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i3 2100 + dedicated graphics vs i5 2500k

C

clx

Junior Member
Hello,

I'm trying to build a new rig used mostly for programming (Java, .Net, MySQL & MSSQL) and occasional movies & gaming. Right now I can get:


  • i3 2100 + H61 board for $127

  • i5 2500k + Z68 board for $270

If I were to get the i3 2100 + H61 combo, I'm probably going to get a dedicated graphics card in the $40 ~ $60 range. So there are about $100 difference here. My other concerns is that I'm planning on upgrade after 2 years, so I'm not sure if getting a i5 2500k is worth it right now.

What are you guys takes on this? Should I save that $100 for another/nicer monitor?

Thanks!
 
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Do you own a computer right now that you can use as a reference point to know what would be acceptable performance?

I'm leaning towards the i3-2100 for your case, programming is 99% user speed lol, although compiling of course takes a bit of time depending on how big things are.

Having that discrete video card (try not to dip below a 5670 or so if possible) will definitely make for a nicer experience imho, and will game decently.

I have a 2500k/8gb/6950 2gb, but I know it's not reasonable to expect that everything can or always should fit into everyone's budget. If you asked me to give up my GPU and go onboard vs. give up my CPU and get an i3, I'd definitely go i3.
 
Thanks for the reply! How about performance of Z68 vs H61? The H61 i was looking at is a really low budget board, the Z68 comes with USB 3.0, SATA (6G) ports, and DVI/HDMI.
 
Do you want to overclock? What kind of games you'll play? Is compiling speed the priority and can the compilers use multiple cores?
 
Arzachel said:
Do you want to overclock? What kind of games you'll play? Is compiling speed the priority and can the compilers use multiple cores?
Click to expand...

Not planning on overclock right now, mostly Flash Games and Star Craft II, and I don't believe the current development tools take advantage of the multiple cores yet.
 
clx said:
Thanks for the reply! How about performance of Z68 vs H61? The H61 i was looking at is a really low budget board, the Z68 comes with USB 3.0, SATA (6G) ports, and DVI/HDMI.
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USB3 is nice for external drives, but you can always add it later via a cheap PCIe card that goes in the short slot if you need it. Sata 6G is worthless right now, although with faster SSDs it may come in handy years down the line. It'll never help with conventional mechanical hdds though, as I don't see 300+ megabytes/second being feasible with that tech.

DVI/HDMI is moot, as your discrete card will have those, and possibly displayport as well.

Performance of the board itself should be functionally identical unless you go for some outrageous DDR3-2133 or better, or use multiple GPUs which H61 can't do.
 
clx said:
Not planning on overclock right now, mostly Flash Games and Star Craft II, and I don't believe the current development tools take advantage of the multiple cores yet.
Click to expand...

Starcraft 2 is notoriously CPU intensive, but a dedicated GPU should still come on top. I'd say go for the i3, the i5 won't be much better at compiling either.
 
I went the i3-2100 + H61 + a used 4870 route. Haven't put it together yet, but I have high hopes.

How can you get the i3-2100 + H61 so cheap? Seems like a steal!
 
I agree with most. Def i3 + discrete.

x68 / h61 performance difference is essentially nil.
USB3 and 6Gb SATA are both secondary or even tertiary considerations. Completely easy to live without if the trade-off is a discrete graphics card.
 
winston9t4 said:
I went the i3-2100 + H61 + a used 4870 route. Haven't put it together yet, but I have high hopes.

How can you get the i3-2100 + H61 so cheap? Seems like a steal!
Click to expand...

It's from Micro Center. If you have one near by, you can get them around that price (choose your store first up top, then choose in-store pickup):

CPU: http://www.microcenter.com/single_pr...uct_id=0359809

Motherboard: http://www.microcenter.com/single_pr...uct_id=0359807

When add them both to the cart, the motherboard will have a $45 discount, making it $19.99 🙂.

I really wanted a board with USB 3.0, but that's the only combo that qualifies for the discount.
 
I've been using a core i3-2100 with an hd5870. games run fine and I don't notice any sluggishness with the cpu.
 
clx said:
Not planning on overclock right now, mostly Flash Games and Star Craft II, and I don't believe the current development tools take advantage of the multiple cores yet.
Click to expand...

both yes and no, some things can be compiled in parallel others can't (like #include dependencies), of the top of my head I can only think of visual studio that I know for sure can compile in parallel.

but I'm gonna go with the others and say 2100+discrete.
 
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clx said:
I really wanted a board with USB 3.0, but that's the only combo that qualifies for the discount.
Click to expand...

you probably won't have any USB 3.0 current devices... only thing you would buy later on would be a USB flash drive (still quite expensive) or USB HDD

not to mention that board has 3 x1 slots. lets assume 1 slot taken by a dual-slot GPU... still have 2 to play with
 
Make can be set to run makefiles in parallel. However, if you fail to specify some dependencies, you can get errors you wouldn't otherwise get.

Do you want to learn to program stuff to run on the dedicated graphics card? (Either DirectX/OpenGL games and the like or CUDA/OpenCL?)
 
if someone is buying a machine to earn a living why would they skimp at all? youd get a much lower performing dual core to save maybe 70 bucks
 
OBLAMA2009 said:
if someone is buying a machine to earn a living why would they skimp at all? youd get a much lower performing dual core to save maybe 70 bucks
Click to expand...

While this is very true, but there is always the computer at the office which most of the development would be done on.

Choosing i5 with Z68, I will be paying twice as much ($270 vs $127), but in most cases I won't get twice the performance.

I think i3 + H61 is the best bang for bucks at the moment. :sneaky:
 
I went with a i3/h67 combo for my Ceton HTPC. I'm very impressed with the i3. I can record 4 channels at once and watch a 25GB bluray rip with around 10-12% CPU.
 
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