APU myth, i need to know the truth based on your experiences.....

[Sempron Guy]

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actually durability is my concern. given that heat + electonics dont really mix well.

i also doubt if its just a campaign, as they were selling those amd bundles like pancakes, kada adto nako, nag assemble gyud na og AMD bundle.

now with regards to haswell heating, i dont think it can be blamed sa graphics. ako 4770 mu abot 100-102 deg at full blown rendering in first 10min. labi na kung prolonged but hasnt throttled . i have a 550ti gpu so the onboard gpu wasnt being used.

mura mag imo pangita is confirmation and you're leaning towards it being true

[MarXX]

im slowly leaning towards it being true that it heats up. but not to the extent that it restarts.... im also studying if the heat can be controlled via active cooling.

im also studying the overall price of parts, amd may have cheaper boards but their cpu isnt exactly that much cheaper if compared to Intel. but its okay because i can save a GPU. however AMD performs better with higher end RAM, which costs higher.
an A8 is about same price as i3.
but the board is cheaper for AMD
and memory is also more expensive for AMD as the APU takes advantage of higher speed ram.

reason for this is i want my HTPC to be gaming capable (via gamepad lang)

ill spell out my options:
1) HTPC with q8300 + 4GB 1333 ram + Gt430 (existing)
2) APU system + GB ram
3) G3258 system + GPU

nothing really wrong with my current setup as an HTPC except the power draw. i just cant game with it with the gt430. with the APU i think i can game with it, straight out of the box.

as of right now, im leaning towards an apu system IF i can solve the vrm heat, kana ra gyud ako problema. im just not comfortable with all that heat. heat means power loss through resistance, meaning it is also power inefficient. However, i think the APU will draw less than an Intel CPU +GPU.....

[Sempron Guy]

im slowly leaning towards it being true that it heats up. but not to the extent that it restarts.... im also studying if the heat can be controlled via active cooling.

im also studying the overall price of parts, amd may have cheaper boards but their cpu isnt exactly that much cheaper if compared to Intel. but its okay because i can save a GPU. however AMD performs better with higher end RAM, which costs higher.
an A8 is about same price as i3.
but the board is cheaper for AMD
and memory is also more expensive for AMD as the APU takes advantage of higher speed ram.

reason for this is i want my HTPC to be gaming capable (via gamepad lang)

ill spell out my options:
1) HTPC with q8300 + 4GB 1333 ram + Gt430 (existing)
2) APU system + GB ram
3) G3258 system + GPU

nothing really wrong with my current setup as an HTPC except the power draw. i just cant game with it with the gt430. with the APU i think i can game with it, straight out of the box.

as of right now, im leaning towards an apu system IF i can solve the vrm heat, kana ra gyud ako problema. im just not comfortable with all that heat. heat means power loss through resistance, meaning it is also power inefficient. However, i think the APU will draw less than an Intel CPU +GPU.....

again, what vrm heat are you talking about? First nangutana ka if ga exist ba na nga issue. Three users including me gave sentiments that it is not true based on experience. And now you are talking like that imaginary issue does exist. What is to solve when it doesn't exist in the first place?

[lloyd_joy]

@ bro MarXX,

ayaw na duha2x's plano nimo na mag APU... go go go... mas nice kun mag Kaveri based APU ka... ayaw na lingi anang Richland based... forget about that VRM thingy... that is trivial...

[MarXX]

well to start, no one really said that the heat doesnt exist, only that it did not bother their system meaning that the motherboard can tolerate the heat.
you even said
"mu unit ang VRM but not to the extent nga mapalong ang system."

so the heat is present but not necessarily a problem for the motherboard. i am just personally not comfortable with it because of my slim case loaded with 3HDD's (and no i cannot change case because of limited space). my case exhausts the hot air THROUGH these HDD's. in short i dont want this hot air to cook my hdd's. i like my equipment to last a long time, thats just how i do things, and if i should decommision any of my equipment i want it to be on my terms and not because i was careless.

The most maintenance i do on my pc's is i blow dust off them once or twice a year. thats it. i just want it done once and done right.

this is a shot of my insides
before the gt430 was installed



what you do not see on the picture is the 120mm fan on the sidepanel directly on top of the cpu cooler that is my main intake.
the top 80mm is exhaust
to the right of that 80mm fan is a laptop HDD velcroed to the ceiling
the bottom has a 60mm intake to provide fresh air for the GPU.
all the excess hot air is exhausted throught the HDD's toward the right side panel.

[lloyd_joy]

^ bro,

your concern are known by the designers themselves. kun problema na, wla na gi release... trust me, i'm the in the semiconductor industry... and in QA including Reliability and Failure Analysis (FA)...

kun problema na sya, mag uwan ang Customer, complaint, materials return and penalty nila... all components can even work on 100 Deg C (boiling point of water)... ang HTOL ana ug ang HTSL, naa sa 150 Deg C or more for highly accelerated stress testing...

wala gani nag reklamo ang mga owners themselves... tabla ra manang comment sa AMD CPU na mo init... ug ngano, ang intel dili pud diay mo init... paets... hehehe...

[Sempron Guy]

fair enough, here's my apu ITX set-up



if you can see, although i got a 120mm fan at the front the entirety of my board is blocked by my ram's tall heatsink so no direct air. The only thing that is cooling the mobo's other component particularly the vrm is exhaust air coming from my stock cpu hsf. I have overclocked the cpu for a while, and game on it using the onboard gpu for year. No issues, no restarts whatsover. Now I get your concern, but you may be over exaggerating a bit. APUs aren't hot as you think. I'd worry more sa VRM if you own an FX cpu and pair it with a crappy mobo. But APUs aren't that demanding sa VRM cause of the way it balances the load and it's thermals. It does a pretty good job balancing it to keep within it's tdp. And yup everything that sir Lloyd said.

[wylliexhan]

I agree with you boss lloyd, everything is undergo with a process. And if VRM can't handle that kind of "too much" heat daghan nata og complaints and returns of products. as far as I know, dli na sya ma release ang motherboard sa market if dli na mo agi og testing, each part is tested, I even explain it to him that based on other websites VRM's of some other mobos has an idle temp of 45c and a load temp reaching 60-70c, and it's normal. that's how it works!

[MarXX]

fair enough, here's my apu ITX set-up



if you can see, although i got a 120mm fan at the front the entirety of my board is blocked by my ram's tall heatsink so no direct air. The only thing that is cooling the mobo's other component particularly the vrm is exhaust air coming from my stock cpu hsf. I have overclocked the cpu for a while, and game on it using the onboard gpu for year. No issues, no restarts whatsover. Now I get your concern, but you may be over exaggerating a bit. APUs aren't hot as you think. I'd worry more sa VRM if you own an FX cpu and pair it with a crappy mobo. But APUs aren't that demanding sa VRM cause of the way it balances the load and it's thermals. It does a pretty good job balancing it to keep within it's tdp. And yup everything that sir Lloyd said.

i see.
your only intake is that 120mm fan providing fresh air to the intake portion of your cpu fan. going through all those cables. and your system still observes normal temperatures. if your case can do it, i think my case can actually do better seeing that there is no obstruction on my case.
which apu u using?

[Terminatorn]

No problems here on my end so far. AMD APU A10-7850K + G.SKILL Trident X 8GB(2x4GB) 2400mhz.