Integrated R7 graphics?

[Foz]

Looking for some advice on graphics card.
Buying a gaming computer for my sons birthday.
It has a 10a7870 processor with Radeon 7 integrated graphics.
There's an option to upgrade graphic cards.
I asked about what is the Radeon 7 integrated graphics but it was just that.
Is it worth buying a graphics card with this or not.
One of the upgrades was an Radeon 7 250x which I think had 2gb graphics in it but does anyone know if this is worth doing.
Sorry I know very little about these things so hope I've got it right.
It's to go with a Windows 10 64 bit operating system.

 

[bileduct]

If gaming is going to be the primary use you are better off going with a discrete graphics card. A discrete graphics card is going to give you better performance, higher detail, better framerates, etc., than integrated graphics. The only appreciable trade off is price, extra power consumption and more fan noise.

You probably also want to make sure the system comes with a decently sized (256GB or more) solid state drive for the OS and applications.

I take it you're on a budget having gone down the AMD route? The R7 250X is pretty old. The R7/R9 3xx series cards can be found here --> https://www.pccasegear.com/category/193_877/graphics-cards/complete-list-amd

 

[Exsilium]

I pick up an Asus 380 R9 for 340 and that's a fantastic card

 

[Foz]

If gaming is going to be the primary use you are better off going with a discrete graphics card. A discrete graphics card is going to give you better performance, higher detail, better framerates, etc., than integrated graphics. The only appreciable trade off is price, extra power consumption and more fan noise.

You probably also want to make sure the system comes with a decently sized (256GB or more) solid state drive for the OS and applications.

I take it you're on a budget having gone down the AMD route? The R7 250X is pretty old. The R7/R9 3xx series cards can be found here --> https://www.pccasegear.com/category/193_877/graphics-cards/complete-list-amd

Thank you for the advice.Much appreciated.
My son actually picked that card.We know very little about this sort of thing.
I think he picked that card as it was the cheapest that had 2 gb graphics.
Is there an alternative to the AMD route?
He also picked that-why I have no idea- maybe one of his mates.
Budget is around $900 and that would include operating system.

 

[Front-Rower]

Thank you for the advice.Much appreciated.
My son actually picked that card.We know very little about this sort of thing.
I think he picked that card as it was the cheapest that had 2 gb graphics.
Is there an alternative to the AMD route?
He also picked that-why I have no idea- maybe one of his mates.
Budget is around $900 and that would include operating system.

Hi mate,

The alternative to AMD is Nvidia - for your price range you would probably be looking at a GTX960 or GTX970 (may just push your cost out a tad though)

I suggest having a look at the following web link as it will give you an idea of what you can get for your dollars;

http://whirlpool.net.au/wiki/rmp_sg_whirlpoolpcs_gaming_configs_1

The alternative, if price starts to blow out, would obviously be to buy a mid range laptop for around $600-700 and get your son a PS4 or X-Box One. Dell do good deals on refrubished laptops like ones in the link below and would be good enough for school work etc..

http://www1.ap.dell.com/content/top...kship/au/en/inspiron_notebook?c=au&l=en&s=dfo

 

[Exsilium]

Whilst the OP is focusing on graphics cards it's worth me mentioning I rebuilt my PC for about $900 recently.

Asus R9 380 Strix 4GB - $330 ( two of these makes for great performance or get the 390.) a 960x is overkill unless you plan to use that kind of power. Even modern games don't come close to clocking it.

Memory - $100
Power supply - 700W $50
Motherboard - $150
I5 6500 $350

Already had my case and they set you back $100.

Monitor I had before but today can get a very good monitor <$200.

I don't buy into the idea that you have to spend big money to get big results. I run everything on ultra and achieve very high Frames per second.

nvidia will give you all the physX benefits but AMD are no slouches and to be honest I've noticed minimal differences between my old set up (nvidia based) and this one.

Plus, the set up I have is one extra R9 card away from being epic.

Plenty of build options but IMO a $900 build is able to achieve great results.

My mate spends thousands on his gear and his overall benefits are not in anyway worth the extra dollars and cents.

Happy to provide my build details. It can be improved with extra funds but it's a very very good gaming performer.

 

[Exsilium]

You can certainly do better then that set up they are offering

 

[bileduct]

Thank you for the advice.Much appreciated.
My son actually picked that card.We know very little about this sort of thing.
I think he picked that card as it was the cheapest that had 2 gb graphics.

That's cool. As I said, the card is a bit old and has been replaced by the 3xx series ones. If you don't mind spending a little extra and getting a newer one it'll last you longer and give you better results in the long run.

Is there an alternative to the AMD route?

For the CPU there's Intel, and for the graphics card there's NVIDIA. Personally, I have no issue whatsoever with AMD Radeon cards and have been happily using them for years, but I prefer Intel CPUs. That's purely for performance reasons, as I do a fair bit of video encoding that requires a lot of CPU, and don't spend much time gaming anymore.

He also picked that-why I have no idea- maybe one of his mates.
Budget is around $900 and that would include operating system.

Yeah, with your budget you're better off with AMD. If it's a pre-built system I would suggest just upgrading the graphics to at least a 2 or 4GB 3xx series discrete card and seriously look at dropping a solid state drive in there for the operating system. It makes a massive, massive difference.

 

[bileduct]

That's some pretty good advice from Exsilium regarding a cheap Intel build.

One thing worth considering, though, is that while the parts may come in around $900 you still want someone to assemble it for you. I assemble my own PCs, but I am sick to f**king death of doing it for other people because then there's an expectation that you'll provide support for them. So I steer clear of that shit.

On the other hand a lot of pre-assembled PCs are loaded with cheap components.

Generally I find the biggest money wasters are motherboards packed with features that you'll never use or are poorly implemented (like USB 3.0 on ASUS X79 boards.) If you don't need integrated wireless, bluetooth or thunderbolt it's better to go for the bare bones motherboard or one with less features and just add the stuff you need to a PCI-E slot or get a USB device. Unless you go for a dedicated deluxe gaming board a manufacturers line of motherboards are all gonna have the same integrated sound, SATA controllers, etc.

 

[Foz]

Thanks everyone.I really appreciate this advice.
I really didn't have any idea a graphics card was so important.
I'll have to sit down and have a full on discussion with him.
I don't mind contributing to his purchase(he has a birthday next week)but it's getting mum to agree with how much we top up his purchase.
I've already slipped him a few hundred dollars without mum knowing as it's the old policy what you spend on one you have to spend on the others.Becomes a bit expensive with 3 kids.

 

[Mogsheen Jadwat]

If you tell me how much you're planning on spending, I will recommend you a build.

Just tell me:
1) cost
2) how long you want it/need it to be future proofed for?
3) any parts you do not require (ie, monitor, disk drive, case(if you have a case I need to know the model/dimensions as that's important re: mobo, gpu size), etc)

 

[bileduct]

One thing that is important is what games does he actually want to play?

Youtube is really good for determining the quality of a particular graphics card and certain games. Here's a bunch of videos that are all about the card you were already looking at.

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=amd+r7+250

Also, here's a ranking of the performance of all the GPUs, which should help in determining which cards offer best value for money. The card you're looking at is ranked #115 with a 3DMark score of 2710. Comparatively, the entry level 3xx card, the R7 360 (https://www.pccasegear.com/products/32310/msi-radeon-r7-360-oc-2gb), is ranked #60 with a 3DMark score of 6470. That's more than double the performance for about $30-40 more.

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=amd+r7+360

http://www.shopbot.com.au/m/?m=r7+250

http://www.shopbot.com.au/m/?m=r7+360

 

[bileduct]

If you tell me how much you're planning on spending, I will recommend you a build.

Just tell me:
1) cost
2) how long you want it/need it to be future proofed for?
3) any parts you do not require (ie, monitor, disk drive, case(if you have a case I need to know the model/dimensions as that's important re: mobo, gpu size), etc)

Maybe you should be asking who is going to be building this thing?

No offence to the OP, but I don't believe he's going to be putting it together.

 

[Mogsheen Jadwat]

Maybe you should be asking who is going to be building this thing?

No offence to the OP, but I don't believe he's going to be putting it together.

Most wholesalers worth their salt will put it together for a small fee, Umart etc.

I guess he should probably tell me his location as well, so i can rule out certain companies.

 

[Exsilium]

Thanks everyone.I really appreciate this advice.
I really didn't have any idea a graphics card was so important.
I'll have to sit down and have a full on discussion with him.
I don't mind contributing to his purchase(he has a birthday next week)but it's getting mum to agree with how much we top up his purchase.
I've already slipped him a few hundred dollars without mum knowing as it's the old policy what you spend on one you have to spend on the others.Becomes a bit expensive with 3 kids.

If you message Western Saint he can give you some quality build ideas on the cheap.

Also, $900-1000 is a good gaming/performance PC.

Did some research last night.

I priced a decent PC for $990.15 but without a case which is subject to what you want.

Samsung SSD Hard drive 250gb - 129
Gigabyte GA-B150M - 135
Power supply 700w -52
Asus strix 4gb R9 380 - 319
Intel i5 6500 - $275
8 GB corsair ram - $80.45

Quoted through my local supplier arc. Www.arc.com.au

Add a case and an operating system and you're set. That PC set up is easily improved and will be well capable of running modern games. Of course your budget could change a few things but it shows you don't need mega dollars to have a damn fine PC.

Good luck!

 

[bileduct]

Also, $900-1000 is a good gaming/performance PC.

Did some research last night.

I priced a decent PC for $990.15 but without a case which is subject to what you want.

Samsung SSD Hard drive 250gb - 129
Gigabyte GA-B150M - 135
Power supply 700w -52
Asus strix 4gb R9 380 - 319
Intel i5 6500 - $275
8 GB corsair ram - $80.45

Quoted through my local supplier arc. Www.arc.com.au

+$70 at least for the case
+$150 for the OS

Keyboard, mouse, monitor, assembly, shipping.

 

[Mogsheen Jadwat]

also, one HDD is not a good idea, esp an SSD.

SSD's are great and all, but if you buy one, you buy it as a boot disk and only put the OS/core programs on it. 250gb is not anywhere near enough for it to be your sole drive. a kid is going to be downloading games/movies/music/general media, 250gb will be sucked up in no time (it's not the 1990's anymore).

you could argue that you could buy an external, but you can get a 2tb sata drive for less than you can buy a 1tb external

 

[Exsilium]

also, one HDD is not a good idea, esp an SSD.

SSD's are great and all, but if you buy one, you buy it as a boot disk and only put the OS/core programs on it. 250gb is not anywhere near enough for it to be your sole drive. a kid is going to be downloading games/movies/music/general media, 250gb will be sucked up in no time (it's not the 1990's anymore).

you could argue that you could buy an external, but you can get a 2tb sata drive for less than you can buy a 1tb external

I agree, I run both a standard Sata and SSD for operating system and programs. It was just a representation of the ability to get decent performance at a fair cost.

Of my build you could easily drop a few things to make room for cases, mouse etc.

Like any hobby you can have a base and go from there. That motherboard is a great platform and the rest is subject to budget.

 

[perverse]

In all honesty, from someone who has been building systems both as a hobbyist and at different times professionally, you're going to get burned more often than not with a cheap power supply. It's the most overlooked component in every build, but time and time again when I go to fix a box that has become unstable, randomly blue screens etc, I find faulty cheap PSUs to be the problem a massively disproportionate amount of the time when compared with any other component.

It makes me sad when someone lays down hundreds and hundreds of dollars on a video card, only to skimp massively when it comes to feeding the beast. There's good reasons why some PSUs are more expensive. Power stability is important - expensive computer parts like stable power. You'll generally find you'll actually recuperate the cost difference in your power bill over time, too... efficiency is far better in a decent PSU.

Just my 2c. Take it as you will.

 

[Exsilium]

In all honesty, from someone who has been building systems both as a hobbyist and at different times professionally, you're going to get burned more often than not with a cheap power supply. It's the most overlooked component in every build, but time and time again when I go to fix a box that has become unstable, randomly blue screens etc, I find faulty cheap PSUs to be the problem a massively disproportionate amount of the time when compared with any other component.

It makes me sad when someone lays down hundreds and hundreds of dollars on a video card, only to skimp massively when it comes to feeding the beast. There's good reasons why some PSUs are more expensive. Power stability is important - expensive computer parts like stable power. You'll generally find you'll actually recuperate the cost difference in your power bill over time, too... efficiency is far better in a decent PSU.

Just my 2c. Take it as you will.

I agree with your point but my system completely overclocked only hits 545w.

700 is a minimum for that set up. Again it's subjective. Add or minus parts and things scale upwards.

I would agree entirely if you had an old psu and put newer parts. My new system which is with a Titan destroys the one above is only running 1000w psu and that peaks at 792w .

I've never had any of the symptoms you've described. Must be lucky I guess

Valid points none the less