 said. Either option is fine. Personally, I would go the FX option. Six-Eight core CPU's are AMAZING (especially when I'm on a .rar or .7z race!) I don't really worry about single-threaded performance, unless I'm happening to work on a 100000 page exel document. Well, hope this helped! :)
Not really true. I have this setup and hate it. AMD does not really support it.
First off I have a AMD 5800k. Its just fine if your ok with quad core CPUs. If you can spend a little more this is the route I would go from what I have learned.
First you may want to think about upgradeing to 6800k for 20 bucks more and its using GCN cores to give a 20 percent boost. APU's love faster ram and it supports the 2100 standard. Try to find an after market cooler. The stock heatsink sucks and is really loud. If you can find a why to get a xigmatek Dark Knight II do it. This cooler is really nice and you can overclock to the turbo speed easy. Also you should be able to overclock the GPU to 1000Mhz and get a little extra out of it.
If your fine with out gaming for awhile I would look into a AM3+ chipset and get a Phenom. Or a good socket 1155 and get a pentium G2020. There 65 bucks on newegg now and just fine for gaming. I would have gone that route instead and just gotten a HD 7790 for 130 bucks and upgrade as needed.
Can I ask what your buget for this build is?