pheasant16 said:
Streaming software sent an email last week stating many channels won't
work with the last version of IE that XP supports.
Guess it's time to update.
Surfing the net, reading email, and streaming video is about all it
would need to do.
Current system has XP, and an AMD cpu with a passmark score of about
3000. (rana tri core)
Looks like AMD motherboards have gone the way of dedicated video cards,
or the A series cpu/gpu. My current one runs fairly hot, and reading
reviews sounds like AMD still does.
Would like a system that would run cool enough to use the stock cpu
cooler and maybe one case fan. Have a copy of Win 7 Home Premium that is
still available, so would like to use that for the OS.
Would like a motherboard that doesn't need immediate flashing to run a
current cpu. Looking at Newegg reviews steered me away from an AMD A10
with Asus mb combo due to flashing issues.
Too many choices for me.
Ideas appreciated.
Thanks
AMD makes a bit of "unobtainium". There are a couple 45W processors
with built-in APU.
http://www.cpu-world.com/CPUs/Bulldozer/AMD-A10-Series A10-6700T.html
That one is priced at $236 on Amazon (overpriced), and who knows how
reliable the supplier is. A CPU-World article claims it was only
available in Japan. This sort of thing means AMD thinks the yield
will be too low for a North American launch. Some of those will
be scooped up to build OEM HTPCs.
The shader count is 384 (a quantity important to gamers).
Speed 2.5, Turbo up to 3.5, Quad core, 45W.
The next one down, is this one.
http://www.cpu-world.com/CPUs/Bulldozer/AMD-A8-Series A8-6500T.html
That one is priced at $108 on Tigerdirect.
The graphics core count is 256 (a quantity important to gamers).
Speed 2.1, Turbo up to 3.1, Quad core, 45W.
(Runs 2.1GHz on all four cores, runs 3.1Ghz if only one core is busy)
Passmarks (
http://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu_list.php)
AMD A8-6500T APU 3517
The A10-6700T is not listed in the table, but would
perhaps be 2.5/2.1 faster or 20% faster.
*******
A8-6500T for $106
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=8682145&CatId=1946
A10-6700T from Japan (see some for $217)
http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/B00ENT56EE/ref=dp_olp_new?ie=UTF8&condition=new
If there is that much of a gouge, I'd just take the 6500T.
Socket FM2.
If there is a video decoder in the chip, chances are it is
not proportional to "shaders", but does depend on GPU
core clock. And both those processors use the same
GPU core clock.
*******
Support for A8-6500T
http://support.asus.com/CPUSupport/List2.aspx?SLanguage=en
Take A88X-PRO from that list, and see what processors
it supports, and how many BIOS versions there are.
http://support.asus.com/Cpusupport/List.aspx?SLanguage=en&m=A88X-PRO
The 6500T uses 0303 BIOS, which is the first shipped BIOS
by the looks of the list. So that one should work
out of the box. This board is full-sized ATX.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813132056
A88X-PRO
"Can flash the CMOS/BIOS without powering on the motherboard."
So that sounds like it has the "flash from a USB stick" feature.
In any case, you can probably find an A88 board from
another company for less. Just check their CPU Support chart.
Not even Wikipedia has good information on the A88X chipset.
It would be the follow-on to the A85X which had USB3 built-in.
According to this, it has eight SATA ports, and Asus put two
of those on the back panel as ESATA. That board has two
PCI slots, for your legacy cards. The chipset does a good
deal of the work, which means fewer chips for Asus to add to
finish the job. (Normally, to get eight total SATA, you'd
need six on the chipset, plus two SATA on a separate chip.)
http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/article/ASUS-A88X-PRO-Motherboard/1828
Paul
