AMD A8 5600K crossfire card research

Finally deciding on a HD 7770 1GB GDDR5. It might not fully function, but perhaps it'll last a little longer, and with games which don't support crossfire I can use on its' own.
 Found it here for £65


Motherboard Biostar HiFi A75S3
1 x 16xPCIe 2.0 (you can plug 3.0 cards in though)

This forum advises a HD 6570, but I can do better!

Heres a youtube of a 7750

Here's a comparison of different cards 

looks like the HD 7850 might be the better bet now. Less power consumption (I have a bad PSU).


Not sure now if my motherboard can do crossfire?

Also, PSU only has 1 x spare 4 pin, no 6 pin!! It's OK because you can convert 2 x 4 pin to 1 x 6 pin.

HD 7850 2GB GDDR5 it is then. For around £80 second hand.

Building a budget gaming machine Jan 2013 for less then £250

So, what with all the Christmas money (about £250), thought it best spent on a nice gaming machine. Where to start? Research:

• AMD or Intel?
• AMD is the cheap option, Intel the expensive. So, as it's a budget PC then AMD is first choice. If I had more money I'd go Intel.
• AMD just released FM2 socket A series, with APU (on chip graphics). After reading a few reviews this seemed the obvious choice.
• Go with cheap A4 chip or expensive A8 chip?
• basically I could buy a cheap A4 chip with good motherboard and good RAM or
• expensive A8 chip with cheap motherboard and cheap RAM
• I choose expensive chip. The only real benifit of an expensive motherboard is an extra 2 slots for RAM. But I think I'll only need a max of 32GB RAM for the near future.
• Chipset - A75 or A85X?
• I think the A85X is newer, but I like the fact that the A75 is cheaper and also has USB 3 native controller to make it more future proof
• both have SATA III support for fast SSD action
• graphics card or APU?
• after reading this nice review from Anandtech I wanted to go for the higher priced A8 chip, and when I get more cash, get a graphics card which uses crossfire.
• SSD or HDD?
• HDD are cheap and BIG! £40 for 1TB!
• I can't believe the price of an SSD (about £40 for 64GB). I can always plug an external one in for more storage, which isn't a priority. I want SPEED!
• Also SATA III is a must!
• 2 sticks of 4GB RAM, or 1 stick of 8GB?
• reading up on it, because the new motherboards support "Dual Channel" RAM thought it best to get two. Apparently works out at 1/3 quicker.
• Windows 7 or Windows 8?
• Windows 8 is the future. Also reviews say it's a little quicker.

So after scouting about in ebuyer.com I found:

£20 - Micro ATX case with 500W PSU

£75 - AMD A8 5600K 3.6GHz Socket FM2 Processor

£40 - Biostar HiFi A75S3 Socket FM2 motherboard

£40 - SanDisk 64GB Pulse SSD SATA III

£35 - 2 x 4GB DDR3 1866MHz RAM

£12 - Liteon DVD RW Drive SATA

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£222 - total!!!

So, when I get more money I can always:

1. Buy AMD 6670 graphics card
1. cheapest at the moment is £52
2. replace 8GB (2 x 4GB) with 32GB (2 x 16GB)
1. cheapest at the moment is £185!
3. Buy an AMD A10 5800K processor
1. currently £94

And these will be cheaper in the future.

I predict without the upgrades it'll last me 2 to 3 years (£220 / 3 = £73 per year), with the upgrades it'll last up to 5 years (hard to say what things will cost in 3 years time).

Just putting it together at the moment, will send some pictures and do some benchmark testing for games!

If anyone has any other recommendations, or perhaps what I should have done with the £250 then comment below.