Issue 115 - Budget PC

[Spreadie]

I was just reading through the above article and a thought struck me (a pretty big deal inside my skull) - given the £130 disparity between the two setups (the cost of the 7850 GPU), why didn't you try out Trinity X-Fire on the AMD rig with the 7850 or a 7770 and compare gaming performance?

[Combatus]

Originally Posted by Spreadie

I was just reading through the above article and a thought struck me (a pretty big deal inside my skull) - given the £130 disparity between the two setups (the cost of the 7850 GPU), why didn't you try out Trinity X-Fire on the AMD rig with the 7850 or a 7770 and compare gaming performance?

Hi Spreadie. Our reasoning was that apart from the fact that Intel is utterly dominant in 2D stuff, the AMD A10 APUs are actually limited, according to AMD, to pairing with a Radeon HD 6670 or lower. These cost between £60-70, which halves the gap between this and a far superior Intel Core i3 + HD 7850 1GB system.

While the Hybrid CrossFire combination will probably improve gaming performance, looking around, this still wouldn't better the Intel system's combination, and there's still the issue of Intel's dominance in everything outside of games. As such, while it sounds like a good idea, pairing a 5800K with a discrete GPU is usually a false economy, at least if you're buying new, which is why we only included the two systems, instead of one including a discrete GPU for the 5800K as well. In that situation, you'd be far better off stretching a little further and going for the Intel system. If you already own a 5800K system then you might argue it to be worthwhile I suppose.

[Spreadie]

Wow, I was not aware of the GPU pairing limitation. Thanks, Antony, for taking the time to respond at this hour.

Yes Mr Dennis, he was responding to a CPC customer about a magazine article, so put yer chubby little hand in yer pocket and pay the man!

[Combatus]

Originally Posted by Spreadie

Wow, I was not aware of the GPU pairing limitation. Thanks, Antony, for taking the time to respond at this hour.

Yes Mr Dennis, he was responding to a CPC customer about a magazine article, so put yer chubby little hand in yer pocket and pay the man!

My pleasure sir!