Is the 4th Gen Intel Core i3 Underrated

[ascalice]

I read many articles saying that the core i3 sucks, spend the extra on an i5. However, I recently built a few PCs. All the PCs had 4GBRAM,500GB HDD, GeForce650, and one had an i3 and another had the i5. There really was no speed change. On startup, the i5 beat the i3 by 2-3 seconds. On basic web surfing, the core i5's performance was only 4-5% speed increase. In Minecraft, the core i5 ran at 45 frames while the i3 ran at 38.

 

[NTMBK]

Minecraft is notoriously single-thread bound. It's a terribly optimised game and a bad example of CPU (or GPU) performance.

For general web browsing, an i3 is plenty. But for gaming the i5 is far better.

 

[ElFenix]

you're not doing anything that's mutithreaded and processor intensive. if you're not, the core i3 is only marginally slower than a core i5. but it's also only marginally faster than a pentiium.

 

[Cerb]

Yes and no.

If you're building a $1000 PC, it's what, $60-100 to go from an i3 to an i5? So, 10% the cost or less. Enough games will have 10% or better improved minimum frame rates, that sure, it's worth it. Look at the total machine cost, not just CPU cost. For example, 38 FPS v. 45 FPS is an 18% improvement, for <=10% of a cost increase. That's a no-brainer, and one of several reasons why Intel doesn't add Turbo the i3 series (it would decrease the relative value of the i5, i7, and E3 CPUs).

If you're building a $700 PC, and considering an FX-6300, the i3 gets you near-FX performance in the few games that love AMD CPUs, and far superior performance elsewhere, at the same cost. If an H81 mobo will work out for you, an even lower cost than an FX. The improvements from the 2nd and 3rd gen in IPC, making that smaller cache work well, plus the consistent clock bumps each gen, have made it a really good bang/buck series. In this case, an i5 would mean a worse GPU, so the i3 is a winner.

For a system that isn't doing gaming, video or photo editing of significant resolution, several VMs at a time, etc., there will be no discernible difference at all, between an i3 and i7, much less i3 and i5. The Pentiums still feel kinda laggy, relative to better CPUs, but the i3s do not (clocks + HT).

 

[crashtech]

The latest Haswell i3s work really well. Whatever tweaks the did to the µarch made HT work even better. An i3 with Turbo would likely embarrass low-end i5s. Even so, I wish they could figure out a way to place a Turbo or "K" i3 into their product lineup, that would be a killer little CPU.

 

[ascalice]

The latest Haswell i3s work really well. Whatever tweaks the did to the µarch made HT work even better. An i3 with Turbo would likely embarrass low-end i5s. Even so, I wish they could figure out a way to place a Turbo or "K" i3 into their product lineup, that would be a killer little CPU.

Yeah, but the price will probably go up in the i3s.

 

[tweakboy]

Also i3 has no HT ...

So if your not using these apps. Sony Vegas. Cakewalk Sonar X3 for DAW or Photoshop and rendering, then i3 will go down on its knees. I believe theres a 8thread on that i5. so thats 8 threads like hasword. thx gl

 

[zir_blazer]

The problem is that you want to notice increased performance in several things where a faster Processor doesn't really makes a difference.

For startup times, what makes the most difference is a SSD, because you're I/O limited most of that stage, so a faster Processor will not matter a lot. Basic web surfing barely requires a modern computer, even a Core 2 Duo era system with plenty of RAM will have nearly everything you need to give you an acceptable everyday performance. And for gaming, unless the game uses more than two Threads or you're doing a lot of Multitasking simultaneously, you will not notice neither going from a Dual Core Haswell to a Quad Core one because Core i3 provides quite close Single Threaded performance.
The Core i5 could be potentially close to twice as fast in raw resources, but you need to be using Software that appropriately scales, or find a way to give use to the other Cores. A Core i5 may also be faster assuming you run a lot of backgrounds task that takes a toll on CPU usage, reason why it may reduce the performance of the main application (Like a game) that you are running, in that case it would also help.

 

[tweakboy]

i3 = NO HT
i5 = NO HT or 8 threads. ???

 

[grimpr]

The dualcore Haswell Core i3s are great, Hyperthreading took a good bost in its performance from the architectural changes and the 2 extra ports, they are definitely worth their money now.

 

[tweakboy]

The i3 is for Word or Excel. You cant play recent games BF4 , unless you use low res. gl

 

[ascalice]

I recently booted up both PCs and in Battlefield 4, the i5 and i3 both were able to play on "high" settings. The i5 however, was able to play on "Ultra," but not completely smooth. The i3 couldnt even run "Ultra."

 

[ascalice]

The problem is that you want to notice increased performance in several things where a faster Processor doesn't really makes a difference.

For startup times, what makes the most difference is a SSD, because you're I/O limited most of that stage, so a faster Processor will not matter a lot. Basic web surfing barely requires a modern computer, even a Core 2 Duo era system with plenty of RAM will have nearly everything you need to give you an acceptable everyday performance. And for gaming, unless the game uses more than two Threads or you're doing a lot of Multitasking simultaneously, you will not notice neither going from a Dual Core Haswell to a Quad Core one because Core i3 provides quite close Single Threaded performance.
The Core i5 could be potentially close to twice as fast in raw resources, but you need to be using Software that appropriately scales, or find a way to give use to the other Cores. A Core i5 may also be faster assuming you run a lot of backgrounds task that takes a toll on CPU usage, reason why it may reduce the performance of the main application (Like a game) that you are running, in that case it would also help.

I didnt use an SDD. I used a 500GB Seagate 7200 RPM.

 

[escrow4]

i3's are pointless. Instead of spending $130 on a dual core in 2014, I either go for a Pentium if they really need a dual, otherwise I only spec i5's and above. If you want a box to last and last spec it right. Spending an extra $80 on an i5 is a step in that direction. They are the perfect allrounder's at 200 or so.

 

[ascalice]

PC Specs:
One had core i3, other had i5
4GB RAM DDR3-1333
500GB HDD
Windows 8.1

 

[crashtech]

i3's are pointless. Instead of spending $130 on a dual core in 2014, I either go for a Pentium if they really need a dual, otherwise I only spec i5's and above. If you want a box to last and last spec it right. Spending an extra $80 on an i5 is a step in that direction. They are the perfect allrounder's at 200 or so.

Pointless to you and for gamers, perhaps, but i3s offer better integrated graphics than Pentiums, and better single-threaded performance than lower end i5s. For the vast majority of PCs, an i3 will, as you put it, "last and last." Spec it right, absolutely, but don't mindlessly and pointlessly spend $80 extra on a CPU just because moar cores.

 

[BSim500]

Depends on what you're playing. Worst case for i3 is video editing where it will typically score only 2/3rds of the fps vs an i5 of similar clock. Best case is older predominantly single/dual threaded games, where there's often virtually no difference at all (and a 3.6GHz i3 can even score higher than a budget 3.0-3.2Ghz stock i5). Haswell i3's have benefited more than i5's from the Ivy Bridge -> Haswell move due to a +100-200mhz speed bump and the wider core seems to make HT work better in some games (more of a visible impact on an i3 than an i7).

Example : i3-4340 is up to 22% faster in BF4 vs an i3-3240 despite being clocked only 6% higher:-
http://www.hardcoreware.net/intel-core-i3-4340-review/3/

They're probably a little overpriced vs a Pentium, but they are great chips for what they can do with only two cores. In many older games, an i3 can comfortably "hold its own" vs even an FX8350. And by "older" I don't just mean 1990-2007 stuff, but many 2012-2013 games as relatively recent as Skyrim, Dishonored & Bioshock Infinite.

Edit : i3's also appear to benefit a lot more from Mantle than i5's (at least in BF4):-
http://www.nag.co.za/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/AMD_Perf_Data_575px.png
http://pclab.pl/zdjecia/artykuly/chaostheory/2014/02/mantle/charts/bf4_mp_cpu_radeon_mantle.png

 

[bgt]

The latest Haswell i3s work really well. Whatever tweaks the did to the µarch made HT work even better. An i3 with Turbo would likely embarrass low-end i5s. Even so, I wish they could figure out a way to place a Turbo or "K" i3 into their product lineup, that would be a killer little CPU.

This. The Haswell i3 is anything but slow. It is a very nice cpu. Hey..... even the Haswell Pentiums and Celerons are ok. I don't mean the slow laptop 1s.

 

[Maximilian]

I read many articles saying that the core i3 sucks, spend the extra on an i5. However, I recently built a few PCs. All the PCs had 4GBRAM,500GB HDD, GeForce650, and one had an i3 and another had the i5. There really was no speed change. On startup, the i5 beat the i3 by 2-3 seconds. On basic web surfing, the core i5's performance was only 4-5% speed increase. In Minecraft, the core i5 ran at 45 frames while the i3 ran at 38.

None of that stuff gains much with 4 cores over 2.

i5 will be better for some of today's games that can use 4 cores or more and similar games in the future. Or anything else that can use 4 cores.

Its always better to buy an i5 IMO, i3 is really niche. It dosent suck but if you need power i5 is worth the extra price, if you dont then why not just buy a celeron or pentium chip.

 

[frozentundra123456]

I think it is definitely underrated, as the move to Haswell brought more performance improvement to the i3 than it did to the quad cores.

That said, I think at the current prices, it suffers from the "tweener" syndrome. That is it is more performance than is needed for the casual or probably even enterprise user (pentium is sufficient) but still easily surpassed in anything requiring heavy cpu power by a not that much more expensive i5. So really, it is a niche product which fits those who want really fast single core performance, but dont care about multithreaded workloads.

To be an attractive overall value, they need to lower the price about 20.00. Then it would be a fantastic buy.

 

[sm625]

I bought an i3-4130 when it was on sale for $100 and built a system around it. I'm actually kind of disappointed in it. It is 3.4GHz so I figured it would be roughly equivalent to a 1st gen core i5-655K @ 4.2GHz. (An i5-655K is a 2 core 4 thread chip.) But it doesnt "feel" as fast as my i5-750 3.5GHz machine, even in general windows tasks, web surfing, or playing a somewhat complex flash game that has about a 1.5GB memory footprint. Even though cpu usage on my i5-750 rarely goes over 50%, the haswell i3 still feels slower in just about everything. It's superpi score is of course way better, so I dont really know what's going on. Both machines have win7-64, both have HD7770s, both have SSDs, and they both have the exact same 8GB of RAM.

By all rights the haswell i3 should be faster than the 1st gen i5, given that cpu usage rarely goes over 50% on either system. But I just wanted to highlight the fact that this is not the case. The 1st gen i5 unquestionably feels like the faster machine. Even though the i3 scores higher in passmark, peacekeeper, pi, and 3dmark.

About the only thing that could explain it is maybe the lower amount of cache. But I have not seen any benchmarks that show cache being worth all that much. Maybe the benchmarks on cache do not tell the whole story. Or maybe its somethign else. I dont know. All I know is that next time I will buy an i5, even if its a used 2500k.

 

[Neal.a.nelson]

Great discussion! I have read elsewhere that it's the top HW i3, the 4340 (soon to be 4360) that is much better than the i3-4130. (Slightly faster, more cache, better IGP). I am leaning toward a Z97 board and the new top i3 if I can be convinced that Broadwell K will be backwards compatible (and not cancelled, naturally).

 

[crashtech]

I bought an i3-4130 when it was on sale for $100 and built a system around it. I'm actually kind of disappointed in it. It is 3.4GHz so I figured it would be roughly equivalent to a 1st gen core i5-655K @ 4.2GHz. (An i5-655K is a 2 core 4 thread chip.) But it doesnt "feel" as fast as my i5-750 3.5GHz machine, even in general windows tasks, web surfing, or playing a somewhat complex flash game that has about a 1.5GB memory footprint. Even though cpu usage on my i5-750 rarely goes over 50%, the haswell i3 still feels slower in just about everything. It's superpi score is of course way better, so I dont really know what's going on. Both machines have win7-64, both have HD7770s, both have SSDs, and they both have the exact same 8GB of RAM.

By all rights the haswell i3 should be faster than the 1st gen i5, given that cpu usage rarely goes over 50% on either system. But I just wanted to highlight the fact that this is not the case. The 1st gen i5 unquestionably feels like the faster machine. Even though the i3 scores higher in passmark, peacekeeper, pi, and 3dmark.

About the only thing that could explain it is maybe the lower amount of cache. But I have not seen any benchmarks that show cache being worth all that much. Maybe the benchmarks on cache do not tell the whole story. Or maybe its somethign else. I dont know. All I know is that next time I will buy an i5, even if its a used 2500k.

So what you are saying is that your subjective experience contradicts the benchmarks? Certainly there must be a way to quantify this discrepancy, otherwise, what are we to believe?

 

[Yuriman]

I bought an i3-4130 when it was on sale for $100 and built a system around it. I'm actually kind of disappointed in it. It is 3.4GHz so I figured it would be roughly equivalent to a 1st gen core i5-655K @ 4.2GHz. (An i5-655K is a 2 core 4 thread chip.) But it doesnt "feel" as fast as my i5-750 3.5GHz machine, even in general windows tasks, web surfing, or playing a somewhat complex flash game that has about a 1.5GB memory footprint. Even though cpu usage on my i5-750 rarely goes over 50%, the haswell i3 still feels slower in just about everything. It's superpi score is of course way better, so I dont really know what's going on. Both machines have win7-64, both have HD7770s, both have SSDs, and they both have the exact same 8GB of RAM.

By all rights the haswell i3 should be faster than the 1st gen i5, given that cpu usage rarely goes over 50% on either system. But I just wanted to highlight the fact that this is not the case. The 1st gen i5 unquestionably feels like the faster machine. Even though the i3 scores higher in passmark, peacekeeper, pi, and 3dmark.

About the only thing that could explain it is maybe the lower amount of cache. But I have not seen any benchmarks that show cache being worth all that much. Maybe the benchmarks on cache do not tell the whole story. Or maybe its somethign else. I dont know. All I know is that next time I will buy an i5, even if its a used 2500k.

To my knowledge, that Clarkdale "i5" does not have more cache than a Haswell i3. It's basically an i3 too, the only difference being that it has a small turbo at stock which you probably disabled when you overclocked.

EDIT: I'd bet that the differences in perceived performance have nothing to do with the CPU itself. More likely there's a software difference.

 

[Arkaign]

No guys. The i5 750 is a true quad Lol. Comparing a dual + ht to a quad, the quad does pull ahead with multitasking in my experience.

It's confusing because 1156 i5 650 is a dual, but i5 750/760 are quads. Add in oc, and it's not so clear. Haswell has a lot of IPC tweaks over lynndale but a 4+GHz true quad should run smoother in a pretty busy system (av/amw/misc startup/misc background bits). It's not uncommon for me to see 85+ processes going in a system with no open apps.