Gaming AND Video editing: AMD Phenom II 960T vs i3 2120

well the 960t will be a lot faster in video editing.

I thought so because of the higher number of cores. Hmmm. Now to decide  

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/80?vs=289

the 960t should be about the same performance as the 940, just ignore all the sysmark stuff.

If you are into OC, it can be done with the 960t rather easily.

Huh, pretty interesting, the i3 does better in some areas that I would expect a quad to do much better in. Thanks for the link  

Honestly, this is probably a pick-em for you that depends on 2 things:

1) Are you willing to OC the phenom?
2) Do you care about having an upgrade path on your CPU?

If you aren't willing to OC the phenom, I'd say get the i3 easily.

Also, if you care much about having a drop-in upgrade path, then definitely get the i3.

If you don't care much about an upgrade path, however, and are willing to buy an aftermarket heatsink & overclock, I'd say get the 960T.

if he buy a aftermarket heatsink with the 960t than why doesnt he just buy a i5-2400

the 960 is still cheaper and has a good chance to unlock but yea the i5 is an amazing cpu if he can buy it.

^ +1 yeah, I think I'll go for the i3. Sounds like the best option for my budget.

It is back to a question of cores, sure the 960T has more but the time it takes to grind its way through the work in comparison to the i3 will mean the game is not that great. The 960T can overclock, which I advise you against doing but is a nice enthusiast feature. Then you get the "unlock 2 cores" myth, there was a reason it was sold as a 960T and not a X6.

Myth? Mine unlocked and I'm reasonably sure its now a 6 core not a figment of my imagination.

My unlocked fine.

+1 my 960T unlocked just fine... there seems to be about a 50% success rate on it, which puts it far from the realm of myth.

Also, there is no reason to advise against overclocking an unlocked CPU at all. There might be reason to advise against pushing a high overclock on an unlocked CPU for someone who doesn't know what they're doing, but there is never a reason not to bump it up at least a bit.

My phenom ii x3 720 unlocked fine, and even overclocked to 3.5. Never had a glitch, hangup, or problem. 24+ hour prime stable. From what i understand, some are locked down to meet demand or get rid of stock, some just have a core or 2 that need a bit more voltage but otherwise are 100% fine. There are one's with bad cores that won't unlock at all, but the odd's are in your favor and it's a bonus if you get it, not a guarantee.

just newegged
amd phenom 124.99
highest rated fan on newegg (cooler master hyper 212 plus) 29.99
best rating thermal paste 12.98
total 169.99
intel i5 2300
179.99
the i5 would make more sense to buy cause of future upgrades

you don't need the thermal paste...

The mobo + i5 is generally $30-40 more than the phenom + mobo + fan for a comparable featured motherboard.

If you can get an i5 quad you will be pretty happy with it's performance but a phenom 2 x4/6 is a better choice over an i3 dual core. Why would I say that is for mainly two reasons, one is total performance for the whole cpu is noticeably greater than what the i3 can achieve on stock let alone the almost nonexistent overclocking. Overclocking and unlocking is in favor of AMD but in situations when it is performance per thread per clock per watt it is Intel hands down. An i3 will only manage around 20-30Gflop while a p2 x4 can reach over 50Gflop when overclocked. A little over 70Gflop for a overclocked p2 x6. I don't remember for the total number for BD though but an i5 on up easily passes this all by with plenty to spare.

Best answer selected by termhn.