Buying a used core i3 540 or new Pentium G G3220 haswell?

[john5220]

What you guys think?

Where I live a haswell combo from Amazon with Mainboard and RAM will run me at $1200 TTD

A used i3 540 OC to 3.5 GHZ with Zalman Cooler and ECS mainboard 4 ram slot and 4GB DDR3 will run me $900 TTD

the haswell Pentium G is 3.0 GHZ


The purpose is for playing only Diablo 3 and Starcraft 2.

Currently running a Athlon II X2 3.0 GHZ with 4GB DDR 2 at 667mhz and Radeon HD 4870

However Diablo 3 reaper of souls often run down to 8 FPS in big battles. On normal clear screen will run at close to 60 FPS

I know its because of the trash can AMD CPU i have.

Not going higher than $1200 TTD which is about $180 USD

 

[Blue_Max]

Given the choice between the two, I'd go with the G3220 hands-down. No question. None!

It's incredibly fast, especially in comparison to your old CPU and the i3 540. In fact, that i3 is barely better than what you have, so don't even consider that one.
You'll also have the very latest 1150 socket and chipset with USB3 and all the trimmings! Best of all, you have a modern upgrade path for an i5/i7 when more money comes along.

Don't bother with the overclocking Z87 chipset - go simple and affordable since your CPU won't take advantage of the extra cost/features.

 

[TreVader]

You'd be hard pressed to find a single situation where a 2.93Ghz Nehalem with HT enabled is faster than a 3Ghz Haswell without it.



I'm sure such a situation exists, but from the looks of it the Pentium should win both multithreaded and single threaded. I recommend the Pentium.


I currently own a sandy bridge i5, a haswell i7, and a has well celeron. Even though the Sandy Bridge dual core i5 turbos to 2.7Ghz, it still offers the same or worse performance.

 

[frozentundra123456]

Specifically for those two games, I would go with the Pentium. Overall the 750k is possibly better, but for lightly threaded games I would go with the Pentium.

What gpu do you have?

 

[Maximilian]

Id roll with the haswell chip, less power consumption, newer platform, can get a haswell quad later maybe, some new instructions? I dont think the pentiums come with AVX2 though. Although I think the i3 530 oced would be faster, they can go further than 3.5ghz, id still take the haswell.

 

[john5220]

hey thanks

yeah I am running a HD 4870

All I ever play is Starcraft 2 and Diablo 3 ROS
I didn't know the haswell Pentium G was so fast compared to the core i3

My friend is selling me that combo used i3 so was thinking about it.

He does however say he once got 30 FPS in diablo 3. Funny enough Reaper of Souls gets even less on my AMD so I am thinking ROS is going to dip in the 24 FPS range on that core i3

wonder what kind of performance that haswell gets.

 

[Arkaign]

Yeah for those two games you want the fastest dual you can get. The platform around the Haswell is better as well, better USB, better SATA, better PCIe. I recommend getting an AsRock mobo, I've used hundreds of the things now, and they've been singularly excellent in value and reliability when installed correctly.

 

[Arkaign]

Also I wouldn't be too harsh on your Athlon II, it came out 5 years ago after all, and it was a reasonable budget alternative to the Core 2 Duos of the day. If you had a similar C2D, you'd have about the same performance anyway.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/2775/9

Lynnfield came out a little after that, and brought the new Core i-series into affordability, and the rest is history. Sandy Bridge, Ivy Bridge, and now Haswell have continued to pound AMD into a very distant 2nd place in most things, with some exceptions here and there depending on budget, usage, etc.

 

[BSim500]

Haswell Pentium is roughly same speed as a Sandy bridge i3 of similar clock in many games. Personally, I'd go for the Pentium G3420 - only $10 more than the G3220 but clocked at 3.2GHz vs 3.0GHz which narrows the gap even more. You can OC the i3-530 - I did that with mine, but even at 4GHz it's not going to be noticeably faster than a +30-35% higher IPC Haswell at 3.0-3.2GHz, and the latter will have much reduced power consumption (54w G3420 vs 73w i3-530 stock increasing to nearer 90w OC'd to 4GHz), much better iGPU, AES-NI, PCI-E 3.0, QuickSync, etc. Haswell motherboard also more likely to have USB 3.0, etc, on it than the old skt 1156's.

 

[NTMBK]

You would be much better off with an Athlon X4 760K. (Even though it's called "Athlon", it's based on a completely different design compared to your old one.) It has performance comparable to a modern i3, much faster than either processor you're looking at. US price is about $85, and you can get plenty of cheap FM2/FM2+ motherboards.

 

[john5220]

^ I am scared of AMD.

Yeah its 4 cores for quite a bit more money however when I look at benchmarks, AMD really stinks in single threaded games etc.

Blizzard never updated SC2 and Dibalo 3 engines to take advantage of more than 2 cores so the AMD seems like a gigantic waste to me especially when it looks like its gonna be half the performance of haswell.

 

[SPBHM]

you can kind of get an idea of how the i3 performs compared to some newer stuff looking at this

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/product/145?vs=675

i5 670 will be around the same as a 3.5-3.6ghz i3 530, 5800K will be around the same as a 760k, or 750k with small OC.

for gaming the i3 at 3.5ghz will deliver better performance compared to a stock 750K, but... buying 1156, and old ECS board... I don't know... it needs to be really cheap.

 

[BSim500]

Blizzard never updated SC2 and Dibalo 3 engines to take advantage of more than 2 cores so the AMD seems like a gigantic waste to me especially when it looks like its gonna be half the performance of haswell.

For Starcraft 2, a 2-core i3-2100 @ 3.1GHz beats an 8-core FX-8350 @ 4.0Ghz...
http://img27.imageshack.us/img27/3351/bt7w.png

...And a 3.0-3.2Ghz Haswell Pentium G3220-G3420 is roughly the same speed as a 3.1GHz i3-2100:-
http://www.cpu-world.com/Compare/288/Intel_Core_i3_i3-2100_vs_Intel_Pentium_Dual-Core_G3420.html
http://cpuboss.com/cpus/Intel-Pentium-G3420-vs-Intel-Core-i3-2100

All the games you've listed greatly favor 2 fast cores over 4-8 slow cores:-
http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/diablo-iii-performance-benchmark,review-32439-6.html

 

[Rio Rebel]

As a longtime "proud" owner of an i3 530 in my htpc, I would suggest you consider this as well: If that 1156 motherboard dies, you will pay PREMIUM price for a replacement with outdated features (no USB 3.0, no Sata III). If the i3 530 dies, you now have that same outdated motherboard with no option but to find a used, old technology cpu replacement that may or may not overclock well.

The 1156 platform has been quite a performer, but it's a bad place to invest today.

 

[sm625]

I would go with the old i3. As a bonus, you get to play with overclocking it. Who knows, you could hit 4GHz. My 1156 system is still very stable. I just checked my task manager, and I'm up over 2500 hours of cpu time. What's even more impressive is that this machine hibernates for at least 12 hours a day. So I'm looking at more than 2 months of uptime.

 

[mikeymikec]

I'm wondering how much money the OP would be wasting if this 'very small platform upgrade' procedure is done enough times. I've been on a tight budget before myself, but I would take some convincing that saving for something more significant wouldn't turn out cheaper in the long run, then using it for as long as possible. I went from an Athlon XP rig to a AX4/Ph2 setup because I knew that SC2 was going to suck on the old rig. I also regretted the cost of that decision for months afterwards (when the recession hit my business).

Alternatively, a cheap Phenom II of some description (probably any, as long as it isn't one of the 'e' type energy-efficient - aka slow - processors) would probably speed up games like SC2 without having to throw out kit.

Teaming up an Athlon II X2 with DDR2 (667MHz as well, hrm) isn't really ideal either. I'd also check to see how much that 4870 is holding things back for the games in question. After all, sticking it in a newer system might impair performance enough to render the whole exercise almost moot (or at least nowhere near expectations in terms of value of investment).

SC2 benches, GPU comparison:
http://anandtech.com/bench/GPU12/404
- edit - The 4870 doesn't fare too badly there. I wonder how well it does under load, because my Ph2 960T / 5770 setup lags a bit with the lighting effects on the 'Outbreak' campaign map.

If I were in the OP's shoes, I would check the cost of the following options:

1) Upgrade current system
a) Cost of Phenom II, as high as poss but an X2 would help:
http://anandtech.com/bench/CPU/129 - 7 or so FPS difference there comparing the lowest AX2 to the lowest Ph2. Looking for overclocking potential might be an idea as well, as I understand it SC2 benefits from higher clocked CPUs.
b) Does your board have DDR3 slots as well as DDR2? If so, what can they handle? Check board manual/specs and DDR3 cost.
c) Failing the previous option, if it was possible to pick up replacement DDR2 at the highest speed the board can handle reasonably cheaply, I'd check.
d) better GPU. Check PSU capabilities (which you'll need to do if you ever think of upgrading the graphics card).

An advantage of improving your current rig is that you can spread out the purchases.

2) Tighten your belt, put up with the current performance, and prepare to go for a decent platform upgrade (possibly keeping your 4870, at least for a while).

I'm sure that a Haswell Pentium would beat my Ph2 rig at SC2, but considering that the G850 (according to the chart I previously linked) is 12FPS better than the highest AX2 in the chart, let's say there's a 15FPS difference between your exact processor and the Haswell Pentium. Is it worth it? How differently will it handle it under the greatest load, what if you're still seeing dips down to say 10FPS?

Money-wise option 2 makes the most sense out of my two suggestions, but go for 1 if you're really feeling the upgrade itch on a tight budget.

 

[NTMBK]

Can that Athlon II X2 not be overclocked at all? I've seen people hitting >3.5GHz with similar processors. How about the RAM- 667MHz is seriously slow! You could yet squeeze some more life out of that machine.

 

[Headfoot]

^ I am scared of AMD.

Yeah its 4 cores for quite a bit more money however when I look at benchmarks, AMD really stinks in single threaded games etc.

Blizzard never updated SC2 and Dibalo 3 engines to take advantage of more than 2 cores so the AMD seems like a gigantic waste to me especially when it looks like its gonna be half the performance of haswell.

You are 100% right, Blizzard only puts out single thread performance bound games (like I say in your other thread).

Go with the new g3420 for $3 more over the g3220. (Gets you 3.2 instead of 3.0 for $3 like daveybrat said in the other thread)

 

[john5220]

^ yeah but gonna give it 1 week because I saw the same G3220 for $50 on Amazon.com not any merchant the actual amazon.

The prices seem to fluctuate every 3 days on Amazon.

 

[john5220]

As a longtime "proud" owner of an i3 530 in my htpc, I would suggest you consider this as well: If that 1156 motherboard dies, you will pay PREMIUM price for a replacement with outdated features (no USB 3.0, no Sata III). If the i3 530 dies, you now have that same outdated motherboard with no option but to find a used, old technology cpu replacement that may or may not overclock well.

The 1156 platform has been quite a performer, but it's a bad place to invest today.

thanks I will go with the haswell then. Yeah old Mainboards are so expensive I realize, for my new system I am looking at either a gigabyte Mainbaord or ECS I know the ECS lasts so long.

I'm wondering how much money the OP would be wasting if this 'very small platform upgrade' procedure is done enough times.

I'm sure that a Haswell Pentium would beat my Ph2 rig at SC2, but considering that the G850 (according to the chart I previously linked) is 12FPS better than the highest AX2 in the chart, let's say there's a 15FPS difference between your exact processor and the Haswell Pentium. Is it worth it? How differently will it handle it under the greatest load, what if you're still seeing dips down to say 10FPS?

Money-wise option 2 makes the most sense out of my two suggestions, but go for 1 if you're really feeling the upgrade itch on a tight budget.

According to many on this thread, intel reigns in Super Pi benchmarks which seem to have nothing to do with clock speeds and just something that AMD seem to stink at.

Seems to me all the fancy intel features is used by Blizzard also when you compare benchmarks very few benchmarks tell the full story.

My problem lies in Online Diablo 3 with 4 players same problem I had with Battlefield 3 with 64 player maps.

FPS would dip to 8 FPS but you don't see this in benchmark sites because the morons keep benchmarking games in single player when no one plays single player anymore.

So offcourse you will notice little to no difference in SP campaigns or multi player in small fights.

The intel has a quantum leap in performance when it comes to Blizzard games for some reason. I don't know why and for what reason but Blizzard is possibly the second richest company after Activision. Activision-Blizzard is the a holding company but even better since again money isn't an issue. Highly doubt bobby kotick a coca cola BOD knows about programming and how to build a game engine.

Time isn't an issue neither since D3 and SC2 took nearly 10 years to develop.

 

[mikeymikec]

Since you're not going to be getting an i5 or i7, Intel reigning anything really doesn't make any difference to your decision, IMO. If there was an AMD super-duper processor that was way outside of your budget that gave Intel's best a proper spanking, it's irrelevant to your decision. Unless you went with my 'option 2' idea once you had the money available to do a big platform upgrade.

NB: I'm not an AMD fanboy, I've been building Intel rigs since mid 2011, I pick based on what I think constitutes better value for money. However, I don't often build budget gamer boxes.

The only way I can think of that a short-term small platform upgrade would make sense would be if all you ever intend to play was SC2 / D3, then changing to a Haswell Pentium could be a potential decent long-term choice. On the other hand, if your gaming is anything like mine, ie. I don't buy new games very often at all, I'm still playing SC2 and I re-play old games like say Batman AA right now, but the fact that I do occasionally buy a new (and hardware-challenging) game is important to the question of what should I plan for.

Isn't Battlefield 3 one of these games that eats almost any processor and RAM for breakfast and asks for seconds? That's somewhat different to SC2/D3 AFAIK. IIRC it is heavily multi-threaded and a Haswell Pentium has got only two. I'm sure it would be a little better than what you've got, but I'd be surprised the difference would make the cost of a small platform upgrade worthwhile.

Blizzard games like SC2 and D3 run better on Intel processors because Intel is provided better IPC than AMD at the moment (Instructions Per Clock - basically more work done on the same clock frequency as a comparable AMD processor). SC2 only benefits from two cores, it use the potential of any more cores, hence the SC2 CPU bench I posted has got a Pentium neck-and-neck with an AMD FX 8xxx CPU.

 

[john5220]

^ yeah thats the thing.

The only other game I have that I play sometimes is Battlefield 3. However my friend says his i3 runs it just fine minimum of 30 fps while my athlon goes down to 5 fps etc

Seems to me even a 8 threaded game like BF3 can run way better on a intel dual core than a AMD quad core because if you look at it a Phenom II X4 is still slower it gets less than 30 fps in BF3 in 64 player maps this goes to show a haswell pentium would smoke a older phenom II x4

and I am willing to bet the haswell pentium smokes the bulldozer quad core in games using more than 2 threads.

All in all I see very very little to absolute 0 gaming time on anything besides SC2 and D3

Infact since reaper of souls and loot 2.0 and getting rid of that rubbish auction house I can't even see myself playing SC2. Looks like its gonna be strictly D3 for many years to come.

I can easily see myself raking up 8000 hours of D3 in the many years to come.

 

[NTMBK]

^ yeah thats the thing.

The only other game I have that I play sometimes is Battlefield 3. However my friend says his i3 runs it just fine minimum of 30 fps while my athlon goes down to 5 fps etc

Seems to me even a 8 threaded game like BF3 can run way better on a intel dual core than a AMD quad core because if you look at it a Phenom II X4 is still slower it gets less than 30 fps in BF3 in 64 player maps this goes to show a haswell pentium would smoke a older phenom II x4

and I am willing to bet the haswell pentium smokes the bulldozer quad core in games using more than 2 threads.

A Phenom II runs Battlefield 3 just fine:

And in a multithreaded game like Battlefield 3, the Pentium stutters TERRIBLY.

http://techreport.com/review/23662/amd-a10-5800k-and-a8-5600k-trinity-apus-reviewed/10

Seriously, don't get a Pentium to play multithreaded games on. It's awful. For single threaded stuff like D3, sure. If that's literally the only game that matters to you, then the choice is pretty clear.

 

[TreVader]

Ok so apparently the Pentium does NOT support AVX/AVX2/AES/HT/TSX-NI/Turbo/VT-x/Vpro and Nehalem can be overlcocked?


I thought only K and X series intel CPUs along with L series Xeons could over clock using a multiplier?


I change my vote to i3. I think the features are worth the slight loss in clock, but only if you can overclock the nehalem

 

[Yuriman]

Ok so apparently the Pentium does NOT support AVX/AVX2/AES/HT/TSX-NI/Turbo/VT-x/Vpro and Nehalem can be overlcocked?

Correct.

I thought only K and X series intel CPUs along with L series Xeons could over clock using a multiplier?


I change my vote to i3. I think the features are worth the slight loss in clock, but only if you can overclock the nehalem

You can overclock any socket 1156 chip. The IPC difference between the Haswell Pentium and the older i3 will probably make up for any overclocking you can do, but I don't know how HT plays into things. I haven't used a true dual core in years, and low-end chips aren't commonly benched so it's hard to compare. He'll be on an older socket without a good upgrade path, if he ever decides to do that, but the Pentium lacks all of the CPU features that make Haswell really attractive, so it's not really clear. Either is probably a fair choice.