Upgrade for A4-4000

Mar 10, 2006
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A family member's computer has an AMD A4-4000 APU and this thing really is dog slow.

What is the fastest APU that would drop right into the same motherboard that I can buy?
 

LTC8K6

Lifer
Mar 10, 2004
28,520
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Well, that's an FM2 chip, but we need to know if the mobo will take FM2+.

FM2 limits you to Richland, FM2+ gets you to Kaveri/Godavari/Carrizo.
 
Mar 10, 2006
11,715
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Well, that's an FM2 chip, but we need to know if the mobo will take FM2+.

FM2 limits you to Richland, FM2+ gets you to Kaveri/Godavari/Carrizo.

Let's assume FM2. A quad-core Richland would probably be a HUGE user experience improvement here. I'll also probably throw in some additional RAM (the computer only has 4GB -- ack!)
 

LTC8K6

Lifer
Mar 10, 2004
28,520
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There's no weird rules about compatibility on the FM2 socket, right? If the system supports the A4-4000, it'll support the A10-6800K without any hassles/need for BIOS updates/etc.?
The A4-4000 is 65W tdp, so you might want to stick with that range and go with the A10-6700.

For BIOS questions, we'd need to know what the mobo is to be 100% sure.
 

VirtualLarry

No Lifer
Aug 25, 2001
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Is this an OEM box, or a custom rig? That would go a long way towards telling us whether you should stick to 65W TDP territory or not.
 

VirtualLarry

No Lifer
Aug 25, 2001
56,226
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There's no weird rules about compatibility on the FM2 socket, right? If the system supports the A4-4000, it'll support the A10-6800K without any hassles/need for BIOS updates/etc.?
There was a BIOS update needed to go from Trinity to Richland, at least on my A85X MSI mobo. Much like the BIOS update necessary to go from Skylake to Kaby Lake on 1151.

Edit: I see that the A4-4000 is already Richland. You should be all set.
 

scannall

Golden Member
Jan 1, 2012
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A family member's computer has an AMD A4-4000 APU and this thing really is dog slow.

What is the fastest APU that would drop right into the same motherboard that I can buy?
First question I'd ask, is how many sticks of ram are in it? If it's just one, adding a second makes a HUGE difference on that platform.
 
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Insert_Nickname

Diamond Member
May 6, 2012
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A10-6800K is the fastest with graphics but it's a 100W tdp chip.
Maybe go with the 6700?
The A4-4000 is 65W tdp, so you might want to stick with that range and go with the A10-6700.

I'll second that. Power delivery circuitry might not be up to the 6800K long term. Speaking as a (former) user it guzzles power, and forget using the stock heatsink for cooling unless you like a good turbine imitation.

If the MB turns out to be FM2+, I'd like to recommend an Athlon 845. They're dirt cheap, and provide almost 6800K/7890K performance (some cases even exceeds it), but at significantly lower power draw. Downside is the requirement for a discrete graphics card, but you can use anything for basic usage.
 

VirtualLarry

No Lifer
Aug 25, 2001
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First question I'd ask, is how many sticks of ram are in it? If it's just one, adding a second makes a HUGE difference on that platform.
Maybe that's why the A4-6300 rig I gave my friend, that had a single 4GB stick of DDR3, seemed so decidedly NON-"snappy" to me.
 

Jan Olšan

Senior member
Jan 12, 2017
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You can cool A10-6800K with the 125W FX coolers fine - if the mobo has a good fan control implementation that won't cause it to run too fast in idle and jump way up on the sorta big and fast oscillations of reported temp from the digital sensor in load (problem with Gigabyte).

Maybe it is not a good idea to use 100W APU on motherboard lacking VRM heatsink, though (well that probably goes for anything 95W). If that is the case it probably needs an extra fan blowing on it.
 

kwalkingcraze

Senior member
Jan 2, 2017
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A family member's computer has an AMD A4-4000 APU and this thing really is dog slow.

What is the fastest APU that would drop right into the same motherboard that I can buy?
The best you can put in is A10-6700 with 100% guarantee. I don't recommend A10-6800K because not all OEM PCs (if it is) take 100W and "K" processors. What's the manufactured date of the PC, and how old? You may be able to squeeze in A10-7800 FM2+ at the most after BIOS update. If it's custom-build, there's a high chance it is a FM2+ board.
 
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kwalkingcraze

Senior member
Jan 2, 2017
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Maybe that's why the A4-6300 rig I gave my friend, that had a single 4GB stick of DDR3, seemed so decidedly NON-"snappy" to me.
Change the shared graphics memory from 512MB default to 256MB in BIOS menu. Helps a lot while gaining an additional 256MB of memory RAM with 4GB max.
 
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Abwx

Lifer
Apr 2, 2011
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At 65W TDP an A10 6700 is the most reasonable FM2 APU, the A10 6800K is less efficient for marginal gain, in heavy loading the former is at 60W TDP while the latter can get as high as 87W.

If the MB is FM2+ compatible then there s two good options within 65W TDP, either the A10 7800, or better, an A10 7860K if Godavari is also supported.

The Athlon 845 mentioned by a member is also relevant as its ISA is curiously the most complete within AMD s CPUs since it include not only AVX2, BMI/1/2 but also XOP and FMA4 wich are not present in Ryzen IIRC..
 
Mar 10, 2006
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So I was able to run CPU-Z on the machine and the motherboard is an MSI A55-E33. So, FM2, not FM2+. The A10-6700 seems to be the best choice here -- it's got 2x the cores of the current CPU & runs at a higher frequency.

The system also has just one stick of DDR3, so I'll be getting rid of that and putting in 2x8GB sticks.

This isn't a gaming system or anything -- just a general purpose desktop. But, I think with these upgrades it will become much more fun to use.

Thanks all.
 

VirtualLarry

No Lifer
Aug 25, 2001
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I have a BNIB MSI A55M-E33, that I purchased (qty) from TigerDirect back in the day, when they were on sale for like $28 shipped. The ones I purchased claimed to be FM2+, but I never actually tested that, I don't think. I've only had A4-6300 APUs (FM2) in them.

I guess I should double-check? I think that the box says FM2+ though.

I think that possibly MSI made both an FM2 and an FM2+ version? Maybe? Or perhaps yours really is an FM2+ board too.

Edit: Box clearly states "FM2+ / FM2 processor ready".
 

VirtualLarry

No Lifer
Aug 25, 2001
56,226
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No, he was comparing the A4-3300 FM1 APU which is a true dual-core, as being slightly faster than the A4-4000 FM2 APU. Which really wouldn't surprise me in the least.
 

escrow4

Diamond Member
Feb 4, 2013
3,339
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A family member's computer has an AMD A4-4000 APU and this thing really is dog slow.

What is the fastest APU that would drop right into the same motherboard that I can buy?

This is why you never go full ghetto when buying CPUs. Or any product really.
 

VirtualLarry

No Lifer
Aug 25, 2001
56,226
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This is why you never go full ghetto when buying CPUs. Or any product really.
True... well, for the most part.

But Intel's Haswell G1820/1840 Celeron chips still had a bit of "pep" in them, even though they were the lowest, slowest, Haswell CPUs made. Ok, granted, they were no i7-4790K, by any means, but they were still "snappy", with an SSD and adequate (even single-channel) RAM.

The same cannot be said of the AMD A4-4000 and the A4-6300 (which is scarcely better).

Not a lot of pep in the A4-6300, at least with a single 4GB DIMM and Win7 64-bit.

I mean, they were usable for desktop and some media tasks, but they had a fair amount of lagginess to them.

Edit: I think that single-threaded performance had a lot to do with my experience and perceptions of those platforms.

By comparison, the G3258 OC'ed to 4.0Ghz, really flies, for desktop tasks.
 

bigboxes

Lifer
Apr 6, 2002
38,485
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No, he was comparing the A4-3300 FM1 APU which is a true dual-core, as being slightly faster than the A4-4000 FM2 APU. Which really wouldn't surprise me in the least.

I didn't see where you said you purchased an A4-3300 ITT, which is what kwalkingcraze said. Is it from a past comment that you made? I have an A4-3300 and it is dog slow. That is with 8GB or ram and an Samsung 840.