Ok, so, I've been bored with my SB build and decided to play with some budget components again... Decided the other night to order an AMD Athlon 5350. This will, for the most part, replace the SB build in my sig to the left. I'm not getting rid of that particular system. Instead, it'll become a dedicated folding rig and the new build will handle my "day to day" usage. I don't really require much in the way of graphics or processing power as I'm usually browsing forums and playing solitaire anyway. This is actually the first build in a while I've even been remotely excited about, which is rather odd for me. Usually budget builds are rather dull and boring....and this will really be no exception. The system will be quite basic. It'll have motherboard, processor, ram, a single WD 500GB Caviar Black harddrive and a Sony BD-Rom drive....all running Windows8.1. Oh yeah, it will also have my Intel NIC. It'll all be shoved into a Xion SFF case with 250watt PSU. The processor will be here tuesday with the motherboard showing up later in the week. Now, here's the purpose of my post. The parts are ordered and paid for. The processor has already shipped. So, even though it's a bit late to back out of my plans I gotta ask.... Has anyone else given one of these processors a go yet? They seem to get pretty good reviews from people that supposedly have them. I guess, as usual, I'm a bit pessimistic about new hardware. If anyone has any experience with these little SoC's....please, feel free to post your opinions and experience.
That 25W TDP is what got me interested initially. The price is hard to beat as well. The processor only cost me $60....and the motherboard another $40.
I'd be interested in how it performs as well as most of the requests I get for builds are of the budget email/web surfer variety.This is the kind of thing that seems perfect for that.
I'm hoping it performs better than my Trinity HTPC build does. My Trinity build does fine for video playback but is slow for web browsing and gaming.... Unfortunately, once a proper A/V is installed, it becomes painfully slow and incapable. Once I get it assembled I'll post my thoughts on it. Tracking shows the processor on schedule for delivery tomorrow. I'll have to wait until late tonight to confirm the delivery date for the motherboard but it should be around friday when it gets delivered. This is the first "upgrade" for my HTPC so I'll get a chance to hopefully get the wiring in the case cleaned up a bit this go round. Nah. I find the idea of the "steam machine" a joke...and after Valve deleted my Steam account for no reason (and with no warning), I refuse to give them another dime for anything.
If Windows wasn't already loaded on the harddrive I intend to use, I'd consider giving Linux a go. I may have to reinstall Windows anyway though since it's currently installed in IDE mode and not UEFI mode. For some reason, Windows8 didn't play nicely with the AHCI driver for my Trinity build.
I do find windows a bit more forgiving than linux in that respect. My current Win7 install has been on 3 different boards over 2 different chipsets. Probably time to reinstall everything from scratch but I really CBA.
The one thing I hate about building a new system is having to load everything the first time. I'm already tracking down drivers for everything which, fortunately, doesn't take long for such a basic build. I really wanted to order an LG Chromebase but when I looked at the prices, I decided to "scratch" that "upgrade itch"....ya know what I mean? I'll still order the LG Chromebase at some point though. I'm just having a hard time justifying the Windows builds anymore. I don't game enough to need any more than what ChromeOS offers.
I know exactly what you mean. I like the building and tweaking of PCs, but installing drivers is a real ballache. Not had the best luck with Linux lately, either so I'll be sticking with WIn7, although that could be due to me trying to install things on a P4. Quite like the look of that LG thing, good idea, and well priced, too. Still being an avid gamer, though, I need a nice powerful rig to do that, and for my audio recording work, a stupid number of cores and vast amounts of RAM are always useful.
Like I said above, I browse forums and play solitaire....lol. Besides, the Chromebase doubles as a monitor and I'm keeping the rig in my sig anyway. With the route I chose, I'll probably be switching from my Flatron E2251 to a Samsung SyncMaster 2333 so I'll have DVI and HDMI inputs. I'm always interested in new stuff.... Sometimes it's hard to decide what new products to try out.
This is true. I nearly bought a Kaveri CPU and mobo the other week on a whim, but given I'm finishing my PhD with no firm job yet... When I do get my new job, it's X99 time, I've had more than enough of Gigabyte and their crappy BIOSes.
Kaveri just wasn't interesting to me for some reason. Kabini on the other hand, is quite interesting. Something about a 25W quad core that's dirt cheap. Tracking puts CPU at the local post office and Mobo projected for thursday delivery. Gonna be a LONG day tomorrow.....
I know the feeling. Even though it's a budget build, the idea of setting it up and tweaking it is always exciting.
Can't really do much in the way of "tweaking" with it. From what I've read, they typically max out around 2.4 - 2.5ghz without pumping more voltage into them than I'm comfortable with. They do appear to like that little bump in speed though. One poster on XS has one performing nearly "on par" with an FX-6300 at 2.5ghz.
If a CPU was available that is to Kaveri as what the 750/760K is to Trinity/Richland, I would be all over it. I don't think its possible due to how its designed though.
Trinity/Richland were Piledriver based processors. Kaveri is a Steamroller based processor. They're all based on the "Bulldozer" architecture and are considered "modular" processors. AMD can easily disable or remove the iGPU from the Kaveri processors, same as they did Trinity/Richland. However, that isn't really relevant to this thread as the Athlon 5350 is a Jaguar based processor same as what the XBox One and PS4 use.