CPU for Gaming

[Casper505]

Im Getting a I3 For Heavy Gaming

I Have a Intel Pentuim 4 now How Much Speed Difference Well i Get After Getting The I3 CPU?

 

[esrever]

depending on your gpu, the difference is going to be huge.

It will be faster in everything and you'd totally notice it.

you'd want a fast gpu if you want to game.

 

[pell380]

cpu+gpu=gaming

and i3 is good my friend have it and he has i3 530 with 9800gt 1gb and he plays game in very high settings

 

[Casper505]

i might get the gt 210 with the i3 cpu and i have 4 gigs of ram

 

[esrever]

get something better than the 210 if you can.

 

[deadjon]

i might get the gt 210 with the i3 cpu and i have 4 gigs of ram

The GT210 is a very low grade GPU - I reccomend at least a 6850/GTX460 1GB to pair with an i3 2100 - although it is probably capable of keeping up with a GTX580.

 

[truegenius]

lighting fast

 

[bumnut53]

Don't get a GT210, you will regret it and end up replacing it a week later. Get the best graphics card you can afford.

You will notice a huge difference from a P4 to i3, don't ruin it with a weak graphics card.

 

[truegenius]

and do no buy any 1st generation i3
go for second generation
go for i3-2100, with radeon hd 6790 or nvidia gtx550 graphics card with a motherboard having z68 chipset

 

[deadjon]

and do no buy any 1st generation i3
go for second generation
go for i3-2120k, with radeon hd 6790 or nvidia gtx550 graphics card with a mother having z68 chipset

Firstly, there is no such thing as a 2120k.

and Secondly the 550ti is a TERRIBLE card, a marketing scam. You're better off with a GTX 460 1GB or a Radeon 6850.

 

[de5_Roy]

core i3 is vastly better than a pentium 4.
pentium 4 660 3.6 ghz vs core i3 2100.
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/92?vs=289
you can open a thread in the new builds section if you need help with the gfx card, psu and the rest of the pc.
a gt 220 is a low end card.
for gaming at high settings at 1366x768 resoluton you'll need at least a radeon hd 5670/6670 to 5750/6750 1 gb gddr5.
@1440x900 - radeon hd 5770/6770-6790/6850.
psu - 500w with at least 30-40A on the +12v rail.

 

[HEXiT]

first... de5_roy your numbers are off. a 512mb card can handle any screen comfortably up to 1680/1050 if you want to use a 1080p_+ monitor then you will need a 1 gig card. this is just a rough rule of thumb. but you do base usable screen size on the amount of memory a card has rather than its gaming performance.
for instance a 88gt will play deus x invisable war at 30 fps on a 1080p monitor,low medium settings. but if you reduce the rez by just 1 level (1680/1050) the fps almost doubles so you can then increase the image quality slightly.
a 1 gig 98gt will play deus ex at the slightly higher settings but at 1080p and give very similar performance to the 88gt... i know this to be accurate as i sold my old 88gt to a m8 and he is playing deus ex IW ATM...
like i say its the amount of ram thats important when you consider screen size.
barring this slight error your card selection is pretty accurate. as far as gaming performance goes. as is your psu advice.

next deadjon... the i3-2120k is a real chip that intel has yet to release. it is an unlocked and overclockable i3-2100...
but your rite about the 550ti in 1 respect. its not a worthy buy as it really is only a cooler(as in cooling not looks cool) revision of the gts 450 with the same 192 coda cores as opposed to the gtx 460 which has over 300.
if your gaming on a budget then the gts 450 isnt a bad deal money wise(its cheaper than the 550ti and performs as well) it just has pretty limited performance. so choose the 1 that suites your wallet rather than your heart.

anderson 3gb of ram is pointless. it means dual channel mode will be disabled if the apps use more than 2 gig of ram causing an instant performance hit... even on a 32bit o.s its better to have a balanced 4 gig or ram than an unbalancing 3 gigs. on dual or quad channel builds you use a multiple of 2 on a tri channel you can use a multiple of 3 memorysticks to get the best performance..

 

[Headspin_69]

Im Getting a I3 For Heavy Gaming

I Have a Intel Pentuim 4 now How Much Speed Difference Well i Get After Getting The I3 CPU?

i3 is not a top CPU and dual cores cant play some games you are best off to just get a decent quad core and GPU if you want to play games.

 

[de5_Roy]

@HEXiT: great info, man. i understand why my numbers might be off... but i should clarify a few things. when OP mentioned p4 pc, i thought.. old p4 pcs used to have 1024x768 or 1280x1024 monitors, since OP is getting a core i3, chance of him upgrading his display could be high as well as his pc upgrade. or he could upgrade his display down the line. all these went into the 6670+ and the higher vram recommendation.
i read in another thread that core i3 2120k ws a rumor and intel never intended to release an unlocked core i3.. rumors are rumors though, i can't verify it. i did find a core i3 2120T cpu.
@anderson: dual channel 3 gb is theoretically possible with 1+1 gb + 2x 512 mb (most likely not ddr3)... but 4 gb is more plausible and far more practical with 2x 2gb ddr3 1333 for a core i3 cpu like 2100. another thing, 2 gb vram with gtx 460 is a waste imo. the 2 gb vram would be useful in scenarios like 2560x1600 gameplay or higher. the 460 prices seem quite high recently, the 2gb versions of those cards should be even more costly.
@headspin: sandy bridge core i3 or even older core i3s are pretty good gaming cpus capable of standing up to older gen cpus like ph ii x4 or core2duo or even newer fx 4100. the core i3's can handle pretty much all the current games with ease as long as a powerful gfx card is used.

 

[esrever]

the i3 is more than powerful enough for gaming.

also as others said, don't buy the 210 or the 550. try to get at least a 460 or 6850 if you are serious about playing current generation games.

 

[Headspin_69]

@HEXiT: great info, man. i understand why my numbers might be off... but i should clarify a few things. when OP mentioned p4 pc, i thought.. old p4 pcs used to have 1024x768 or 1280x1024 monitors, since OP is getting a core i3, chance of him upgrading his display could be high as well as his pc upgrade. or he could upgrade his display down the line. all these went into the 6670+ and the higher vram recommendation.
i read in another thread that core i3 2120k ws a rumor and intel never intended to release an unlocked core i3.. rumors are rumors though, i can't verify it. i did find a core i3 2120T cpu.
@anderson: dual channel 3 gb is theoretically possible with 1+1 gb + 2x 512 mb (most likely not ddr3)... but 4 gb is more plausible and far more practical with 2x 2gb ddr3 1333 for a core i3 cpu like 2100. another thing, 2 gb vram with gtx 460 is a waste imo. the 2 gb vram would be useful in scenarios like 2560x1600 gameplay or higher. the 460 prices seem quite high recently, the 2gb versions of those cards should be even more costly.
@headspin: sandy bridge core i3 or even older core i3s are pretty good gaming cpus capable of standing up to older gen cpus like ph ii x4 or core2duo or even newer fx 4100. the core i3's can handle pretty much all the current games with ease as long as a powerful gfx card is used.

The new games are all being optimized for more cores so that's why I say any decent quadcore CPU will be a better bet over the core i3 although it is based on newish tech and is a great little CPU it still does not make up for the fact that developers will be writing for more than 2 cores and i3 are is not going to cut it for 2012 and beyond no matter how powerful the chip is it is about efficiency and multiply core for today and tomorrow. PS when the new consoles get released dualcores will be obsolete for gaming applications.

 

[de5_Roy]

The new games are all being optimized for more cores so that's why I say any decent quadcore CPU will be a better bet over the core i3 although it is based on newish tech and is a great little CPU it still does not make up for the fact that developers will be writing for more than 2 cores and i3 are is not going to cut it for 2012 and beyond no matter how powerful the chip is it is about efficiency and multiply core for today and tomorrow. PS when the new consoles get released dualcores will be obsolete for gaming applications.

hmm.. tough call.... quad core cpus would be the way to go, with more games taking advantage of higher core cpus and dual cores slowly becoming minimum requirements... then the budget comes into play. without knowing OP's budget and requirements (other than heavy gaming with core i3) there isn't much to go on with.
all i can say is, as of january 2012, a sandy bridge core i3 is able to play most of the present games with decent fps. although even the current the dual core cpus should be outperformed by quad cores in rts, multiplayer and cpu bound games... for the rest of the year... well, i can't predict the future as well as you do, guess i'll have to wait and find out.

 

[Headspin_69]

hmm.. tough call.... quad core cpus would be the way to go, with more games taking advantage of higher core cpus and dual cores slowly becoming minimum requirements... then the budget comes into play. without knowing OP's budget and requirements (other than heavy gaming with core i3) there isn't much to go on with.
all i can say is, as of january 2012, a sandy bridge core i3 is able to play most of the present games with decent fps. although even the current the dual core cpus should be outperformed by quad cores in rts, multiplayer and cpu bound games... for the rest of the year... well, i can't predict the future as well as you do, guess i'll have to wait and find out.

For the most part a core i3 will perform just fine in most games for 2012 but the decent quad cores will just perform better but there will always be that one game that just plays like crap on a dualcore and the OP is going to RAGE because he doesn't have the extra cores to play that brand new game he just bought and was looking forward to playing. Core i3 would be better if it could be Overclocked to like 4.7ghz 5ghz like it's brethren i5/i7 but its locked which further promotes the fact that the OP would be far better off with something from AMD if his price range is limited to around $130 because for the same money AMD gets him 4 highly overclockable unlocked cores instead of 2 locked cores and cores count for today and even more so for tomorrow.

 

[esrever]

there also happens to be games that suck on amd quad cores. *cough* skyrim *cough*. the i3 does a lot better than even an extremely OC's ph IIx4 sometimes.

 

[Headspin_69]

there also happens to be games that suck on amd quad cores. *cough* skyrim *cough*. the i3 does a lot better than even an extremely OC's ph IIx4 sometimes.

According to Tom's Phenom II x4 @ 3.5ghz nets a min of 29fps and I concur with those findings for I own a Phenom II x4 and play Skyrim and the next best and best overall CPU for Skyrim is a Core i5 2500K and @ stock it nets a min framerate of 33fps in Skyrim somehow I fail to see how a dual core will get even close to a core i5 2500K. http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/skyrim-performance-benchmark,3074-9.html

 

[esrever]

according to the same article by tom's.

the i3 was still faster than any phenom 2s in skyrim.

also judging by the games that uses more than 2 threads, the i3 still does well compared to the phenoms.

 

[Headspin_69]

according to the same article by tom's.

the i3 was still faster than any phenom 2s in skyrim.

also judging by the games that uses more than 2 threads, the i3 still does well compared to the phenoms.

LOL if you will like to be that fickle according to the TOM'S Phenom II x4 OCed still gets a higher max framerate than core i3 LOL which is still pretty impressive for a Phenom II x4 having a lower per core performance as compared to core i3.

 

[HEXiT]

skyrim is a bad example. its actually very badly optimized and if it wasnt for the guys at the nexus it still would be... they are responsible for making it large address aware. and they optimized the cpu performance, so much so the makers have taken the optimizations and the LAA and incorporated them into there own patches.

im not kidding here. skyrim runs at ultra settings on my system with an average fps of over 60fps, every where. i havent ran a fraps session since i applied the tweaks so i cant tell you what the absolute minimum is... but i know its way higher than the 20 i was getting everytime a fast travel to either solitude or windhelm.

 

[Headspin_69]

skyrim is a bad example. its actually very badly optimized and if it wasnt for the guys at the nexus it still would be... they are responsible for making it large address aware. and they optimized the cpu performance, so much so the makers have taken the optimizations and the LAA and incorporated them into there own patches.

im not kidding here. skyrim runs at ultra settings on my system with an average fps of over 60fps, every where. i havent ran a fraps session since i applied the tweaks so i cant tell you what the absolute minimum is... but i know its way higher than the 20 i was getting everytime a fast travel to either solitude or windhelm.

I know what you are saying to be true because I am playing Skyrim on my Phenom II x4 955 @ 3.7ghz and I am getting better performance as compared to day one launch it was a mess performance optimization wise but now Skyrim is smooth even in towns etc.

 

[de5_Roy]

ah, skyrim... i noticed that while the phenom ii x4 had higher max fps...by 0.2 @ 3.5 ghz compared to the core i3, but the core i3 hit the 'somewhat-magical' minimum 30 fps mark (1 fps+ compared to ph ii x4). min. fps usually contribute to smoother gameplay. this is one of the cpu-bound scenarios i was talking about in my earlier post. the core i3 stands up to higher core counterparts quite well, at lower cost.
i find it kinda sad that ph ii has to be overclocked to outperform a lower clocked, locked core i3. because overclocking adds the cost of an aftermarket cpu cooler. it also drives psu requirements upwards as phenom ii is a 95w cpu (at stock) while core i3 is 65w. according to this psu calculator, the ph ii x4 955 b.e. uses 155w at 3.8 ghz with 1.38v vcore (theoretical calculation). i used 3.8 ghz so that the ph ii x4 uses the extra mhz to gain more minimum fps over the core i3.
another factor is upgradability. from what i hear, amd is gonna focus on socket fm2 in the future and likely isolate socket am3+. amd became quite silent about piledriver after bulldozer release.
according to rumors, intel offers an upgrade to ivy bridge. depending on motherboard manufacturer's bios upgradability, sandy bridge core i3 can be upgraded to (i.e. replaced by) an ivy bridge core i5.
edit: however, both core i3 and ph ii x4 should offer playable fps (depending on personal preference) on present games. if one hits a performance ceiling, lower the details and get more fps out of any game.