G3258 + R7 240 or A10-7850K?

[Fortress]

I'm building a new PC for my cousin because his current PC is garbage (for me). He recently purchased a copy of Cities Skylines but he said that it doesn't even want to run (of course it won't). His birthday is next week and I want to give it to him as a present. All I need is a PC that can do general tasks and play Cities Skylines. Both of the processors stated in the title are currently on sale but the GPU isn't. So which combination should I go with? A G3258 plus an R7 240, or an A10-7850K. People have been saying that the integrated graphics in the A10 is really good and can play current titles on low-medium. So which one should I go with?

 

(Note: He doesn't care about graphics, at all. He just wants to play the game)

 

His PC Specs: (Built back in 2001, according to him)

Intel Celeron 1.8GHz, pins are still in the CPU

NVIDIA GeForce FX 5200

1GB DDR RAM

60GB Maxtor IDE HDD

[MattTheMayor]

I'm building a new PC for my cousin because his current PC is garbage (for me). He recently purchased a copy of Cities Skylines but he said that it doesn't even want to run (of course it won't). His birthday is next week and I want to give it to him as a present. All I need is a PC that can do general tasks and play Cities Skylines. Both of the processors stated in the title are currently on sale but the GPU isn't. So which combination should I go with? A G3258 plus an R7 240, or an A10-7850K. People have been saying that the integrated graphics in the A10 is really good and can play current titles on low-medium. So which one should I go with?

 

(Note: He doesn't care about graphics, at all. He just wants to play the game)

 

His PC Specs: (Built back in 2001, according to him)

Intel Celeron 1.8GHz, pins are still in the CPU

NVIDIA GeForce FX 5200

1GB DDR RAM

60GB Maxtor IDE HDD

i would get the g3258 for a better upgrade path when you or your cousin doesnt like it's performance lol

 

how much is the difference between the a10 and the g3258+r7 240

[itachipirate]

I would get the A10 personally. Better performance in most games, and you don't have to mess around with overclocking. The integrated graphics on the A10 I'm guessing are much better than an R7 240. Get some fast RAM with an A10 though! It benefits APUs a lot to have faster RAM

 

http://pcpartpicker.com/part/kingston-memory-hx324c11sr4

http://pcpartpicker.com/part/gskill-memory-f32400c11d8gxm

[itachipirate]

i would get the g3258 for a better upgrade path when you or your cousin doesnt like it's performance lol

 

how much is the difference between the a10 and the g3258+r7 240

If he went this long without upgrading his PC before, how long would he be stuck with a Pentium dual core?

[Guest]

I wound go for the pentium and hold off on a video card if you cant afford anything better than an r7 240/250. I would get something used if you are on a budget I would get a used video card 260, 750 (ti), ect. Anyway back to the processor. The pentium has a few atvantages of the a10. First of its unlocked so your cousin can pick up a 212 evo  and mess around with some overclocking if he wants. Alos it has a much better upgrade path should he want to upgrade. If he plans to upgrade make sure you get a z97 build so he has the option to get broadwell. Anyway that my two cents. Hope it helps.

[MattTheMayor]

If he went this long without upgrading his PC before, how long would he be stuck with a Pentium dual core?

good point. but maybe there's a chance he might want to upgrade even more after he sees the new games coming out on pc x]

[Fortress]

i would get the g3258 for a better upgrade path when you or your cousin doesnt like it's performance lol

 

how much is the difference between the a10 and the g3258+r7 240

 

The G3258 is currently $59.99 and the R7 240 is currently $69.99 while the A10-7850K is $99.99. Around $30 difference.

[itachipirate]

The G3258 is currently $59.99 and the R7 240 is currently $69.99 while the A10-7850K is $99.99. Around $30 difference.

 

I can't find any videos of people playing this game with a G3258

[Misanthrope]

If you can at all upgrade in the future...the g3258. Though it is hard to recommend since some games like Farcry 4 will refuse to open even though 2 strong threads are actually enough. So ideally you wanna get the cheapest i3 you can find so the 4 threads requirement of modern games is met.

 

The real problem here is graphics: the APU is just ok considering it's sort of cheap but it will be really disappointing for 2015 gaming. The 240 doesn't fairs much better either mind you. If budget is absolute and you cannot afford anything else, I would still look into something second hand like a cheap second hand 7850.

 

Another thing to consider: instead of the A10 7850k you should consider a broadwell 5675C CPU. It will outperform it and once you later drop in a better dedicated GPU it will be able to handle basically anything including a top of the line high end card. That is the best upgrade path today: a really strong CPU with modest graphics that can play games right now and you can then add in whatever card you want as long as a year down the road and still be ok

 

http://www.anandtech.com/show/9320/intel-broadwell-review-i7-5775c-i5-5675c/7

[thekeemo]

860K + better gpu

[DarkBlade2117]

You could go in Craigslist like I am. Found an i3-3220 and r9 270x with 16gbs of ram and a 600gb HDD for $400 in my area.

[Prysin]

i would suggest a Athlon 860k + a R7 260X. That would be a beast of a combination to a low price

If you are looking for an APU get the 7870k, it is basically a 7850k, but the AMD factory has overclocked it, so it will run games simply better.

As for RAM, for an APU (7850k or 7870k) you need HIGH SPEED. so ideally 2400MHz RAM, but some APUs, especially 7850k, have weak memory controllers and refuse to run 2400MHz, instead they run at the factory rated 2133MHz. Running 2133 instead of 2400 would cause you to lose a few FPS. Not a big amount, but a few FPS.

I would also like to remind the intel fanboys that you CAN overclock the APU, if you get it right, you can push the CPU from 3.7GHz to 4.7GHz and the GPU from 720MHz to 1050MHz, which would essentially get the APU close to the stock R7 260, albeit not completely close.

[george357]

I had a similar choice and went with the A10. I am glad I did, I really like it and have had no issues with my uses. Said uses consisting of HTPC (up to and including 4k streams), video rendering/processing and playing Bioshock Infinite on medium.

[CoolaxGaming]

I wound go for the pentium and hold off on a video card if you cant afford anything better than an r7 240/250. I would get something used if you are on a budget I would get a used video card 260, 750 (ti), ect. Anyway back to the processor. The pentium has a few atvantages of the a10. First of its unlocked so your cousin can pick up a 212 evo  and mess around with some overclocking if he wants. Alos it has a much better upgrade path should he want to upgrade. If he plans to upgrade make sure you get a z97 build so he has the option to get broadwell. Anyway that my two cents. Hope it helps.

7850k is overclockable