i5 2nd Gen vs i3 4th Gen vs Amd Phenom X6

[DAPUNISHER]

Question for you 007,

Will the new board have IGP? If not then you have to factor in the cost of a low end card. And while that may be inexpensive, I have no idea what pricing is like where you live. If you get to over 50 percent of the cost of the i3 system I would go with the i3 and board combo. As noted by another member, it gives you a upgrade path.

And yeah you can undervolt and disable cores, but given your usage just turning off turbo and letting the built in features = powernow, coolcore, Dual Dynamic Power Management do their thing should be fine.

Whichever way you go, best of luck.

 

[dark zero]

With the 4th gen i3 setup, he could upgrade quite a bit in a couple years if he needs to, just by dropping in an i5/i7 chip.

That is if he has the luck to get any 4th gen chip, when the 7th gen are there.

 

[LTC8K6]

That is if he has the luck to get any 4th gen chip, when the 7th gen are there.

Well, look back and see what chips you can still get from 5 years ago.

Here in the US, we can still get chips from way, way, back. :biggrin:

 

[SPBHM]

I think to run a phenom x6 properly you need a decent motherboard, if you can't get one it might be better to just sell the PII X6, they are worth decent money I think (compared to their price when new), and for what you mentioned it's kind of a waste, perhaps you could be happy with a Pentium, Athlon X4 (maybe A8) or i3, with a cheap motherboard.

 

[Zor Prime]

Just make sure a replacement board has IGP.

People prob won't believe it but even with IGP my Phenom II X6 played StarCraft 2 with medium to high resolution GFX (not ultra worth a crap).

Definitely more than capable of light gaming duty.

Realistically the only issue you might run into is if you want to use new apps or games that use instructions that are only found on new processors and with web browsing you'll be alright.

 

[nemesismk2]

is it just me that really likes the AMD Phenom X4 960T it is a Thuban Core which was the last AMD Phenom if i remember right or it could be the AMD Phenom X6 1100T. I could only afford the AMD Phenom X4 960T at the time amd just did a little overclock.

 

[escrow4]

Remember how the OP said he's doing web browsing and light gaming?

His issue is power usage and the lifetime of the CPU. All he needs to do is disable a few of the cores, under-clock (won't need to do that, really) and then under-volt for major power savings.

Spending, what, £120 just to save money, and then reinstall Windows...

It's going to take a good number of years for him to just break even from the energy savings. And by the sounds of it, he doesn't need the performance.

And power usage difference with an modern i3 is huge. Plus you get a modern H170 or H97 board to boot if H81 is too stripped for you.

 

[bononos]

Thanks for your replies.
But I feel as the processor is quite old > 4 years.
and its emitting too much heat and power consumption is also too high 125W.
Will I be able to use it for another 4-5 years as compared to Intel ?

125W is the tdp spec which is not the same as the typical power consumption. From reviews, a typical 1055t pc consumes around 80-100W at idle. By comparison 4th gen i3 onwards idles at 25-30W. That is about 70W savings while you are doing light browsing. Since you are from India that amount of power savings could be significant. And you get reasonably good integrated graphics as well if you upgrade.

 

[TeknoBug]

This is making me think about selling my X6 1090T CPU.

 

[Cerb]

A new mobo will be cheap and should do the job. Aside from being a power hog, there's nothing wrong with it.

But, a 4th-gen i3 would be a nice upgrade. In some cases, it may be 50-100% faster, and just as a browsing box, you're not using your six cores now to their full potential anyway. It will typically use 5-10W idling (not sleep, but at the desktop, with background programs running), and stay under 50W w/o high integrated GPU usage, or AVX2 stuff running.

2nd-gen i5 will be wasted, but still cost more (if you can't actually make use of the extra real cores, they do nothing but cost you more for the CPU).

But still consumes a lot of energy.. Is easier to go to a Celeron N3000 (and even I bet that can go Heatsinkless without problem)

It will use <10W >90% of the time. Not a big deal, if you're not running it from battery, and easily 1/5 to 1/10th the Phenom's idle usage, depending on board and usage patterns. You can have the stock fan run at 0 RPM while under no/low load, if your mobo firmware allows it, with a regular i3 (IE, not even a T or S model). By using a T or S, or just setting your TDP limits lower in the BIOS, a cheaper aftermarket cooler like the 212+ Evo can run fanless all day long.

So:

Motherboard: good enough.
Haswell i3: better, but costs more up front.
Sandy Bridge i5: bad.

 

[dharmil007]

Thank you guys, for such an overwhelming response.
I gave it a thought, based on all of your replies and decided to go with the new MotherBoard option.
Not only is it cheap but as few of you suggested the veteran processor is still a power house.
There is no use of spending two and a half times money on i3.
I think this set up will last at least more then 2 years.

I bought MSI 760GM-P33.
According to newegg website, it has ATI Radeon HD 3000 Graphics.


Thanks,
Dharmil