Core i3 530 vs Athlon II x4 640?

What do you want to use your PC for?

Mostly as a server/downloader, but i would also like to have the option to play moview and run games on 1680x1050 resolution as smooth as possible.

With what video card? And what games? We can't decide unless you tell us those.

In general, the i3 has much better per core performance and the Athlon obviously has double the cores. So which one you choose will depend on your needs.

For your uses though, you might not even need to look past an Athlon IIx2 or x3. The x3 is a great budget gaming CPU. I'd recommend it if the video card isn't more powerful than, say, a radeon 5770/GTX260 maybe even for a GTX460/6850.

which games is also important because certain games, like FSX, Dragon age or a bunch of RTS games make better use of more cores while older (up to maybe 2008-2009 and some 2010) FPS games make better use of more powerful cores with a lower core count. The video card is also important because for all we know, the setup could be GPU limited and your choice of CPU could make no difference.

As for movies, pretty much anything can handle 1080p movies these days.

With no video card. Adding such card will result in more heat being generated, as well as noise and added energy consumption, and i want none of those.

I'm Just talking about the integrated on-board graphics. Intel Graphics thought lack more in performance compared to the AMD chipsets.

An 880 AM3 mobo comes with HD4250 which offers DXVA for videos, and as far as i'm conserned can play lots of games at 1680x1050. I can even play Crysis with full filters at the res with my outdated HD3870.

Also i3 graphics was inferior even when compared with an 780 AMD chip.

I see. Well, with the integrated or with any dedicated card that meets your needs, you will be so GPU limited that your choice of CPU will not affect gaming in the least.

I've gamed with my onboard (3200) before I got a desktop and with my 3870 before I got a 4850.

Any integrated will be way underpowered for any gaming. The 3870 is not a bad card. It is about the same as the 4670. But the integrated will not be able to play crysis at all, even if you lower all the settings. I was able to play mass effect with minimum settings at a choppy framerate but the best you can expect to comfortably play is MW1 at 30FPS on absolute minimum settings. The best you can get to 60FPS would be cod2 on minimum also.

An alternative that could allow you to play some more modern games is a radeon 5670. I believe they make some low profile versions if that is your setup. Fastest card that can run off the PCI-e bus alone without additional power.

If that is too much for you, you might consider the even lower powered fanless passively cooled options. Here's a passively cooled 5570. I didn't link the passive 5750 I found because that still involves a lot of heat and power consumption.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

Anyway, go ahead and build it without a dedicated card and see how you like it. If you don't mind how it is, then that's great. But if you feel you want to game better without much more power and heat and without any additional noise at all, consider the above. With either card I mentioned, there will still be no difference in gaming because of your CPU choice.

Thank you for this carefully thought answer. I guess running the integrated graphics would be considerable, but on second thought you're right, it just wont perform well, on modern gaming.

I like your suggestions about passive cooling and the various makes that dont require power from the psu, but their capabilities, besides updated dx are not that greater compared to the 3870 that i already own. Except of course that the 3870 does need power from psu, and that's a drawback.

Another question i thought of, might be this. Is there any way to toggle added GPU on and off? Meaning that i get to use onboard graphics on days when i'm not playing, and gpu is inserted by disabled. Meaning no noise/heat/energy. And on occasions where i'd like to run some game to power it back on. That is of course while it remains on slot al this time, and i wont have to remove it, and reinsert it physically all the time.

Your turn  
I'm more familiar with the AMD models. Nothing against Nvidia though, they have some good passive options too.

Not that I know of in desktops. Do note that when not gaming, most cards will throttle and have a lower idle consumption.

Since integrated graphics is no longer an option im back at deciding which way to go. I was favoring AMD mostly due to the graphics head start. As i said i respect multitasking, i'm relentlessly abusing lots of apps and firefox till the point of no return, but i dont think multitasking gives any advantage to gaming, or does it? I hear that more and more games are optimized for multi-cores but is it just hearsay?

If i do go the AMD/ATI way, what's the best card i can get, even if it requires power straight from the PSU, (cause i'm from Europe and i cant get access to that HIS passive cooling card you just posted). with minimum power consumptio and noise? Is it true that low-level 5xxx cards idle at <20w?

I've seen that there are HD 5670's that are passively cooled.
A friend of mine has a fanless one from sapphire and they run most of the games at 1680X1050 (not crysis though)

No i'm not completely dismissing nvidia, as i said in my previous post i'm still back to intel vs AMD. Of course that means if do decide intel then its nvidia time, but AMD is a definite pair with ATI.

If you have a serious nvidia proposition then do share it please, and maybe you could convince me to stick with the intel solution altogether.