Cheap 'APU' for 1080p60 playback and general usage

[r19]

What would be a suitable APU or Intel processor for day to day stuff? I've to build a new PC as I have to move now. I'd need to buy the board too but I'd just like something reliable for that.

I'm not doing much intensive stuff now most I'd do is some emulation (I only do PS2 right now, not sure if I'd do others) ,some 3d modelling and little video editing/converting. I won't be overclocking it and will probably sell it or give it off later. I need it to play 1080p60fps, 1440p and 10bit and whatever I need for some futureproofing.

Thinking of getting a Intel Pentium or a cheap APU like Richland. The Skylake pentium supports incomplete vp9 but the cheaper one appears to be very low on EUs. Also I'm not sure if youtube can be used for vp9 software benchmarking since it is poor quality. And I don't know if all the removed instruction sets would hurt. I don't even know when Bristol Ridge/AM4 is releasing.

There don't seem to be much benchmarks of playback and normal stuff online so I'd like to know what would be fine to play video with a few background stuff running. I'd also like to run it fine on linux.

Also would it be fine to use 1 stick of 4GB RAM initially to save money as I don't need even use close to 4 now. I think only the bigger APUs are bandwidth starved?

 

[VirtualLarry]

I need it to play 1080p60fps, 1440p and 10bit and whatever I need for some futureproofing.

I'd also like to run it fine on linux.

Also would it be fine to use 1 stick of 4GB RAM initially to save money as I don't need even use close to 4 now. I think only the bigger APUs are bandwidth starved?

I think that you might run into issues with Linux. Our user "cbn" has mentioned not being able to get AMD APUs to support hardware-accelerated H.264 playback under Linux.

Also, using only one stick of RAM will hurt APU performance. I don't know how much for video playback, but it will hurt 3D (and maybe some 2D support too).