G630 or G2120 (not i3 2120)

[fuzg13z]

Hey guys! I'm building a pc for my step mother and step brother. Step mom will be just doing browsing etc so no demands there but my little step bro is 13 now, he plays wow and minecraft and will no-doubt be expanding his gaming horizon in the not-too-distant future.
Here's the build that' I'm looking at:
Processor - Pentium G2120 (NOT the i3 2120) or Pentium G630
Motherboard - Gigabyte B75 D3H
Video Card - Radeon HD 6670
RAM - 8gb of whatever is compatible with the mobo (haven't looked at the compatibility sheet yet, will check to see what's on sale at purchase time)
Case - Zalman Z9 - kinda gamerish looking which i'd prefer to avoid but it's feature rich for the price
PSU - OCZ ModXStream Pro 600w - went a little heavy on PSU wattage to allow for capacitor ageing and expanison as she'll prob keep this machine until it dies
HDD - Seagate 500gb sata 3
SSD - Plextor M5S 64 gb - I want this to enhance the windows experience, SSD is a great performance/dollar upgrade - Don't even think about suggesting a Crucial M4, I've done lots of homework on SSDs
Final Cost(s):
With the G2120 - $530
With the G630 - $500

My thoughts on this build:
She wont be doing anything graphically intensive and my little step-bro is easily satisfied. He has ADHD so I don't think he'll have a strong desire for great graphics as he's non too aware of things like that. This being said, I thought it would be okay to cut a bit of cost from the graphics budget in to bring an SSD into the mix. I tried to follow the August $500 build but with the graphics/SSD exception.

My Question:
Do you guys think it would be worth while to upgrade from sandy bridge to ivy bridge (G630 to G2120) for $30 extra (over budget but it's flexible). There's not only then support for PCIe3 but there's also a 400mhz performance gain. Did I just answer my own question? Maybe, sounds worthwhile to me but I'd love to have some feedback.

Another Though:
What do you guys think about scrapping the whole pentium/discrete graphics card combo and going with an A10-5800k?
Check out this movember mobo/processor combo deal. This build is $540 an looks like it'd offer less gaming performance than the HD 6670. Obviously more multi-threaded app performance with the quad cores but that's not really a concern here so I guess this is probably not a good option..?

Thoughts on everything? Thanks guys!

 

[malbluff]

This might be worth considering. Ivybridge i3, better graphics, case has USB3.0. I'm not personally a huge fan of OCZ PSUs, although some better than others. If you are not too concerned about modular, XFX would be another good choice.
PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: Intel Core i3-3220 3.3GHz Dual-Core Processor ($119.99 @ Amazon)
Motherboard: ASRock H77 Pro4/MVP ATX LGA1155 Motherboard ($87.55 @ Newegg)
Memory: G.Skill Sniper Low Voltage Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($37.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Seagate Barracuda 500GB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($54.99 @ NCIX US)
Storage: Samsung 830 Series 64GB 2.5" Solid State Disk ($69.00 @ B&H)
Video Card: MSI Radeon HD 6770 1GB Video Card ($86.97 @ Newegg)
Case: NZXT Source 210 Elite (Black) ATX Mid Tower Case ($49.99 @ Amazon)
Power Supply: XFX 550W 80 PLUS Bronze Certified ATX12V / EPS12V Power Supply ($49.99 @ NCIX US)
Total: $556.47
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)

I note OP build did not have optical drive, so have left out to, assume other arrangements.

 

[blazorthon]

http://pcpartpicker.com/p/mLF5

I cast my vote. Still, above build is great too, mostly just with a slightly different balance of CPU and graphics performance (mine is a little more graphics-heavy and more overclocking friendly, but a little lighter on the CPU).

 

[DarkSable]

^ This rig is probably not going to be used for much graphics or overclocking. I imagine any games won't have settings touched at all.

OP, why do you not want the i3? If you go with an i3 or even an i5, HD graphics 4000 should be more than enough for this computers' needs.

 

[malbluff]

Think OP is saying wants to play better games. Only one i3 and one locked i5 actually have HD4000, which might be OK for very basic games, but think looking for, at least, a bit more.

 

[geofelt]

Either cpu would be OK.
Performance will be determined by the ssd for web work, and tthe 6670 for gaming.
My main concern would be the small size of the ssd. I think 80 or 120gb would be better.
Do you really need a hard drive?
As a ssd gets near full, it will slow down.

Forget the capacitor ageing. A 6670 does not need a 6 pin pcie connector and will run very happily on a quality 400w psu.
The Corsair CX430 is cheap.

 

[blazorthon]

lol, I just noticed that OP is looking for Canadian prices, I'll fix my build accordingly:
http://pcpartpicker.com/ca/p/mQtl

^ This rig is probably not going to be used for much graphics or overclocking. I imagine any games won't have settings touched at all.

OP, why do you not want the i3? If you go with an i3 or even an i5, HD graphics 4000 should be more than enough for this computers' needs.

The point is a semi-decent gaming build with a small SSD, or at least that's what I got from OP's post. HD 4000 will not be able to achieve that, at least not with some of today's games and that situation will only get worse as time goes on and games get more intense. Furthermore, games can preset themselves to levels of quality that is fairly tuned to your computer's graphics, so the computer might not even need the settings to be altered manually to make good use of a faster graphics configuration. If this wasn't true, then OP would be screwed if OP couldn't manually change game settings with HD 4000 if games didn't default to playable settings (most games probably wouldn't if they couldn't dynamically default settings for a given graphics configuration).

It doesn't matter if the people who are getting this computer from OP do not overclock because OP might overclock and regardless, a great non-overclocking oriented build had already been suggested and I didn't think that I could really top it in stock, so I went for a more overclocking-oriented suggestion to offer more variety in options.

I also see no reason to spend much more money on a CPU just to get a mere HD 4000 IGP when a well-performing and cheaper CPU can be had with a decent discrete setup or at least a Trinity/Llano IGP that wipes the floor with HD 4000 on the i3s and even on the i5s and i7s (there are performance differences between HD 4000 on different CPUs because of differing IGP frequencies, HD 4000 and the other such names only refer to the hardware).

 

[fuzg13z]

Hey Guys! I'm sorry that it took me so long to get back to you all. I went on vacation the day after I posted and didn't have an opportunity to get back to you. I appreciate the feedback and did take it into consideration. My budget was since increased and I was able to squeeze a little more horsepower out of it! I built it last night but found out that one of the RAM sticks is faulty, took me a while to figure that out. I confirmed it by testing each dimm individually in every ram slot and testing it with memtest86. It took me a while to figure out what the problem was, I was getting a BSOD right at the beginning of my windows install >_<. Anways I just got off on a huge tangent lol. My final specs are:

Processor: Pentium G2120
Motherboard: MSI H77MA-G43
Ram: (2x4gb) 1333mhz G.Skill CL9 (with one faulty dimm >_<)
Case: Zalman Z9
PSU: Antec 450w - can't remember exactly which one off the top of my head
Video Card: Gigabyte Radeon HD 7770
SSD: 64gb Crucial M4 (place I bought my parts had no Plextor's and sold their last Samsung 830 that was on sale >_<)
HDD: 1TB Seagate

 

[fuzg13z]

@i3/i5 questions. I have a 3570k with an HD4000 and it's not sufficient graphics-wise. WoW at 1080p barely handles half medium half low settings, also I don't think they'll need that much CPU performance as I don't think they'll be using an heavily threaded apps, games only handle 2 threads so my thoughts were that a dual core proc would be more than sufficient.

 

[geofelt]

@i3/i5 questions. I have a 3570k with an HD4000 and it's not sufficient graphics-wise. WoW at 1080p barely handles half medium half low settings, also I don't think they'll need that much CPU performance as I don't think they'll be using an heavily threaded apps, games only handle 2 threads so my thoughts were that a dual core proc would be more than sufficient.

I think you are good on the cpu.

wow recommends a 8800GT or 4830(512gmb)
https://us.battle.net/support/en/article/minimum-system-requirements-for-world-of-warcraft

I think I would look at a newer 28nm based card like a GTX650 or 7750.

 

[fuzg13z]

I think you are good on the cpu.

wow recommends a 8800GT or 4830(512gmb)
https://us.battle.net/support/en/article/minimum-system-requirements-for-world-of-warcraft

I think I would look at a newer 28nm based card like a GTX650 or 7750.

Definately good on the CPU, and I3 or I5 would be overkill. The card I put in there is an HD 7770, it's lithography is 28nm, and it has 1gb of GDDR5.

 

[fuzg13z]

Once i've got the ram installed and stable, driver up and errrrthing I'll come back here and perhaps give some benchmarks

 

[TheMark0fDeath]

OP you won't notice a difference between the two processors, they won't be doing anything heavy with the CPU or GPU like 3D Modeling or Video Editing just mid-low gaming and web browsing. I would use your 500$ build and get your little bro a $30 game on Steam or at GameStop. Reply with what you choose!