cpu with integrated graphics, future proof, which one

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i might be building a computer for a client

right now he has an aging amd opteron 148

it must have integrated graphics which narrows it down to 3 series: SB pentium, SB/IB i3, and Llano. i would include trinity if it were out yet

i have a few gripes with Llano, first of which is the very narrow range of mobos that are not so feature rich for the micro ATX form factor in the particular range i am looking at ($50-$75). second, graphics performance is not an issue nor is a sell point for me which is were llano excels above intel. third, there is less future expansion for the FM1 boards, the best processor that can be bought is an A8-3870K, sure the price is good, but if more power was needed, there is no telling whether or not AMD will make another FM1 socket processor (havent researched it but they might). trinity is not out yet but it will use an FM2 socket and they are not on the market or i would definitely give it a fair chance

with intel socket 1155 you can go from celeron all the way up to i7 and most socket 1155 mobos are gen3 and have an excellent selection of ports and features for less than $75. in addition there is a much larger selection to choose from in the itx and m-atx form factors (i am going with m-atx). i used to give quite a bit of advice in the mobo section on toms, it was my specialty, processors however are not.

the only reason i would choose llano over IB/SB is if it can perform well in single core and multi-core applications better than the likes of pentium/i3. from what i have seen pentium performs on par with llano for gaming in tier 5(toms hierarchy charts) and i3 is tier 2. obviuosly this doesnt compare with real world non gaming performance for regular tasks, but it gives an idea of where things stand

all this being said, my contenders are G620, G850, A8-3870K, G2120, i3-2100 and i3-3220

which would offer the best performance and which is the most future proof or which would you recommend.

this computer needs to last (hopefully) for a good 8-10 years

it will be accompanied by a 120gb sandisk extreme ssd and 4 or 8gb of ram
 
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its more of a performance standpoint, llano cannot get any better than A8-3870K, and it never will, so one could not upgrade if they wanted to. simply by choosing socket 1155 you are guaranteed performance in the future via upgrades to i5 and i7 if need be. i know haswell will not be compatible
 
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im building it for someone else, thatll be there problem. personally i have an i5-2500k in my rig and i upgrade frequently
 

dingo07

Distinguished
There's no such thing as future proof in an anti-economy - welcome to planet Earth.

Saying that'll be there problem is exactly what's wrong with the world. You should give them the most up to date as if you were building it for yourself. Explain to them why they should use today's technology and not 2 years old stuff just to save a couple bucks. At minimum you should be using an i5-2500K
 

InvalidError

Titan
Moderator

Sandy Bridge is two years old technology and i5 is a waste of money if his customer is not interested in that much processing power.

Since his customer specifically asked for something with IGP, I would recommend either waiting for A10 on FM2 socket or i3-3225 which has HD4000 IGP.
 

diellur

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Apr 7, 2011
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I've got experience of using the Pentiums, i3s and i5s and would say for the purposes you describe that the i3 is best. It's nippy enough for day-to-day tasks and also has hyper-threading which could potentially help for the future. An SSD is a great move too as it'll make the system very snappy, hopefully mitigating a lot of the delay you get in a spindle-drive system as the OS install ages.

However, bear in mind that there's about a £60 difference between an i3 and an i5, which given the potential life of the PC may be money well spent...there is a perceptibel difference between the two classes.
 

djscribbles

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Apr 6, 2012
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+1 to InvalidError. What the heck does the client want to do other than have the computer last forever? You're asking for advice without giving any info for what is needed.

If it's just general computing tasks, it really likely doesn't matter at all. It's probably worth the extra to get ivy bridge, since the IGP is more powerful, and (IIRC) the IGP in Ivy can be leveraged in some programs to help speed up processing.

However, if the guy is using an ancient computer now, without doing much upgrading; whatever you put in there will likely keep him happy for a long time without upgrades. Gone are the days of avg users needing a new PC every 2 or 3 years.

I second the idea of adding an SSD to the build if you can. This will make more of a difference for an average user than any processor. If the person doesn't accumulate much data, a 120GB SSD with no HDD could be sufficient for quite a long time, and a new HDD could be added later.
 

InvalidError

Titan
Moderator

There is that too. If more programs start using OpenCL or other forms of GPGPU, HD4000 could become really handy.
 
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that's unwarranted, I have a success rate of 98% with my clients, if he had decided he needed more power in the future than he will have to upgrade or buy a new computer like every other person. from what you are implementing, you wouldn't want to be my client purely because a processor might not have sufficient power in the future

its like buying a prebuilt system from any other brand, once you buy it its yours. at least the components I use and select are of extreme quality unlike dell and other name brands, I wouldn't settle for anything less.
 
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he will be using it for internet, porn and Skype, if he strays from that he typically messes things up enough to have to call me