7 replies to this topic

[Dragoon20005]

Hi guys sorry to bother you again and please do pardon me if my questions sound nooby as it been a while since i last touch AMD builds since my own AMD Athlon Thunderbird 1GHz rig

so yea here it goes

I intending to build a AMD APU rig that will be part of my HT setup

although i do have an ACRyan media player, it is getting old and many videos esp those blu-rays are now killing it slowly. To add on, my modem and router for my fiber broadband are now located in the living room. Thus it makes more sense to place a torrent download machine next to the both of them for speedy downloads via the gigabit LAN port.

This APU rig will replace the media player and function as a download machine that will stream videos and if possible play MWO using the Sony 46" LCD TV combine with my old but explosive Denon av receiver and JBL speakers and Yahama subwoofer.

below is the build

AMD A10-5800K FM2 APU
Asus F2A85-M Pro
G.Skill F3-19200CL9D-4GB PIS(XMP) or RipJawsZ F3-2400C10D 8GB ZH
Seagate Hybrid Drive 750GB with 8GB SSD SATA3
LG 24x DVD Writer
CoolerMaster HAF XB chassis
CoolerMaster SilentPro M2 620W or Seasonic X-series 650W
CoolerMaster Seidon 120XL Watercooler
Creative SoundBlaster Zx PCIE x1
Windows 7 Ultimate 64bit

currently i plan to use only the onboard GPU but in the near future i will just dump in a HD7000 or HD8000 series GPU if i want better framerate.

here is the big question i would like to ask regarding memory speeds

I kept hearing info from many forums stating on Auto settings,the AMD APU systems sets your 2400MHz RAM to only run at 1866MHz or lower unless you OC it.

does it really mean it useless to buy RAM with speed excess of 1866MHz?

or i just need to do some BIOS or tweaker setting to get back the actual speed the RAM were supported for?

this is my burning question since i am depending on the onboard GPU for the graphics


Thanks for reading

[Sir Roland MXIII]

Dragoon20005, on 26 March 2013 - 10:16 PM, said:

Hi guys sorry to bother you again and please do pardon me if my questions sound nooby as it been a while since i last touch AMD builds since my own AMD Athlon Thunderbird 1GHz rig

so yea here it goes

I intending to build a AMD APU rig that will be part of my HT setup

although i do have an ACRyan media player, it is getting old and many videos esp those blu-rays are now killing it slowly. To add on, my modem and router for my fiber broadband are now located in the living room. Thus it makes more sense to place a torrent download machine next to the both of them for speedy downloads via the gigabit LAN port.

This APU rig will replace the media player and function as a download machine that will stream videos and if possible play MWO using the Sony 46" LCD TV combine with my old but explosive Denon av receiver and JBL speakers and Yahama subwoofer.

below is the build

AMD A10-5800K FM2 APU
Asus F2A85-M Pro
G.Skill F3-19200CL9D-4GB PIS(XMP) or RipJawsZ F3-2400C10D 8GB ZH
Seagate Hybrid Drive 750GB with 8GB SSD SATA3
LG 24x DVD Writer
CoolerMaster HAF XB chassis
CoolerMaster SilentPro M2 620W or Seasonic X-series 650W
CoolerMaster Seidon 120XL Watercooler
Creative SoundBlaster Zx PCIE x1
Windows 7 Ultimate 64bit

currently i plan to use only the onboard GPU but in the near future i will just dump in a HD7000 or HD8000 series GPU if i want better framerate.

Ok, couple things I can comment on here. 5800k Trinities can play MW:O, I've tested one out for the last 6 months and it tends to run MW:O at medium 1680x1050 in the 20-25 FPS area, less on RCN and / or while using thermal vision (although this may be obsolete info after they change vision modes). The only tweaking I ended up using on my APU was to bump the dedicated RAM for the GPU up from half a gb to 2 gb, this was done via BIOS very quickly and easily via my AsRock Extreme4 MB.

The stock heatsinks on Trinity APUs are crap, but it looks like you have a solution for that already.

Oh, and Radeon HD 8000 series are being described by a few sources across the web as something that will not be worth the wait. Apparently they are not looking like they will be much better than HD 7000s.

Dragoon20005, on 26 March 2013 - 10:16 PM, said:

here is the big question i would like to ask regarding memory speeds

I kept hearing info from many forums stating on Auto settings,the AMD APU systems sets your 2400MHz RAM to only run at 1866MHz or lower unless you OC it.

does it really mean it useless to buy RAM with speed excess of 1866MHz?

or i just need to do some BIOS or tweaker setting to get back the actual speed the RAM were supported for?

this is my burning question since i am depending on the onboard GPU for the graphics


Thanks for reading

This I can not attest to personally, but this is something I planned to avoid as I heard the same thing repeated so often that I figured there had to be something to it. I went with G Skill Ripjaws myself, 1866, 8gb worth, and called it a day so as not to force myself into a possible fight with the BIOS to get the APU to recognize higher than 1866. Fact is that the memory controllers are listed by AMD themselves as only going up to 1866, so I figured that pretty much said all I needed to know, IE - not worth fighting with my APU over the RAM speed.

APUs being more dependant on high speed RAM than any other central processors, it would be nice if they could work with 2400 mhz but the hardware may very well be incapable of it. Does this mean it isn't? Not exactly, all this means is, if you want to try higher speed RAM than 1866 have a backup plan ready should it be proven impossible.

Edited by Sir Roland MXIII, 27 March 2013 - 03:02 PM.

[Dragoon20005]

Thank you sir for the fine advise

will look into 1866Mhz vers of DDR3

has anyone here run Hybrid hard drives in their system?

i wish i could dive straight into SSD but price are still on the steep side and i still need the capacity

thus i chose the Seagate which is the only hybrid drive in the market

another advise on this thanks a lot

[Sen]

At this point, the price of smaller [64-128 gig] SSDs make hybrids kinda pointless. Mind you, I'm in the US, but I've seen 64 GB SSDs for under $70 USD. For media, you can get 2-3 TB internals fairly inexpensively, or pick up a large USB 3.0 external.
I have not had any experience with the new generation of Seagate hybrid drives. I had a first gen version, and it was no better than a standard platter drive.

To add to the above about RAM, depending on the hardware it's VERY possible to get it up in that range. I'd do a google search for "overclocking ram in an APU" and see if you can find any guides out there before committing to a purchase. You may very well be able to do it, but there may be diminishing returns beyond a certain point.

[Havok1978]

let me know how this works out for you as i was considering building a similar build for a lan-box,
I currently have my g.skill ram running at 2133mhz in intel XMP mode and it helps,
the APU will be able to utilize a discrete gpu if it is lesser than the onboard GFX if you wish to xfire. not sure how effective that will actually be though.

I know that overclocking an APU is a major nono the heat will melt them quickly.
I am very interested in this build tho if you decide to follow thru with it, I expect it to be a glorified gaming laptop but thats what i want, power and portability.

[Sir Roland MXIII]

Havok1978, on 27 March 2013 - 09:33 PM, said:

the APU will be able to utilize a discrete gpu if it is lesser than the onboard GFX if you wish to xfire. not sure how effective that will actually be though.

The APU's IGP makes use of any GPU RAM it's crossfired with as well, so anyone who wants to do a Crossfire setup should keep that in mind too. Then again, I'm not going to be going for a Crossfired APU / GPU until Kaveri at the soonest.

Havok1978, on 27 March 2013 - 09:33 PM, said:

I know that overclocking an APU is a major nono the heat will melt them quickly.
I am very interested in this build tho if you decide to follow thru with it, I expect it to be a glorified gaming laptop but thats what i want, power and portability.

Incorrect. My APU is currently OCd, even if only a little, and it runs at around the mid 40s. While I do plan to upgrade from this Trinity after using it for a year, I could run it as it is now for years to come should I choose to do so. The only thing about overclocking Trinity APUs is that it cannot be done safely on the stock heatsink included with the chip, the thing is garbage. Aftermarket coolers, whether air or water, will keep an APU cool enough to OC reliably, the same as they always do.

[Dragoon20005]

ok guys thanks for the input will check out the RAM and the SSD this weekend


but exams coming so this build might be on hold until end May

thanks guys

[Havok1978]

Sir Roland MXIII, on 28 March 2013 - 09:41 AM, said:

The APU's IGP makes use of any GPU RAM it's crossfired with as well, so anyone who wants to do a Crossfire setup should keep that in mind too. Then again, I'm not going to be going for a Crossfired APU / GPU until Kaveri at the soonest.



Incorrect. My APU is currently OCd, even if only a little, and it runs at around the mid 40s. While I do plan to upgrade from this Trinity after using it for a year, I could run it as it is now for years to come should I choose to do so. The only thing about overclocking Trinity APUs is that it cannot be done safely on the stock heatsink included with the chip, the thing is garbage. Aftermarket coolers, whether air or water, will keep an APU cool enough to OC reliably, the same as they always do.

define mild overclock.. cuz the very nature of an APU is not gonna tolerate much.
I run an FX-6300 and with these multi-core CPU's of AMD's you can utilize thier caches but you rob speed from cores not being used. example 6core proc overclock "gimps" cores 5 and 6.

my current over clock is 4.95GHZ but cores 5 and 6 are kinda not there anymore so to speak.
thats how newer cpus utilize "turbo" modes, they shift idle core resources to active ones.
also the FX6300 is an 8350 with 2 of the cores turned off at the hardware level, its actually an 8 core.