pc gaming on the side

Hey guys!

Looking to get my self a cheap rig upgrade.

what i have now.

HP desktop 2013 model (230 bucks)

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A8-5500 APU Quad-core (4 Core) 3.30 GHz Processor < its a 2.8ghz Duel core with a boost of 3.3

8gbs of ddr3 1600mhz ram

2tb HDD 7200rpm seagate

i believe 300-400 watt PSU

win8.1 ......wind10 upgrade awaits

I was thinking of picking up this chip AMD A10 7870K Processors 3.9GHz Socket FM2+ 95W, Black

Pretty good [performance for some gaming and good overall performance

Then..........down the road when windows 10 comes out and DX12 allows for Multi GPU mix match, ill pick up a card that will then work along side my APU.

what do you think?

Going from 7650k to a 7870k is pointless.

@MonsieurX: I might be wrong on the apu graphics but I know it's an a8. I'll double check when I get home.

This is the upgrade you should do

GTX 750ti

my apologies, the current processor is a A8-5500 APU ....with AMD Radeon graphics

Just get a GTX 750ti, that A8 5500 is about as fast as an FX4300 getting a dedicated gpu will do more for gaming then getting a slightly stronger cpu.

@04dcarraher: so it doesn't matter that its only a dual core? Ill look into the gtx 750ti, i hope there is be a sale on the Amazon Prime Day

Which cpu do you have? because A8-5500 is a quad core. all the A8 based APU's ive seen are quad cores A4's tend to be the dual core

It says quad core but every where online says it's really a dual core with 4 logical processors

its a cpu with two modules with 2 logical processors per module meaning its a quad core cpu.

I assembled an A10-7850K PC for my youngest kid. Before turning it over to her, I tested a few games. I wouldn't recommend it for the latest heavyweight games such as The Witcher 3 or Far Cry 4. But, some older hogs ran okay. At 1280x1024, Crysis ran okay (mostly above 30 fps) at Medium with Shaders at High. Crysis 2 is about the same. The Mass Effect games should run great.

It's best for gaming at 1366x768/720p as a general rule. My kid uses it mainly for Minecraft which is easy enough for the A10-7850K to handle.

If you're going to use an AMD APU, get the fastest RAM your motherboard can handle. My kid's A10-7850K has 8Gb of DDR3-2133. I would have bought DDR3-2400 if the store wasn't fresh out.