Ok I see. So what you're saying is that processors on the A-10 and the Phenom are basically the same. The A-10 has the bonus of the integrated vid card. So i could go ahead and get a gpu to work with the A-10 or just use the one inside. I just wanted to make sure I understand. With either board I'll likely get a new card anyway, just wanting to get the most bang out of this upgrade as it'll have to last me a long time.
Just to add onto B's last post, the integrated video card on an AMD A series CPU (APU as they've termed it) is a full Radeon card, unlike the integrated video on a comparable Intel chip (Core i3/i5), where they integrate the crappy (read: non-gaming capable) Intel Extreme (yeah right) video card onto the chip. B is right on the money that you could use the built-in video card on the AMD A10 to game, as it will be capable of performing quite well, giving you more budget for SSD, RAM, etc now. Later when the budget allows, you could upgrade the video to a discrete card. I believe if you get an AMD video card at that point, it will work with the video on the APU... is that correct, B (don't keep up on the AMDs as much, sorry if that's wrong info)? If so, that would give you even more graphics processing power down the line.
That is absolutely correct. You'll want to pay attention to which AMD's are compatible with the on-chip card for crossfire - but they will work together to produce an outstanding solution for very reasonable price. Not as good as 2 identical discrete cards crossfired together - but better than most single cards.
Ok. I think that after reviewing everything and talking to a lot of people, I think I'll settle on the A10-5800k processor with an MSI FM2-A85XA-G65 board (the one that just recently overclocked around 7.3GHZ with the A10).
My only question now is which 6670 discrete card to pair it with. It needs to support crossfire. I looked at tigerdirect and newegg and there are 20-30 options.
I just wanna make sure I get one that's compatible with the A85XA board. I saw there's a few options but couldnt tell from MSI's site whether the mobo supported DDR3 or DDR5 memory on the video card. I see the memory itself is listed at only DDR3 so does that mean the vid card will only support DDR3 as well?
There seems to even be multiple listings for the 6670 from same manufacturers like MSI, AUSUS, Saphire, etc....Which direction should I go with the added discrete card which I'll crossfire with the onboard gpu?
http://www.msi.com/product/mb/FM2-A85XA-G65.html#/?div=Basic
First I'll answer the question about the Mobo's support of video card memory. The answer is both, and neither. The GDDR memory on the video card does not interface with the motherboard at all. It's there for the GPU processor only. So there's absolutely no issue there. What you were reading about on the motherboard spec's is the System Memory, which is different than Graphics Memory. System memory only goes up to DDR3 at this time. GDDR goes up to 5.
As for the choice of card I would first look at the reviews on Newegg. But before I go to far with that I have to caution you that I think the 6670 is a poor choice for a gaming graphics card. The reason for this is 1 simple spec - 128 bit. This is essentially the bandwidth for the graphics memory (GDDR) to interface with GPU. And 128 bit is low - too low. I wouldn't consider anything smaller than 256 bit.
Unlike discrete cards in crossfire you do NOT have to match the GPU that's built into the A10. However, I just got done trying to do some research on Hybrid Crossfire with that board and couldn't find any details in the manual. And that board doesn't seem to be available on Newegg yet. So you might want to either wait till it's actually in stores or consider another Mobo.
It's on tigerdirect and it is a new board. One review site said it wouldnt even be available until 10/26 but I saw no mention of a pre-order on tigerdirects website. The reason I went with the 6670 is that multiple people on multiple sources told me that I could only dual-card with the onboard gpu with only a 6670 or lower in the GPU architecture. I was told it wouldnt support dual graphics with anything higher. Having that said, I'm back to being frustated. This is why I went with ibuypower years ago instead of doing it myself because I just dont know what I'm doing 🙂 I'd almost rather say here's my money go spend it for me lol.
The only thing making this hard is the difficulty I've had looking for info on Hybrid Crossfire. The Mobo manual didn't have anything on it. I might have to look at someone else's manual to find the answers.
Ok I finally decided. I put several posts on several boards and most of them came back to this setup. Ended up getting it at just over $600 which is only slightly more than I wanted to spend. The benefit though is they're actually throwing in Assassin's Creed III for free with the graphics card.
Since I work for Intel I have to applaude your choice of CPU 🙂 It made me flintch everytime someone said AMD in the earlier posts. 🙂
Actually, I too am happy to see you choose Intel. To be quite frank, AMD in its current state can't compare with Intel, even on price. I say that about price only because chips that should be comparable in power and efficiency aren't. You have to go up to the next level AMD to actually compete with an Intel chip right now (not talking about the on-chip video, just straight CPU). The ONLY thing that makes what should be a comparable AMD actually comparable is the fact that they have a far superior on-chip GPU. So the fact that you have to choose the next level AMD makes the price differential quite a moot point, and really an inconsequential difference at best.
I do think you'll tire of that video card rather quickly though, and will be wanting to upgrade sooner than you hope. Personally, I'd opt for a card from the previous generation nVidia, so I could double the interface bandwidth for about the same price. B hits it right on the money in his post about the 128-bit interface not having enough lanes for the demands of the current and upcoming generation of games. More memory is always nice (2GB on that card), but I'd take one with half the memory and twice the data lanes over that one. Heck for the same price on Newegg, you can find a nice overclocked EVGA GTX 560 with the same amount of memory and twice the bandwidth.
Just my 2 pyreal. 🙂
