Hi all.

A freind ask me to upgrade her pc and I was thinking on building a system around one of these APU's.

Now she's a older lady on a fixed income so I'm looking on getting her the best bang on a budget of $400.

Ok so this is what I came up with

#1

Asus F2A55-M LE................................$78.99

A4-5300 Trinity 3.4Ghz dual-core.......$54.99

Mushkin enhanced essentials

2 x 2Gb 1333Mhz................................$24.74

Windows 8 64-bit................................$109.99

total..$268.71

or #2

Asus F2A85-M......................................$96.99

A8-5500 trinity 3.2Ghz quad-core........$109.99

Samsung 4Gb DDR3 1600..$22.99 x 2= $45.98

with Win8 come to $362.95

Depending on what shape her psu is in I might have to add a new psu to the list as well. If so I'm thinking on the Corsair CX430.

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PhenomII 1100T// Asus Sabertooth R2.0 // 2X HD5850 CF //8Gb of 1866Mhz ram, H50 cooling, HX850W psu all stuffed into a NZXT Phantom case.


Was a member of AMD Processer forum since 2008. Last post count 1818.

I'd go with option 1. With someone whose most graphically intense program would be Google Earth or Youtube, I can't see the extra power of the A8 being seen.

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Crosshair IV Formula, Phenom II x4 965 w/ Corsair H60, 8 GiB OCZ Platinum DDR3 1600, XFX HD 7970 Ghz, 512GB Vertex 4, 256GB Vector, 240GB Agility 3, Creative X-Fi Titanium w/ Creative Gigaworks S750, SeaSonic X750, HP ZR2440w, Win 7 Ultimate x64

Yeah, I wasn't too worried about the graphics since like what you said she'll just be surfing the net but she dose want microsoft office and I wasn't to sure if that dual core would have the balls to run it smoothly.

 

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PhenomII 1100T// Asus Sabertooth R2.0 // 2X HD5850 CF //8Gb of 1866Mhz ram, H50 cooling, HX850W psu all stuffed into a NZXT Phantom case.


Was a member of AMD Processer forum since 2008. Last post count 1818.

It's not the dual core that would be the problem, maybe in Power Point if she did some wacky graphics the graphics would slow down a bit though.

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Crosshair IV Formula, Phenom II x4 965 w/ Corsair H60, 8 GiB OCZ Platinum DDR3 1600, XFX HD 7970 Ghz, 512GB Vertex 4, 256GB Vector, 240GB Agility 3, Creative X-Fi Titanium w/ Creative Gigaworks S750, SeaSonic X750, HP ZR2440w, Win 7 Ultimate x64

I kinda figerd that the graphics would't be the greatest I mean I would't buy one of these for gamming but compaired to what she has now (X1250) it should be a lot better.

Anyhow,

Thank for your input

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PhenomII 1100T// Asus Sabertooth R2.0 // 2X HD5850 CF //8Gb of 1866Mhz ram, H50 cooling, HX850W psu all stuffed into a NZXT Phantom case.


Was a member of AMD Processer forum since 2008. Last post count 1818.

Well I built my first apu system for a freind and i have to say i'm  inpressed with the A4-5300 apu. It pretty much match my phenomX4 955 in AOD benchmark. at stock clockspeeds

 

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PhenomII 1100T// Asus Sabertooth R2.0 // 2X HD5850 CF //8Gb of 1866Mhz ram, H50 cooling, HX850W psu all stuffed into a NZXT Phantom case.


Was a member of AMD Processer forum since 2008. Last post count 1818.

I know the feeling, the A6-5400K system I built amazed me at how good it was compared to the price I spent on it, both graphically and in processing power. It's amazing to me why OEM's still fill the bulk of their mainstream lineup with Intel setups, considering how the Intel HD 4000 graphics perform against AMD.

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Crosshair IV Formula, Phenom II x4 965 w/ Corsair H60, 8 GiB OCZ Platinum DDR3 1600, XFX HD 7970 Ghz, 512GB Vertex 4, 256GB Vector, 240GB Agility 3, Creative X-Fi Titanium w/ Creative Gigaworks S750, SeaSonic X750, HP ZR2440w, Win 7 Ultimate x64

A real nice bang for the buck with these A-series apus but one thing I didn't like was the heatsink that came with the A4-5300, it pretty cheap looking and freaking loud. but it dose the trick and for the price I can live with it (well....since its not mine I don't have to lol)

speaking of graphics I never got to test the gpu, it seemed to handle win8 with no problem

 

 

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PhenomII 1100T// Asus Sabertooth R2.0 // 2X HD5850 CF //8Gb of 1866Mhz ram, H50 cooling, HX850W psu all stuffed into a NZXT Phantom case.


Was a member of AMD Processer forum since 2008. Last post count 1818.

Agreed, even with my A6 they just put in a tiny aluminum heatsink. I'm sure it was sufficient, but I was very glad I had my old Athlon64 6000+ heatsink.

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Crosshair IV Formula, Phenom II x4 965 w/ Corsair H60, 8 GiB OCZ Platinum DDR3 1600, XFX HD 7970 Ghz, 512GB Vertex 4, 256GB Vector, 240GB Agility 3, Creative X-Fi Titanium w/ Creative Gigaworks S750, SeaSonic X750, HP ZR2440w, Win 7 Ultimate x64

You know that little heatsink actuly dose a pretty good job, I ran AOD's stress test for about half an hour and the cpu temp only got to 42c.

I could't get the core temp, for some reason AOD was giving me a core temp reading of 2c.

Anyhow, I get to play with it some more

It seems my friend can't stand Win 8 and wants to trade me OS's

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PhenomII 1100T// Asus Sabertooth R2.0 // 2X HD5850 CF //8Gb of 1866Mhz ram, H50 cooling, HX850W psu all stuffed into a NZXT Phantom case.


Was a member of AMD Processer forum since 2008. Last post count 1818.