I know that the status quo position is people forcing one to go the i5 2500k route and in the process needing to spend excessive expenditure to get a high end GPU and PSU to compliment it. In a gaming rig with the right components the i3 2100 will give you in excess of 40FPS in mainstream titles like Crysis 2 and Metro 2033. If Intel did not believe that the I3 could compete against quads they would have discontinued them a long time ago. Lessons of the past can be learnt from the Core2 Duo, schooling the Quads with relative ease.
Seriously? Then why haven't they discontinued the Pentium D, Celeron, and Atom processors since they CAN'T compete? It has nothing to do with competing with different lines of processors. It's about price points and capabilities of each line. i3 is great for beginning gamers, work environments with Office/Quickbooks and handling everyday operations at a favorable pace for a period of 3-4 years.
i5 will expand the everyday work environment computers use an extra year or two, give the hardcore gamer a more upgraded gaming experience with smoother framerates and offer a machine that will start to hand other programs such as CAD and CS5.
As to unnecessary expenses on upgrading the i3 2 years down the line, really is it that hard, buy a good P67 or Z68 motherboard and it is as simple as buying a 2500k or 2600k when it becomes dirt cheap. Benchmarkers and enthusiasts make out as if the 2500k or current motherboards will just fall off the edge of the cliff, there are many users here still using C2D and C2Q builds that are more that able to manage Crysis 2 on high details without going overboard in the man purse.
The point of purchasing it now is so you only spend the extra $100 now on the upgraded CPU instead of $300-$350 in the future on a new Mobo/CPU combo and also having downtime from a teardown and reinstall. As for buying them when they get dirt cheap, look at the Core 2s and Quads that have been out for 6 years now. Are they any cheaper than they were then? Sorry. Processors will never be dirt cheap unless they are dirt cheap.
Minimum requirements for many games today are Core 2, which is basically what the i3 is with some upgraded back-end architecture. Ever play a game with minimum requirements? It's not the most fun and you will be complaining all the way to the final kill cam screen about how that chopper blew up too much dust and lagged you.
I really do hope that AMD APU's get to a level to be regarded as legitimate competitors, when that happens we can forsake the need to put those petty heat generating, energy consumer monstrosities called GPU's into our systems.
Please, please, pleaaaaase...... Somebody shut this blabbering idiot up before I slit my wrists. That's like saying I hope that hybrids get to a competing level with a 3/4 ton pickup. It will never happen. There is a calling for onboard and one for discrete.
Lastly, don't listen to the guys talking about onboard handling gaming ok or that all you need is a cheaper CPU and throw in a better video card and you will be ok. Some games are CPU intensive, some want more RAM, but all want a better GPU.
A few years back I was playing Battlefield 2 and America's Army. At 2 Gigs of DDR2 AA was running great, but BF2 was bogging down until I went to 4 Gigs. At the same time BF2 was still running great on my AMD X2, but my AA framerate increased almost 90-95% when I opted for a Core 2 Duo while my BF2 increased a mere 10-15%.
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