$600 Kaveri Build

Here's another build guide, using one of the new AMD Kaveri APUs.

CPU: AMD A10-7850K
Cooler: Noctua NH-L9a
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-F2A88XM-D3H
RAM: 8GB Kingston Beast DDR3-2400
HDD: Seagate 1TB 3.5" Hybrid Drive
Case: Fractal Design Core 1000 USB 3.0
PSU: Corsair Builder Series 430W
ODD: Lite-On iHAS124-04 DVD/CD-RW

Total cost: $580.92 (as of 4/3/2014 via PCPartpicker.com)

http://pcpartpicker.com/user/Metman2PSU/saved/4fZY

TimmyTechTV AMD A8-5600K Unboxing and Overview

Here is an unboxing and overview of the AMD APU that I have in my home system that was done on the TimmyTechTV YouTube Channel.

Fallout New Vegas Gameplay

I have been playing Fallout New Vegas on my rebuilt system and found no lag at 1080p Ultra High settings.  I installed Fraps to get an idea of my frame-rate versus the laptop (2.4Ghz Dual-core with 6GB of RAM without discrete graphics) that I was using before.

I was averaging about 20 FPS on the laptop on Low settings at 720p.  With the new system, I am averaging around 60 FPS during gameplay and noticed a few times that it dipped to 20 FPS for a very short time.

Overall though, the game is much more playable.  I realize that this is an older game, I may try to get results from demos of newer games to get some better (or current) benchmarks on the A8-5600K APU.

New vs Old Components

Those of you that have been reading this blog know that I recently replaced the motherboard, 2.8Ghz Dual-core Pentium, and 2GB of DDR2 RAM in my old Gateway GT5404 with an MSI FM2-A75MA-E35 board, 3.6Ghz Quad-core AMD A8-5600K APU, and 8GB of G.Skill Sniper DDR3 1866 RAM.

I had run Cinebench and the Window Experience ratings on the system before and after the upgrade.

For Cinebench the old CPU score 0.79 and OpenGL would not even run.

The Windows Experience had the following scores:

Processor                   4.6
RAM                          5.3
Graphics                     3.3
Gaming Graphics         3.3
Primary Hard Disk      5.9

The new system shows 2.44 for the CPU on Cinebench and 33.46fps on the OpenGL test.

The Windows Experience scores for the new components were:

Processor                   7.2
RAM                          7.3
Graphics                     6.8
Gaming Graphics         6.8
Primary Hard Disk      5.9

I am not surprised that there was no chance with the drive, as I am temporarily continuing to use the hard-drive from the original system configuration.

I am in the process of porting my lone Steam title (Fallout New Vegas) from the laptop to see how it runs on the new configuration.  So far, I am pretty impressed with the speed that the system is showing to have at this time.  I know that the numbers above will not compete with a lot of systems, but I was trying to build this on a budget and for what I spent, I am pretty happy with the results so far.

New Parts Are Installed

I was able to get the new motherboard, processor, and memory installed and checked that the system will POST and boot to the BIOS.  I just need to reinstall the OS and then I will be able to run a few simple benchmarks that I was able to run on the old configuration to see what the difference will be in performance between the old and new.

I am not expecting astoundingly fast performance out of new processor, but I should see a nice boost, as I will be going from a 2.8Ghz Dual-core Pentium D with 2GB DDR2 to a 3.6Ghz Quad-Core A8-5600K with 8GB DDR3.  Also, while I did not play Fallout: New Vegas on this machine with the older parts installed, I will do a simple Fraps comparison to how it runs on the new machine vs. the laptop that I have been playing it on.  This PC is a 2.3Ghz Dual-Core Pentium T4500 with 6GB DDR3.

Personal Rig Upgrade NewEgg Unboxing

Here is a link to a quick video I made talking about the parts I ordered for the upgrade of my home personal computer.  This is my first attempt at an unboxing on camera and pretty much at YouTube uploading in general.  I did not do any editing to the video and I apologize for the shakiness and off centeredness of things at times.

I am going to try to do an overview of some sort and at a later time a review on the parts, but I do not yet know if it will get recorded for YouTube or not.

The part for the laptop was installed over the weekend, but I did not get a chance to film it.  I ended up doing it quickly because it is currently the only really good computer in the house and the battery was not able to charge at all.

Other than that, I hope you are able to enjoy it and I look forward to at least updating the upgrade process on the blog, if I do not get to film it.

Personal Rig Rebuild Phase 1

My delivery from NewEgg came today with the first phase of the rebuild of my personal rig.

The rig is starting life as a Gateway GT5404 which is as it was from the factory except for having 2GB of DDR2 upgraded from the 1GB that it was shipped with.

The first stage of the build will reuse the case, power supply, and hard drive, which I plan to upgrade in the 2nd phase of the build, which will be when funding permits.

For now, the motherboard is going to be replaced with the MSI FM2-A75MA-E35.  I chose this board based on past experience I have had with MSI and it is a low-cost FM2 socket board that has an HDMI port.  This was not meant to be any high dollar build with hugely exceptional performance, but as a good budget rig that I can use for gaming.  The gaming is where the HDMI comes in, as this will allow me to easily use my living room TV as the monitor.

For the processor and memory, I chose the AMD A8-5600K APU, which is a 3.6Ghz Quad-core processor with a Radeon 7560D GPU built into the processor, and G.Skill Sniper 1866 memory.  The 1866 memory is the max speed that the MSI board supports without overclocking and I know that it will be important to have that extra speed since the GPU will be using this memory.  With the memory sharing in mind, I chose the 8GB (2x4GB) kit.

The last piece of hardware in the NewEgg box was a Rosewill USB wireless adapter.  This may only get use until I setup DD-WRT on an old Linksys WRT54G I have laying around, but will allow me to get connected prior to having the DD-WRT'd router setup as a wireless bridge.

There was also another delivery of parts that consisted of a component board with USB, VGA and AC ports for my family laptop, a Dell Inspiron 1750.  This is to replace the current part with a damaged AC power connector.

I hope to get the chance to have unboxings, overviews, and reviews of all of these products on the blog and possibly YouTube soon.  I am also hoping to have some pictures or video regarding the removal of the old components and installation of the new components on both PCs.

PlayStation 4 Specs

During a reveal event Sony gave the official information on the specifications that will make up the PlayStation4 console, which is to be released "Holiday 2013".

The unit will be powered by an 8-core 64-bit x86 AMD "Jaguar" CPU and a Radeon GPU.

Also included, Blu-ray drive, 8 GB of GDDR5 RAM, 802.11n WiFi, USB 3.0, Bluetooh 2.1, optical audio ports, HDMI, and legacy analog AV connections.

There will be an internal HDD for storage, but Sony did not release details on the space.

The unit will be controlled via the new DualShock 4 contorlloer with features a touchpad, headphone jack, and share button.  The controllers will also have built-in Move functionality.

Photo sourced from JoyStiq.com

The system will not be able to play legacy discs, but will stream PS1, PS2, and PS3 games through the PlayStation Cloud.  The Vita will also be able to connect to play PS4 games remotely.

So far the list of games coming to the PS4 are:
Knack
Killzone: Shadow Fall
Driveclub
Infamous: Second Son
The Witness
Watch Dogs
Diablo 3 (also coming to the PS3)
Destiny

Vishera Getting a Second Look

When AMD's Vishera platform was first released, the benchmark tests were fairy underwhelming for a 4.0Ghz 8-core processor (FX-8350) when it was put head-to-head with Intel's best bang for the buck 3.5Ghz quad-core (i5-3570K).

This seems to be swaying toward the favor of AMD now that the new BIOS updates and Windows CPU scheduling hot-fixes are available.  Starting with some gaming benchmark tests with overclocking that were done by Tek Syndicate that showed the Vishera beating the i5-3570K and in cases the i7-3770K, especially when streaming.

FX-8350 vs i5-3570K vs i7-3770k vs i7-3820 with AMD Radeon HD 7870 Benchmarks:
http://teksyndicate.com/videos/amd-fx-8350-vs-intel-3570k-vs-3770k-vs-3820-gaming-and-xsplit-streaming-benchmarks

i5-3570K vs FX-8350 with GTX 670 Benchmarks:
http://teksyndicate.com/videos/amd-fx-8350-oc-vs-i5-3570k-oc-battle-continues

Intel Commits to Socketed CPU

Intel released a statement that it will continue to produce and support socketed LGA CPUs for the foreseeable future.

This comes after AMD's release of a similar statement that they will continue support socketed CPUs and rumors that the BGA platform would be socket-less.

For more information and the full statement, please visit MaximumPC's site.

http://www.maximumpc.com/article/news/intel_says_company_committed_sockets2012

AMD vs Intel - CPU Sockets

AMD has released a statement saying that they will continue to support the DIY and enthusiast desktop market with socketed CPUs through 2014.

"AMD has a long history of supporting the DIY and enthusiast desktop market with socketed CPUs and APUs that are compatible with a wide range of motherboard products from our partners. That will continue through 2013 and 2014 with the 'Kaveri' APU and FX CPU lines," Gary Silcott, Corporate Communications of AMD Client Products, told Kirsch in an email. "We have no plans at this time to move to BGA only packaging and look forward to continuing to support this critical segment of the market." - MaximumPC.com

This was released amid rumors that Intel is looking toward socket-less CPUs for their future generation processors.  This would basically mean the motherboard would have the CPU physically soldered from the factory, which would make future upgrades or replacements, at the very least, extremely difficult.

New AMD Processor

The AMD FX-8150 (Bulldozer) 3.6Ghz and AMD FX-8350 4Ghz (Vishera) were put up against the Intel Core i5-3570K 3.4Ghz.

While the new Vishera based processor performed well in benchmark testing, it simply fell short to the Core i5 in nearly all categories.  In the categories that it actually outperformed the Intel, there was only very little variation.

For more information on the benchmarking tests and the systems used, please visit Maximum PC magazine:
Maximum PC Vishera Review