Difference between i3-2100 and Pentium G840?

[GoStumpy]

Hello!

Building a computer for a friend...

Well, lets cut to the chase.

He wants a home computer, but also wants to play BF3.

I figure a Radeon HD6850 GPU is good, since its what I have, and it runs the game great.

If I can save him money on the CPU, why not... BF3 will be 10x more demanding than anything else he does..

Would a G840 work fine?

G840 = $89+6 shipping
http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product...82E16819116398
i3-2100 = $130+5 shipping
http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product...82E16819115078

Wondering if it's worth the extra $40? And if it is, a good reasoning to get my friend stoked on the more expensive chip

 

[ElFenix]

hyperthreading, couple hundred megahurts, some graphics features. dunno if hyperthreading helps BF3



i wonder if we can get an all out megaplatform BF3 review, say 15 processors on a CPU test with lots of graphics muscle, and then a slew of graphics cards (including previous gen's performance selections) with a 980x or a 2700k, and then a few select platforms combining various CPUs and graphics cards

:hmm:

 

[GoStumpy]

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/289?vs=405

According to that, gaming performance should be very similar?

 

[ElFenix]

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/289?vs=405

According to that, gaming performance should be very similar?

on those games yes. BF3 takes more advantage of threading than most previous games so hyperthreading may be worthwhile. it's a 50% increase in processor price, but more like a 10% or less increase in the computer's price. it *could* increase the performance by more than 10%.

 

[toyota]

the 2120 is supposed to have dropped to the 2100 price but as usual newegg will take their time before adjusting their prices. lol, I bitched at them one time for not honoring official price drops and they gave me $25 store credit.

a 2100 or 2120 is the very lowest you want to go for modern gaming.

 

[Gigantopithecus]

The i3-2100 regularly goes on sale for $115, so just wait a bit (i.e. less than two-three weeks) and then snag one when it's $20 more than the G840 which AFAIK/IIRC, does not go on sale very often.

BF3 is multithreaded so there will be a noticeable benefit from using the i3 vs the Pentium. Keep in mind there are always background processes running too, even if they aren't particulary CPU-hungry.

 

[bunnyfubbles]

I definitely wouldn't go less than an i3, BF3 is very multithreaded, and even though I really wouldn't want to go with anything less than a real quad for BF3, if you must go with an intel Sandybridge dual, the i3 2100's hyperthreading and extra 300MHz should help quite a bit.

 

[pauldun170]

i3-2100 is the better pick and an excellent entry level gaming chip.
The Pentiums are great for general use\media center.

You should be able to pick up the 2100 for around 100

 

[hans007]

i think if you want to go really cheap, you should go for like a G620 since its barely slower than a G840 and then you'd save another $20.

i dont think hyperthreading will help THAT much for BF3. and a $60 savings would probably buy a better vid card. i'm assuming he's on a budget so yeah... THe gpu on all of those is GMA 2000 though i'm not sure if the pentium gxxx chips support quicksync.

 

[Concillian]

http://www.techspot.com/review/448-battlefield-3-beta-performance/page7.html

I STILL think the best thing to do in this price range is an i3-540 ($93 on amazon) and a cheap 1156 mobo, then overclock to high 3.x GHz with stock cooler, or over 4.0 GHz with a 212 or other decent value tower type cooler. At that point it will perform better than a 2100 for less money.

You don't need a snazzy mobo either, This will OC an i3 just fine: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813130299
at $45 after rebate. Add 4 GB of generic DDR3-1600 and you have tons of OC margin on your RAM to bump the bus speed and get the most the CPU can give.
You end up spending almost the same for the mobo + CPU as the 2100 alone, and OCing the i3-540 will make up any performance difference, even if you're only going like 3.6 GHz on the stock cooler. You end up with the 840 price and the i3-2100 performance.

i3-2100 or the FM1 Llano with no GPU are fine options as well if you aren't into OCing.

What we can learn from BF3 is that even advanced games STILL do not push the CPU much, and you can get by just fine with a pretty old gaming machine, save on the CPU side to spend on the GPU side. However the benchmarks do show a consider drop on the AMD pure dual cores. I wish they'd show an Intel pure dual to compare, but I'm not sure I'd risk no hyperthreading for this game.