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X4 845 or 880K to go with RX 460 4GB

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h3r3t1k,

When you are done with your build let us know how it worked out. (And post pictures if you can).

P.S. What other components (case, motherboard, psu, storage etc) are you planning to use?
 
LTC8K6 said:
There is one other thing to possibly consider if it matters to you. AVX2. 845 has it, 880K does not.
Most likely, this will not matter to you.
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AVX2 support on Carrizo (845) might as well not exist. It will not provide any performance gains.

The 880k will be the faster CPU for gaming, period. If you get an 880k, you will want to look at undervolting it rather than overclocking it, since the default vcore for that CPU will probably be in the range of 1.45v which is completely over the top.
 
h3r3t1k said:
The only thing that might be upgraded down the line will be the graphics card in two years or so. Which CPU will give me more value in this case? I'm guessing the 880K because the chance of it being a bottleneck down the line is lower?
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If planning a GPU upgrade in two years, then definitely the 880K.....although with something like a RX470 4GB I am pretty sure you will get stuttering in certain games.

Maybe DX12 and/or higher resolution helps though.
 
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I wanted to spend 400 total.

This is the whole build:

Gigabyte GA-F2A88XM-DS2P —> 47
X4 845 or 880K —> 62 or 83
Corsair 2*4GB DDR3-2133 CL9 —> 47
XFX RX 460 4GB —> 137
PSU 450W Corsair —> 38
HDD Toshiba DT01ACA 1TB, SATA 6Gb/s (DT01ACA100) —> 44
Zalman ZM-T3 —> 25

—> 400 or 421

The board is one of the new ones with USB 3.1 on the market since February.

Regarding the cooler. Unfortunately the 845 comes with a puny little aluminium cooler. There is neither a copper baseplate nor heatpipes but the 880K really does come with the Wraith minus the shroud.

Regarding OCing. Yes a German review said that their 880K was stable with its voltage reduced by 0.225V which resulted in 40W less power draw under Prime95 load. But I might also try to use the generous stock voltage to maybe OC it to the A10-7890K boost clock of 4.3 GHz without raising the voltage if possible. I'm usually all about efficiency so I'm not sure what I'm gonna do.
 
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Well, you better add a hundred bucks for Windows. That's sort of the problem since the license is tied to the mobo. The cores are too slow for any kind of longevity on the thing for gaming.
 
I uh . . . wouldn't count on that motherboard OCing very well. Looks like a 3+2 power phase design with no VRM cooling whatsoever. You should really stick to undervolting with that thing, it'll love you for it.
 
A 460 with an old poky AMD chip isn't budget gaming, its scraping the bottom of the barrel. You may as well just buy a console instead. Box has no SSD either which is crippling.
 
Damn I wish I knew how much faster a 880K OCed to 4.3GHz was compared the 845. The 860K is 6% faster at stock. The 880K OCed might be 10-12% faster?
 
I don't understand why your buying a system that's already old and outdated. A intel system can upgrade to a 7700k series, grab a i3 6100 and a cheap z170 motherboard and ram and your set for years to come. And its faster now and in the future. Runs cooler too.

I'd buy a z170 for under 100$, and buy used ram and a used i3 6100.
 
h3r3t1k said:
The 845 is 62€, the 860K is 73€ and the 880K is 83€ and the i3-6100 is 30 bucks more. 30 bucks I would have to pay from the GPU budget. This is a budget build and I'm fully aware of the constraints. My main rig actually has the i3 so no need to convince me it's better. The question is: Is spending 20€ more on the 880K over the 845 justified on a budget build or is the performance difference too minuscule? Keep in mind that if this pc is upgraded it'll be another budget gpu in two years or so anyways. So I'm wondering if the 880K might be less of a bottleneck in the future as both CPUs are gonna be pushed to their limits.
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I know one has to set a budget, but it seems like false economy to save 30 dollars on a system that will be used for years. I mean 30.00 is less than the price of one meal eating out with your significant other. It is also what, maybe 5% or less of the cost of the entire system. The i3 is also more efficient, especially compared to the 8800k, even more so if you overclock the 8800k, so you will save a few dollars a year in energy costs. It would also have an upgrade path in 2 or 3 years when you could upgrade *both* the cpu and gpu.

Baring that, I would suggest waiting for AM4, so in a few years you could upgrade both cpu and gpu as well. Problem is, if you absolutely cant or wont pay an additional 30.00, I am not sure what the price of Bristol Ridge and AM4 motherboards are going to be.

I do think the 8800k would be adequate for now with an RX460, but if you plan to keep the system several years, and upgrade the gpu in 3 years, I definitely would get a system for which you could upgrade the cpu as well.
 
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I would get the cheapest CPU (with 4 cores) possible, and cheapest motherboard possible if I was going to invest on fm2+
so the 845 makes more sense...
the 845 cores are faster for gaming, but the smaller l2 cache makes it perform bellow the older architecture in some games, but still, it shouldn't make a huge difference.
 
OP, I just looked at your post again. 137.00 is a terrible price for an RX460. At least where I live (the US), you can get the 2gb model for less than 100.00 after rebate. Power color RX460 . The 460 is a very cut down card vs the rest of the 14/16 nm dgpus and IMO is not worth more than a hundred dollars or slightly more. The 470 with almost twice the performance was available for around 180.00 last time I checked. Unfortunately the 1050/1050 Ti from nVidia are not yet available, so in the hundred dollar range the 460 is the only choice. I would also not pay more than 10.00 extra for 4gb vram on such a low end card, especially if you plan to replace it in a couple of years. Just get the cheapest one you can find. Use the 30 dollars you save to get an i3 or AM4 platform.
 
It looks like the OP is paying Eurozone prices, so there's no telling whether or not that price is good or bad relative to where he lives.
 
@frozentundra: These are German prices. 4GB is 20 bucks more across the board. A German site I trust found that because memory management is worse with AMD only the 4GB card can compete with the GTX 950 while the 2GB card won't do for AAA titles. This is OK as the 4GB RX 460 is still a little cheaper than the GTX 950. The new AMD card can also compete with Maxwell efficiency wise.

I've decided. I'm gonna go with the 845 because SPBHM is right when he says to spend as little as possible on a secondary system and the 845 is a solid base for a power saving, quiet system which can still play games at 1080p. It's the best bang for the buck as it's the cheapest CPU that can run any game (4 threads). I can stick with the RX 460 for at least 2 years and after that retire the system or sell it to somebody who plays MOBAs only. If I chose the 880K I'd probably undervolt it anyways to raise efficiency (German site says undervolting by 0.225V is possible which saves 40W under load according to their tests) which would make the better cooler a moot point as the 845's cooler is weaker but also quiet. I also wouldn't notice the improved performance over the 845 at all in games. As a bonus I'll spend a round 400 bucks on the whole system which was the intended budget.

Would you guys like me to measure the power draw of the whole system?
 
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h3r3t1k said:
@frozentundra: These are German prices. 4GB is 20 bucks more across the board. A German site I trust found that because memory management is worse with AMD only the 4GB card can compete with the GTX 950 while the 2GB card won't do for AAA titles. This is OK as the 4GB RX 460 is still a little cheaper than the GTX 950. The new AMD card can also compete with Maxwell efficiency wise.

I've decided. I'm gonna go with the 845 because SPBHM is right when he says to spend as little as possible on a secondary system and the 845 is a solid base for a power saving, quiet system which can still play games at 1080p. It's the best bang for the buck as it's the cheapest CPU that can run any game (4 threads). I can stick with the RX 460 for at least 2 years and after that retire the system or sell it to somebody who plays MOBAs only. If I chose the 880K I'd probably undervolt it anyways to raise efficiency (German site says undervolting by 0.225V is possible which saves 40W under load according to their tests) which would make the better cooler a moot point as the 845's cooler is weaker but also quiet. I also wouldn't notice the improved performance over the 845 at all in games. As a bonus I'll spend a round 400 bucks on the whole system which was the intended budget.

Would you guys like me to measure the power draw of the whole system?
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Well, personally, I would save the 20 bucks on the 2gb gpu and put it toward a cpu with better performance and an upgrade path. But if you retire the system after a couple of years instead of upgrading as I thought you intended to do, then the Athlon cpu should be OK.

Edit: Here is a pretty comprehensive test of the 4gb vs 2gb RX460 Hardware Unboxed Comparison . As you can see, with the exception of one or two outliers, performance is essentially identical. Obviously your choice, but personally I certainly would not spend 20.00 extra for the extra 2gb of vram.
 
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@frozentundra:
So what can we conclude based on these results? Well a good number of things really. Something I would like to point of right off the bat is the fact that I did test using a high-end Core i7 test system and while the results are valid I almost regret this decision now.

The impact of having to swap data out of the VRAM to the system RAM or pagefile is lessened when using a high-end system, complete with high clocked DDR4 memory and SSD storage.

Therefore while still valid, I am keen to re-create this comparison in my Core i3 test rig, to see if the results change much. This is something I plan to do over the next week and if the results are different, expect a follow up video.
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I'll be running a much weaker CPU and a HDD instead of a SSD as well as DDR3-RAM. Also since games already are maxing out 2GB in 1080p I regard 4GB as much more future proof espcially since I'm not sure if I'll be upgrading this system.
 
h3r3t1k said:
@frozentundra:


I'll be running a much weaker CPU and a HDD instead of a SSD as well as DDR3-RAM. Also since games already are maxing out 2GB in 1080p I regard 4GB as much more future proof espcially since I'm not sure if I'll be upgrading this system.
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Well, it is your decision, but I dont think a 460 is "future proof" in any sense of the word, whether it has 2 or 4 gb of vram. In fact, as you can see from the test I linked, it is already marginal for anything over medium at 1080p in a lot of current and one or two year old games. I also dont know what a weak cpu, ddr3 and not having as SSD have anything to do with getting more vram. In fact I think it would be the opposite. Since the rest of the system is weaker, I would think that would tilt the decision towards the 2gb card. But I wont continue to question your decision, since you apparently have your mind made up. Enjoy your system.
 
h3r3t1k said:
@frozentundra:


I'll be running a much weaker CPU and a HDD instead of a SSD as well as DDR3-RAM. Also since games already are maxing out 2GB in 1080p I regard 4GB as much more future proof espcially since I'm not sure if I'll be upgrading this system.
Click to expand...

Hit up the used market as somebody else said. Stretch those dollars as far as they'll go!
 
h3r3t1k said:
Would you guys like me to measure the power draw of the whole system?
Click to expand...

Yes.

And let us know how smoothly your games run with the Athlon x 4 845 and RX460 4GB. I reckon the excavator chip @ 3.5 Ghz base and 3.8 Ghz turbo would be equivalent to a Kaveri @ 3.3 Ghz base and 3.6 Ghz turbo.
 
OK. I got both CPUs coming and there's something I must try. I want to manage to get the 880K to 4.3GHz (the fastest APU's boost clock) while REDUCING the voltage by 0.1V. The numbers I've seen seem to make this goal feasible. Reducing the Voltage by 0.225 was stable at stock clocks and OCing topped out for almost everybody at the 4.6GHz mark with the voltage raised by 0.1V. I'm sensing a sweet spot at 4.2/4.3GHz. If my CPU can pull this efficiency improvement off I'd be feeling really good about the CPU at its current price.

I also want to keep cool 'n quiet enabled.

Do you guys agree that an hour of Prime95 and another hour of gaming is enough to call it stable?
 
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