I3 + 670 | good idea?

[deadbart]

will it bottleneck it or not? heres the rest of my build atm

i3 2120
Gigabyte GA-Z68AP-D3
Corsair CMZ8GX3M2A1600C9 8GB 1600MHz
OCZ OCZ-CXS500W
OcUK GeForce GTX 670 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card
Seagate Barracuda 7200RPM 1TB SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache
Antec 300 Three Hundred Ultimate Gaming Case - Black

changes will be appreciated

 

[deadbart]

think this is better,
Intel Sandybridge i5-2500K
Gigabyte GA-Z68AP-D3
Corsair CMZ8GX3M2A1600C9 8GB 1600MHz
Western Digital Caviar Blue 500GB SATAIII
Corsair CMPSU-600CXV2UK
CiT Vantage Midi Mesh Gaming Case
Sapphire HD 7850
Cooler Master Hyper 212 Evo

and its within my budget

 

[deadbart]

any opinions ^

 

[ScrewySqrl]

quad core is a better build.

 

[deadbart]

that was my second one, is it good for gaming?

 

[deadbart]

the budget is £620 not sure what it is in dollars

 

[deadbart]

yea..

 

[Guest]

x

 

[deadbart]

just4today, i have to save my budget at £615 because i already have a monitor and a dvi cable in my basket which puts it up to £740 maximum budget thats why, i guess but i can get a i5 2500k and a 7850 so thats my final build i think

 

[juan83]

yo can save money buying 1333mhz mem, unless you get a 3er gen intel to take advantage of 1600mhz ram's. And try a different cpu, a i5 quad @ 2,6 or 2,8 Ghz or more, but i don't know the price of them.. if you get an AMD, you should get a quad core, but but intel will work better for you if gaming is what you want

 

[motorneuron]

I'd split the difference and go for a 2500k with a 7870 or (preferably) a 7950, though I'm not 100% sure what UK prices are like. (In the US, it's about $240 for a 7850, $400 for a 670, and $340 for a 7950, so you can use that extra $60 to go from the i3 to the i5.) For that matter, if you want a quad core chip, a cheaper i5-3450 would be totally fine and more future-proof than an i3, and probably cheaper than the 2500k (which requires aftermarket cooling to reach its full overclocked potential).

But if you have to pick, the i3+670 build will give you significantly better gaming performance today. It just means you'll have to upgrade more quickly later. Very few games use more than 2 cores; this is why Tom's has had such success in their budget builds pairing pentiums and core i3s with very powerful cards. The GPU is far more important for gaming performance, and even in CPU-heavy games, the i3 will be fine.

 

[deadbart]

so i3+670 or i5 3450+7870 ?

 

[motorneuron]

so i3+670 or i5 3450+7870 ?

I'm not sure there is a single right answer to that question. If you're not just doing gaming, the 3450 will blow away the i3 in other tasks. But for gaming alone, the 670's lead over the 7870 is much more important than the small gains of the 3450 over the i3. At the same time, although the i3 is cheaper, you might wind up wanting to upgrade sooner down the line.

edit: just so you have a sense, here's some benchmarks of the 7870 vs the 670 (though driver updates may have changed this a bit since they did the initial bench): http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/548?vs=598

That won't vary too much in most settings between two intel CPUs capable of running at least 2 threads above 3.0GHz.

 

[deadbart]

6months i could upgrade another £300's worth if i got either build

 

[deadbart]

if i picked the i3 and 670, in 6 months time, i could get an i5 3570k and a £100 mobo

 

[deadbart]

sweet ;D

 

[Guest]

x

 

[deadbart]

yeah i have an os

total basket =

EVGA GeF GTX 670 2GB GDDR5 Graphic Card £290
Intel i3-2120 Sandybridge £90
Acer V223HQVb 21.5 inch Widescreen LCD Monitor £85
Corsair CMX8GX3M2A1600C9 DDR3 XMS3 8GB Desktop Memory £35
CiT Vantage Midi Mesh Gaming Case £30
AsRock Z68 Pro3 Gen3 Motherboard
Corsair CMPSU-500CXV2UK
Western Digital Caviar Blue 500GB SATAIII
Sony AD-7261S-0B 24x Internal DVDRWRAM SATA Black Lightscribe

tots up to £730 with all of the components to make my build

 

[Guest]

x

 

[azeem40]

All TN Monitors are the same.

 

[deadbart]

verb when i upgrade to a i5 3570k in 6 months time i will get a 128gb ssd and a decent mobo

 

[deadbart]

the difference from a 64gb and 128gb are about 15 pounds, so better safe than sorry

 

[azeem40]

Not really. I see a huge difference when putting my games on the SSD. ZERO load times.

 

[Guest]

x

 

[deadbart]

thanks for all the help guys!