I3-2120 Gaming Question

[TheRandomWookie]

Hey everyone, I'm in the process of choosing parts for a budget gaming build and I've run into an issue. What processor to choose. I was thing of getting a z68 1155 motherboard and putting in a i3-2120 and a Radeon HD 6850. Is the i3-2120 a good choice for gaming? Would it be smarter to go for a 2100 instead? I know that the 2120 has HD 3000 graphics while the 2100 only has HD 2000, but because of the fact that I'm getting a discrete card it would matter. I was looking at the 2120 mainly because it's .2 GHz faster clock. Now I know that is like nothing, but isn't it worth the extra $3 since the i3 isn't overclockable. There is also the possibility of a Phenom ii X4. The reason I stayed away from this is because the i3 is more future proof. I was hoping to upgrade to an i5-2500k or i7-2700k later on. I heard that the AM3 platform is now dead and to upgrade would mean getting a new motherboard as well. Is the LGA1155 also dead now with the release of the LGA2011? What is the best option?

 

[TheRandomWookie]

Also, I heard that the i3-2100 outperformed the Phenom ii in many bechmarks. Do these really prove what it's worth in gaming even though most games don't take advantage of hyper threading?

 

[WR2]

Is the LGA1155 also dead now with the release of the LGA2011?

Many socket 1155 boards will have an upgrade path with the Ivy Bridge CPUs.

What monitor resolution will you be working with?

 

[Raidur]

Most games use 1-2 CPUs, and the multi-core ones use 3 almost always.

Games that do use more than 2 CPUs usually don't benefit much from it, and with the huge IPC advantage of the i3-2100 it tends to out-perform anything AMD. Even more with higher-end GPUs.

And if you have IvyBridge to look forward to then your upgrade path will dwarf AMD's path performance wise.

 

[Deleted member 217926]

I would get the 2120 because as you said the i3 is not overclockable and for a few more dollars it's worth it for the extra clockspeed.

The i3 does quite well in both gaming and in productivity. Here are some interesting articles showing just how well it does.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gaming-fx-pentium-apu-benchmark,3120.html

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/best-gaming-cpu-core-i3-2100-phenom-ii-x6-1075t,2859-9.html

 

[loneninja]

You can see here the I3 is better than anything AMD has for gaming.
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gaming-fx-pentium-apu-benchmark,3120.html

My opinion the 2120 is worth it over the 2100 for a mere $3 price difference, 200mhz isn't much but it is an improvment on performance.

AM3 is a dead socket, but the AM3 processors work in the new AM3+ motherboards, however as already seen in my above link the AM3+ FX processors aren't very good gamers. Currently there is only one new set of processors code named Piledriver on AMDs roadmap for socket AM3+, and they come to market late this year and will be their desktop processor through out 2013 too.

1155 already has stronger processors than AM3+, Ivy Bridge processors will be out in a few months although they aren't expected to be a huge performance boost, they are 22nm and are expected to be much more efficient and should overclock better.

 

[TheRandomWookie]

Many socket 1155 boards will have an upgrade path with the Ivy Bridge CPUs.

What monitor resolution will you be working with?

1920x1080

 

[Guest]

Hey everyone, I'm in the process of choosing parts for a budget gaming build and I've run into an issue. What processor to choose. I was thing of getting a z68 1155 motherboard and putting in a i3-2120 and a Radeon HD 6850. Is the i3-2120 a good choice for gaming? Would it be smarter to go for a 2100 instead? I know that the 2120 has HD 3000 graphics while the 2100 only has HD 2000, but because of the fact that I'm getting a discrete card it would matter. I was looking at the 2120 mainly because it's .2 GHz faster clock. Now I know that is like nothing, but isn't it worth the extra $3 since the i3 isn't overclockable. There is also the possibility of a Phenom ii X4. The reason I stayed away from this is because the i3 is more future proof. I was hoping to upgrade to an i5-2500k or i7-2700k later on. I heard that the AM3 platform is now dead and to upgrade would mean getting a new motherboard as well. Is the LGA1155 also dead now with the release of the LGA2011? What is the best option?

two little quick notes.

the 2120 has HD 2000, its the i3s that end in 5 that have 3000 (i3 2125)
and actually you can *slightly* overclock the Bclock to 104 on the 2120s ATM i cannot find the article i read that in. fyi, my asus board has "gpu boost" which just raises the Bclock to 103 its at 3.4Mhz. (yeah yipee!)

 

[jaguarskx]

Socket 1155 has one more year of production life.

Ivy Bridge will be the 3rd gen Core i3/i5/i7 CPU. Expected limited release in April with world wide release in June. I don't expect much CPU improvement over Sandy Bridge when comparing CPUs with the same clock speed.

Intel will cease production of Ivy Bridge next year when they release Haswell (socket 1150). Intel may still produce some socket 1155 CPUs but that would be for their lower end Pentium value oriented CPUs.

 

[Guest]

Socket 1155 has one more year of production life.

Ivy Bridge will be the 3rd gen Core i3/i5/i7 CPU. Expected limited release in April with world wide release in June. I don't expect much CPU improvement over Sandy Bridge when comparing CPUs with the same clock speed.

Intel will cease production of Ivy Bridge next year when they release Haswell (socket 1150). Intel may still produce some socket 1155 CPUs but that would be for their lower end Pentium value oriented CPUs.

will Haswell support ddr 4?

 

[Guest]

will Haswell support ddr 4?

Native support for Dual Channel DDR3
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haswell_(microarchitecture)

 

[jaguarskx]

Yes, I believe so. One of the things that may make Haswell an expensive build will be the relatively high price of DDR4 RAM unless production ramps up and DDR4 becomes widely available by the time Haswell is released.

EDIT:

Actually, I think DDR4 support is expected for Skylake which is probably coming out in 2015.

 

[amuffin]

i3-2100 or 2120
asrock z68 extreme 3 gen 3.

 

[Guest]

Yes, I believe so. One of the things that may make Haswell an expensive build will be the relatively high price of DDR4 RAM unless production ramps up and DDR4 becomes widely available by the time Haswell is released.

EDIT:

Actually, I think DDR4 support is expected for Skylake which is probably coming out in 2015.

Guess I'll stick with sandy bridge for another three years.

 

[sarinaide]

If you don't run a Z68 platform and not going to use LucidLogix then anything more than the 2100 is a pointless waste of money.