Processors

[thepeopleschamp]

I have the A10-7800 R7 in a Lenovo 90BG003JUS. I am wanting to upgrade the CPU so that I can game and stream with ease. Since my CPU gets pegged when I do this, I want to start with upgrading the CPU. Are there any options for my current setup? Thanks in advance to all the help.

[seahawkshunt]

According to the owners manual for the Lenovo 90BG003JUS AMD version the A10-7800 R7 is the highest officially supported CPU/APU for that OEM motherboard (AMD A78 FCH chipset). It lists APU support for the A8-7600, A8-8650 and A10-7800, all with locked multipliers so no overclocking.

Unofficially and hypothetically the A78 chipset is AM2+. So the best APU/CPU you could upgrade to would be a A10-7890K or the Athlon X4 880K and IMHO they both only offer a modest improvement on your current PC configuration, only offering a small boost to both your CPU core and GPU core clock (Athlon CPU only as it has no integrated GPU). Even if you did upgrade to one of those there is no guarantee your PSU or power delivery (VRMs) on the motherboard would not fail or overheat as the TDP of both of these is higher than your current APU.

If you are looking to game and stream at the same time you might want to upgrade to a more current platform, one that uses DDR4 and offers more upgrade paths.

[neon]

Hi, it is possible to slightly upgrade the CPU, but improvement in gaming and streaming performance would mostly come from upgrading the video, which will likely also require an upgraded power supply.

First, the CPU options: A10-8750 should be compatible, but is only an extra 100 MHz. Other options are Athlon X4 860K. 870K, and 880K. These perform slightly better than the current processor, and use some more power. They also have no integrated video, and thus require a discreet video card. Any of the above 4 processors is a slight upgrade, but likely barely noticeable.

Next, graphics: the R7 in the A10-7800 offers 512 shader cores at 720 MHz, and uses system memory. Much more performance is obtained with a discrete graphics card. For example, RX580 offers 2304 stream processors at 1120 MHz, and uses 4-8 GB of dedicated video memory. Performance should be sufficient to stream.

Finally, the Lenovo 90BG003JUS tower has a 180W power supply, which is insufficient for a discrete graphics card, so upgrade to a quality 500W+ psu.