AMD A8-3870K worth it?

MohsinMan99

RPG Overlord
Planning to buy a new PC.

It retails for about 6.5-7k in my area. The 6550D also seems to be pretty decent compared to some entry level graphic cards, atleast going by the 3DMark score: Best Graphics Cards June - 2012


Should I get this one or is there some CPU+GPU combo at this price point which beats this APU entirely and would be a much better deal(I've heard it doesn't have any future upgrade option)?

I heard a new line of AMD APU's is around the corner. Do you think it is better to wait or go for this?
 

Cilus

laborare est orare
But the Llano APU is a dead platform and you've to ditch the idea of any future upgrades apart from peripherals.

And if you want gaming, then better opt for Pentium G620 + HD 5670 GDDR5/HD 6670 1 GB GDDR3
 

Minion

Conversation Architect
Most of the people don't upgrade processor anyway.

Planning to buy a new PC.

It retails for about 6.5-7k in my area. The 6550D also seems to be pretty decent compared to some entry level graphic cards, atleast going by the 3DMark score: Best Graphics Cards June - 2012


Should I get this one or is there some CPU+GPU combo at this price point which beats this APU entirely and would be a much better deal(I've heard it doesn't have any future upgrade option)?

I heard a new line of AMD APU's is around the corner. Do you think it is better to wait or go for this?

Get it buddy.
 

ico

Super Moderator
Staff member
Most of the people don't upgrade processor anyway.
Good point honestly.

I reckon even Trinity/FM2 is going to be dead after a year and we might see FM3. The pace of Fusion project is quite high and different. Lots of new things will get introduced and AMD will have a tough time maintaining pin compatibility.

However, I'd say wait for Trinity because it is a pretty decent boost.
 

truegenius

UNPREDICTABLE
Good point honestly.

I reckon even Trinity/FM2 is going to be dead after a year and we might see FM3. The pace of Fusion project is quite high and different. Lots of new things will get introduced and AMD will have a tough time maintaining pin compatibility.

However, I'd say wait for Trinity because it is a pretty decent boost.

pcie 3.0, ddr4
 

truegenius

UNPREDICTABLE
but apu are stalled by memory bandwidth thus ddr4 will be good for apu thus more powerful igpu
also since amd is no longer using HT-link in apu, instead they are using pcie so pcie v3.0 can boost performance there
so fm3 or fm4 can use ddr4+pcie v3.0
 

ajaymailed

In the zone
Planning to buy a new PC.

It retails for about 6.5-7k in my area. The 6550D also seems to be pretty decent compared to some entry level graphic cards, atleast going by the 3DMark score: Best Graphics Cards June - 2012


Should I get this one or is there some CPU+GPU combo at this price point which beats this APU entirely and would be a much better deal(I've heard it doesn't have any future upgrade option)?

I heard a new line of AMD APU's is around the corner. Do you think it is better to wait or go for this?
A8 is worth if applications able to exploit quad core to its full potential are used heavily.
for apps which use two cores, Pentium processors will give A8 a run for their money. as far as gaming is concerned, Intel processors rule if you can afford a decent entry level card like 6670.

still if you can get A8 for less than 7K. then may be its worth but performance of applications using only two cores will be worse than Core i3 and comparable to Pentium dual cores. the advantage will be you will be saving on graphic card about 5K or so and still get decently good gaming performance.
 
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d6bmg

BMG ftw!!
A8 is not worse in per core performance than Pentium dual cores. Actually, A8 is almost equivalent to i3 in terms of performance, a bit lower.
 
OP
M

MohsinMan99

RPG Overlord
A8 is not worse in per core performance than Pentium dual cores. Actually, A8 is almost equivalent to i3 in terms of performance, a bit lower.

Yeah. After checking some more benchmarks, I found out it is certainly a bit slower in most of the tests (except graphics of course):
A8-3870K vs. Core i3-2105 CPU Review | Hardware Secrets

I think I'll go for it.
 
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