Hi guys,

My Notebook broke, and i need something to browse the webs and well, whatever one does with a PC. So i intended to buy some cheap piece of tech for as little as possible. But then i thought about playing XIV on the PC since the experience on PS3 is not as good as i hoped, and now i wonder if i could make a cheap rig with some amd apu to keep me afloat, and add a somewhat decent gpu later.

Sadly i suck at anything PC (didnt care for stuff like that for a long time now) so advice is appreciated. Are AMDs APUs even capable of playing games on low settings?

Yes, AMD APU's are capable of playing games on low settings.
Still, you could make the PC last you longer in terms of gaming if you were to step-up the budget to something beyond an APU.
I.E. An Intel Quad Core like the 4670, then pick up a cheap Radeon 7000 series that's on it's way out.

yeah after half a night of searching for what to buy and what not to buy, i stumbled across those 2 solutions (of which one is the method you precisely described) and i'd be happy for any opinion:

1.)

AMD a10 6800k (120-130€) / some FM2 Board, preferrably with "up to" 16 gig ram and HDMI (55-65€) / 8 gigs of 1600mhz ram (i guess its like 70ish €, memory sure has grown expensive since the last time i looked) / some Harddrive (50 bucks) / some 450watts power supply for 40ish bucks / aaaand later on a cheap 6670 for Crossfire X.

plus Case and optical drive, this would net to .. i dont know, around 400, 470ish with the dedicated Graphics card. looking at benchmarks, the results are not all that bad., however as you said Pemalite, i fear i'll bottleneck the shit out of the System.

so scenario 2 would be... (looks it up real quick...*humdidum..*.. uhh..) .. the 4670 would be +70ish bucks for the processor, but i am at a loss regarding the graphics card.. i dont really know, any idea what is comparable to a 6670 crossin with the a10? a 7770?  if so, the system goes from 450ish to 550 easilly.

if i got it right;

1.) Cheap, games are playable at decent settings for 450ish bucks. however, when upgrading, it is likely that not only the GPU needs replacement.

2,) costs 100 bucks more, but at least the next upgrade wont be as costly, since the i5 can be kept for its CPU component is vastly superior to the a10.

.. ermagerd, hopefully i am not talking complete trash, last time i built a rig it was with an AMD X2 and i was like oh my gosh dual core is da future!..x)

If you are dead set on an APU. Don't bother with any of the current iterations.

Firstly, don't settle for anything less than a Socket FM2+ motherboard if you intend to go the APU route.

Secondly, get the fastest Ram you can afford, skip DDR3 1333mhz completely and if you can, DDR 1600mhz too.
Go for DDR3 1866mhz or higher, APU's benefit big-time with faster Ram speeds, CPU's, not so much for gaming.

AMD's Kaveri will be launching on January the 14th, it brings with it a slew of improvements.
A big one being an update to the CPU by having the modules moved over from Piledriver to the Steamroller core and the other being an update to Graphics Core Next 1.1, putting it on feature parity with Bonaire and Hawaii (Radeon R9 290X)

Kaveri, in the high-end will have a GPU core equivalent to a Radeon 7750, CPU wise, expect roughly a 10-30% IPC improvement for the CPU.

With that in mind, if you get an FM2+ motherboard now combined with a Piledriver based APU, you can drop in Kaveri later.

I still think it's best off getting a socket 1150+Core i5 4670K, then all you have to do is upgrade the GPU every few years, people are still kicking with 6-7 year old Core 2 Quads for instance, you may save money in the long run because of it.

i thin i've made my decision now, going the i5 route, i am still undecided on wether i go buy a rig asap or wait after christmas to get one with a good GPU in it. i was deadset on APU's at first because they have something interesting about them, but in the end youre right, i could invest a little more now, and save a lot later on., given that, as you said, i may just need to replace the Graphics card from time to time. (or not exchange it at all for the next two years by investing a little more.)

if there will be like hardcore APU's that actually replace a midrange Gcard i might toy a little with them out of couriosity (given the fact that my brother - still going to school - really cant afford anything expensive, i might even set his rig up using an APU - should work for his minecraft needs, haha), but yeah, looking forward to finally build a pc again. :) ~

thank you so much for your help and advice Pemalite, you really made one noob's life a heck of a lot easier. :)

sorry for double posting, saw a PC that got me interested:
i5-4440
unspecified motherboard (with USB 3.0, HDMI - me wants hdmi)
Radeon 7850 2GB DDR5
8Gig Ram, unspecified
1TB SATAIII, unspecified
Win 8
500Watts powersupply

for €699..
http://www.quelle.de/hyrican-cougar-military-4148-gaming-pc-intel%C2%AE-core%E2%84%A2-i5-8192-mb-ddr3-ram-1000-gb-speicher/pref-298838-0@QuelleDe-Shop/artikel/quelle-de

is it any good? tried to piece together something to compare to this rig and didnt end up much cheaper. (would save 50-60 bucks, depending. but i like the thought of being able to have someone to blame.. leave alone that i can pay that pc in several smaller ammounts of munny. :p)

The case looks cheap and the Powersupply is downright horrible.
If you can, get a "K" version processor as it allows you to overclock.

I'd agree that buying a intel and separate gpu makes more sense than an apu.

A lot better long-term solution.

APUs are only good cheap solutions for gaming if you are going for the higher end APU laptops with RAM properly configured. Otherwise, meh.