Intel G530 / G620 / G840 / G850?

[kdon27]

Prices: 49 / 71 / 82 / 90
I'm building my first rig, totally new to this and would really appreciate some help.

Purpose of the build is gaming (GTA IV and V, BF3, Assassins creed series, Batman Arkham City, LA Noire, CODMW3, Crysis 2, Just cause 1+2, Fallout3 and Fallout New vegas, Mass effect 2 and 3, COD Black ops).

Not looking for ultra settings (obviously) just medium-high with smooth fps (at least 30-40)

Planning to hook it up on an H61 motherboard, HD 6570 / 6770 / 6850 (haven't decided on CPU so i'm open to suggestions on the GPU) with 4GB DDR3 RAM.

My question is which would you choose based on the prices and the gaming needs..

Cheers,

 

[vizzion]

Of those I would go with the G840, it's at the best price/performance ration in my opinion.

 

[PreferLinux]

I would probably go with an i3, but if that is too expensive, the above suggestion is probably about right.

 

[kdon27]

actually i dont mind investing in an i5-2400 even, it's just that it's such a huge leap in price i was wondering, is it really worth an extra $125? Would it show a dramatic increase in frame rate? Also I should mention, i've Settled on the HD 6850 for gaming, because I'd like to run things at 1080p resolution.

 

[PreferLinux]

The i3 would have HT, so would have four threads rather than just two, which could be a reasonable advantage. But an i5 would have four real cores and turbo boost as well. I would probably go for the i3 2100 ($125 at Newegg) on a limited budget. There would probably not be a dramatic increase in framerate, but it would probably be somewhat better (dependent on the game). And also significantly better if you have something else running in the background, or do something else that is processor-intensive.

 

[rds1220]

actually i dont mind investing in an i5-2400 even, it's just that it's such a huge leap in price i was wondering, is it really worth an extra $125? Would it show a dramatic increase in frame rate? Also I should mention, i've Settled on the HD 6850 for gaming, because I'd like to run things at 1080p resolution.

It can make a difference yes. Those CPU's are dual core and most games today use 2 or 3 cores. So on games that are very CPU demanding you'll probably be maxing out a dual core. With a quad core you won't be maxing out the CPU as much and might give you better performance over a dual core.

 

[cbrunnem]

well if you get any dual core including the i3 crysis 2, bf3 and gta are out of the question. they will not have good frame rates especially gta.

to answer your question. yes the i5 is worth the extra 125 dollars. is it worth it in all games no but in two years 90% of games will use four cores the way games are progressing.

 

[PreferLinux]

well if you get any dual core including the i3 crysis 2, bf3 and gta are out of the question. they will not have good frame rates especially gta.

to answer your question. yes the i5 is worth the extra 125 dollars. is it worth it in all games no but in two years 90% of games will use four cores the way games are progressing.

Benchmarks, please? Even those will still use only two threads for most of the work. It is nearly impossible to get the majority of the work spread over more than just two threads, from what I've read, do I doubt it will be that soon.

 

[cbrunnem]

Benchmarks, please? Even those will still use only two threads for most of the work. It is nearly impossible to get the majority of the work spread over more than just two threads, from what I've read, do I doubt it will be that soon.

it seems that crysis 2 is one game that is ok with using hyperthreading (bf3 doesnt).
http://en.inpai.com.cn/doc/enshowcont.asp?id=7966&pageid=7865
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/crysis-2-directx-11-performance,2983-8.html (look at minimum fps)

gta 4 (if you want to argue this one.... first person ive seen try to) couldnt find anything new but gta four still needs a 4 core cpu.
http://www.pcgameshardware.com/?menu=browser&article_id=660322&image_id=897248

 

[PreferLinux]

it seems that crysis 2 is one game that is ok with using hyperthreading (bf3 doesnt).
http://en.inpai.com.cn/doc/enshowcont.asp?id=7966&pageid=7865
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/crysis-2-directx-11-performance,2983-8.html (look at minimum fps)

gta 4 (if you want to argue this one.... first person ive seen try to) couldnt find anything new but gta four still needs a 4 core cpu.
http://www.pcgameshardware.com/?menu=browser&article_id=660322&image_id=897248

Second link doesn't show the i3. Also, it isn't that HTT is specifically coded for, it is just used when there are more threads than cores. But that doesn't mean that it will necessarily improve performance over without it (it won't if the core is being maxed out by one thread, which I guess could be the case in BF3). The first link shows minimal difference (4 fps).

No, I won't argue over GTA4, I'm not really familiar with most games (just with the typical requirements), but I do realise that that is one that is a little unusual in its CPU needs.

Check out http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gaming-cpu-review-overclock,3106-5.html. Basically they lump the i3 in with the i5 760 – so it can't be that much different except in a few games.

 

[cbrunnem]

second link show how important more then 2 cores is. from my knowledge hyperthreading isnt code. its like eight cores in packs of two sharing resources. the second "core" in each pack is not a full core and thus doesnt offer as much performance. some games when utilizing hyperthreading dont need that much power from the 3rd and 4th cores so its fine but others need more then what ht can offer.

in the last couple of years a lot of games have moved to quad core optimized code and that is only going to become more prevalent.

quad core games as of two years ago
http://www.grandtheftpc.com/2010/03/list-of-quad-core-optimized-games.html

 

[PreferLinux]

Yes, and I note that three cores is much better than two, so if we approximate HTT to three cores rather than two (although it is probably more like two and a half), it is not that bad. Especially as we realise that the Phenom II is probably bottlenecking, especially as it is paired with a 570 only being run at 1280x1024 with highest detail. The i3 would match that processors four cores probably, if not exceed it.

From that link: "Note:It is important to note that these games offer a serious performance increase when upgrading to a quad core from a dual core,and not from a triple core." So HTT on a dual core, especially with more modern CPUs, would probably meet that criteria. But yes, that is two years ago. So more games will be coming out that like more cores, but I think it will take several years.

I agree, an i5 would definitely be better, but I don't think it would be necessarily worth the money. It could be depending on the games, or especially if the computer could possibly be busy with other things while gaming. Although looking at Anandtech Bench, with their fairly limited selection of games, it does make a big difference but most framerates are over 60 anyway.

 

[de5_Roy]

gta 4 requirements and info:
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/113964-13-requirements-info
games love quad cores.
6770 should be okay.

 

[deadjon]

I vote for the i3 2100 - what has been said above about Quads is true, but the architecture of Sandy Bridge is so damn good, the i3 performs as good as any of the AMD Quads. Even better in most cases.

 

[kdon27]

many thanks for the great answers.

my plan was to get the i3 for now and later upgrade to an i5 if it becomes necessary. i should have mentioned that i'm looking for this setup to last me just until the end of this year and then i'm planning to upgrade. Plus i'm on a super tight budget but my understnaidng is games require GPU more than CPU (with the exception of GTA 4 probably...)

any suggestions on that front? also, would it be better to just get the i5 now instead of waiting for the price to drop?

btw i'm in australia so unfortunately no newegg prices for me....

 

[de5_Roy]

your understanding is right. for gaming, gfx card takes priority over cpu. gta 4 is just one game. most games use gfx card more than they use the cpu. core i3 is a capable gaming cpu. so are the sandy bridge pentium 8xx.
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu/display/pentium-g850-g840-g620_4.html#sect0
http://www.legitreviews.com/article/1672/15/
waiting is fine... may be even get an ivb core i5 (you'll need to update your bios first) later.

 

[deadjon]

many thanks for the great answers.

my plan was to get the i3 for now and later upgrade to an i5 if it becomes necessary. i should have mentioned that i'm looking for this setup to last me just until the end of this year and then i'm planning to upgrade. Plus i'm on a super tight budget but my understnaidng is games require GPU more than CPU (with the exception of GTA 4 probably...)

any suggestions on that front? also, would it be better to just get the i5 now instead of waiting for the price to drop?

btw i'm in australia so unfortunately no newegg prices for me....

You'll be fine with the i3 for another year or so, use the saved dosh/wonga/bucks/quids/monies to grab a shinier graphics card.

 

[PreferLinux]

many thanks for the great answers.

my plan was to get the i3 for now and later upgrade to an i5 if it becomes necessary. i should have mentioned that i'm looking for this setup to last me just until the end of this year and then i'm planning to upgrade. Plus i'm on a super tight budget but my understnaidng is games require GPU more than CPU (with the exception of GTA 4 probably...)

any suggestions on that front? also, would it be better to just get the i5 now instead of waiting for the price to drop?

btw i'm in australia so unfortunately no newegg prices for me....

In NZ you'd be looking at $120 (Pentium) vs. $170 (i3) vs. $270 (i5). I would follow that route, especially as you would probably get an Ivy Bridge quad, which would be even better. I would say all games require more GPU than CPU, but some need it closer to balanced than others. I doubt the price will drop for the i5s, but by waiting a few months you'll get a better CPU. Also you should still be able to sell the i3 (at least, I would expect so).

 

[kdon27]

many thanks to all for the answers - i ended up going with the i5-2400 just because i knwo i can keep it and i dont want to be dissappointed with choppy frames in GTA iv and V

Cheers all!

 

[kdon27]

Best answer selected by kdon27.