Gaming on integrated graphics - my Radeon HD 4250 experience

Two years ago, i built my own system with a quad-core AMD Athlon II X4 645, a motherboard based on the AMD 880G Chipset, 4 GB of RAM, a 500 GB HDD and an Nvidia 8800 GTS 320 MB graphics card.

The card was somewhat old for the system, as it was second hand (gift from a relative). So, after some months playing top and demanding games like Elder Scrolls V:Skyrim and Racedriver:GRID the card died. Well, i remember being in front of a black screen and after restarting there were artifacts everywhere. Then, there was no signal from the card to the monitor and much the same situation appeared when i connected the card to my other system.
Searching online, i found guides suggesting putting the card in the oven (!!!), a solution i never tried. Nevertheless, to my surprise, baking the graphics card seemed to work for many (brave) users.
But, let's get to the point of this article. After the card died on me, i immediately decided to turn to the integrated graphics and give it a shot with some games. My system has an integrated Radeon HD 4250, which i thought would be capable of some light gaming. I've never been so wrong. Just kidding. Of course, i never tried to even start Skyrim but i managed to play GRID in low settings. The integrated graphics didn't struggle with Full Hd video playback and old and not demanding games like Grand Theft Auto: Vice City and Pro Evolution Soccer. Nowadays, i play a lot of League Of Legends and i get 9-23 fps in-game. Well, this is obviously a very low number but i find the game running smoothly so it doesn't bother me.
To sum up, i'm really pleased by the performance of the Radeon HD 4250. It's a reasonable solution till i get a new GPU.

Thank you for reading, comment below and have fun.

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Cheap gaming pc build guide

Let's cut to the chase. You want to build a gaming rig without spending too much euros (dollars, etc.). After an extensive research i've done the last few hours i concluded that the AMD platform is the way to go (and not because i am an AMD fanboy).
We'll use an AMD A-series APU ( Accelerated Processing Unit ) combining a quad-core CPU and AMD Radeon Graphics on a single chip; thus we'll have reasonable peformance and low power consumption.
For the motherboard we choose one with Socket FM1. AMD A55 chipset offers good performance/price.
As we put an APU in our low budget system there is no need for a standalone graphics card.
Putting 4 gigabytes of RAM in our system should be more than enough for everyday use and some quality gaming.
A 500 GB Hard Disk Drive will accommodate all of our files (games, music, movies, etc.) and leave us enough space.
It's critical that we use 400 - 500 Watts of power coming from a brand name psu, so that our system is stable.

Hardware|Model|Price(Amazon Price)

CPU: AMD A6-3670K (2.7 GHz) ~ 60 € ( $76.55 )

Motherboard:  MSI A55M-P33 ~ 50 € ( $47.99 )

RAM: Kingston 4GB 1600MHz DDR3 Non-ECC CL9 DIMM HyperX Blu ~ 30 € ( $36.67 )

HDD: Western Digital Caviar Blue 500GB SATA ( WD5000AAKX ) ~ 53 € ( $54.50 )

PSU: Corsair Builder Series CX430 80Plus Bronze ~ 46 € ( $39.99 )

Drive: Sony AD-7280S ~ 21 € ( $27.87 )

Case: Antec VSK-3000E ~ 34 € ( $29.95 )

Total Cost: 294 € ( $313,52 )

Summing up, with a total cost that not exceeds 300 € we have successfully built a quad-core  system that can handle most today's games at mid-high settings in hd resolution.

Good luck with your setup, comment below and have fun.

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I am an AMD's fun but Intel is the real thing

I won't conceal the truth. I am a supporter of AMD.
I think that happened because when i bought my first pc about 3 years ago AMD was thought to offer better gaming processors. So, as i was interested in gaming i bought the AMD Athlon 64 Dual Core Processor 3800+. Also, i know that most people have Intel processors so as i wanted to have something powerful and younique as well i chose this processor.
And i was right about it as it never let me down.
I think it was the best processor i could get at that time considering its price as well.
Of course at that time Intel had still the best processors but you had to pay a staggering amount of money.

At this time people continue to support Intel more than AMD.
It's true. If i had to buy a processor now i would buy an Intel.
Especially the new architecture of 45nm and the i7 processors are worth their price and they are really really powerful. As i don't want to buy expensive systems i would choose the i7 920 processor that has a very logic price.
Nevertheless i think that AMD still tries to reach Intel and with its Phenom processors it might make the difference.
So, i hope the best for AMD but i am going to buy an Intel processor if something doesn't change dramatically.

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