Is the I3 a worth while upgrade?

[GoStumpy]

I can't believe how much "omg u can't buy anything but a 2500k" is going around lately?

Seriously, a 2500k + P67 or Z68 mobo is nearly double the price of an i3-2100 and a h61/h67 mobo... DOUBLE.

And tell me, oh please tell me, for an AVERAGE USER, what benifit will they see in a 2500k over a i3-2100? IF ANY, it will be SMALL.

Sure, I want a 2500k, but do I really need one?

 

[bononos]

I can't believe how much "omg u can't buy anything but a 2500k" is going around lately?

Seriously, a 2500k + P67 or Z68 mobo is nearly double the price of an i3-2100 and a h61/h67 mobo... DOUBLE.

And tell me, oh please tell me, for an AVERAGE USER, what benifit will they see in a 2500k over a i3-2100? IF ANY, it will be SMALL.

Sure, I want a 2500k, but do I really need one?

If everyone had that sort of attitude, there would be a lot less SUVs around and houses would be =

 

[Don Karnage]

Op don't listen to the people saying get a 2500k. Go with the I3 and a cheap z68 board then he can decide to upgrade to ivy bridge in 4+ months time. 2100 is a great budget gaming chip

 

[mnewsham]

I can't believe how much "omg u can't buy anything but a 2500k" is going around lately?

Seriously, a 2500k + P67 or Z68 mobo is nearly double the price of an i3-2100 and a h61/h67 mobo... DOUBLE.

And tell me, oh please tell me, for an AVERAGE USER, what benifit will they see in a 2500k over a i3-2100? IF ANY, it will be SMALL.

Sure, I want a 2500k, but do I really need one?

Hell, most people don't NEED the i3 either, A sandy bridge Pentium would do just fine for most average users. I know a lot of people who need more, but I am also a very computer oriented guy. My "normal" friends don't do really anything that needs a real nice CPU except playing a game every now and then that they get bored of and end up playing something else on their PS3 anyway. In short, 70% of people wont need anything more powerful then a pentium. Those that do could probably get by with the i3, the top 5% are the ones who actually NEED i5's and i7's.

 

[sm625]

His biggest problem is most likely his 1x2GB + 1x1GB RAM combination. It is most likely NOT running in dual channel mode. Because of this, his quad core is going to feel a hell of a lot slower than it need be. Going from that to an i3-21xx is going to bump his memory bandwidth 3-4x. The best thing to do is try to cheaply acquire two matching sticks of 2GB. If this is not possible then just pull the mobo, cpu, and ram and sell them for $74. I think with it running it dual channel mode he should be able to get by at least until IB arrives.

 

[fastamdman]

Paperwastage - Just to be clear you are talking about IB like it isn't out yet. IB is out and usable by a lot of people. There are plenty of NDA's out and about with them. I can assure you that IB chips are working on a wide array of z68 motherboards as is now. There are a reason that there are already bios's out there for them lol.

 

[Infraction Jack]

The current system seems really good as is. Why upgrade it now?

 

[Puppies04]

Just built a rig for a friend with a h67 board, I3 2100 and a GTX460. He is loving it. Sure in an ideal world everyone would buy a 2500k as performance per $ is amazing when overclocked but if the I3 is all the OP's friend needs/can afford it is still a very capable setup. Certainly I would reccomend he did his research to see if he could pick up a deal to "upgrade" to a board that is confirmed to be IB compatible and allows overclocking for no other reason than if he ever wants to upgrade in the future he could pick up a used SB/IB "k" quad and make his rig last another few years.

OP ask your friend what he wants to do, lay out the options. If he decides to go I3/H61 that is his choice but he could future proof himself a lot more for a few more dollars or a little more hunting around for deals.

 

[fastamdman]

He said it much better than I could ^^

I agree 100% with puppies04 on this one

 

[Infraction Jack]

Just get an SSD for the current system and maybe bump ram up to 4 gig.

 

[fastamdman]

Eh I still think he would be happier moving to a z68 mobo + any cpu so he would have the option of upgrading later on down the line. It's nice to have the option especially for kids, that way when birthday, christmas, etc comes around they can ask for computer parts

 

[skipsneeky2]

I have a i3 2100 and a gtx560ti.

I play BF3,BC2,crysis all at 1080p and performance is very good.

I did doubt how well the i3 2100 will play these games i even made a thread about it Op so trust me the i3 2100 is a very capable chip and i saw huge gains coming from a core 2 duo e8200 @ 3.2ghz.

The i3 2100 is faster then a first generation quad core q6600 in almost everything but heavily threaded apps so its a good choice:thumbsup:

 

[Puppies04]

Eh I still think he would be happier moving to a z68 mobo + any cpu so he would have the option of upgrading later on down the line. It's nice to have the option especially for kids, that way when birthday, christmas, etc comes around they can ask for computer parts

Z68 has a very specific set of upgrades compared to P67, if the guy is unlikely to use them I don't see why it would make him "happier". If the OP is right and this guy doesn't want to overclock and won't use SSD caching then there is no reason whatsoever not to pick up a H67 board hell if he doesn't need the extra SATA ports and won't be going SLI/crossfire he might aswell save some cash and go with a H61 board that supports IB. Giving him the facts and letting him make he choice himself will make him "happier"

 

[Madpacket]

FWIW I own both a p68/2500k and a z68/2105 and have 6950's in both of them and TBH I don't feel much of a difference when playing the majority of the games I own. Only Skyrim in large towns and 64 player BF3 show a slight increase in FPS when gaming on the 2500k.

If you're not overclocking save the money and grab a 2100 or better a 2120 (if the price difference is less than 10 dollars).

Good luck!

 

[LoneNinja]

I'm not sure how soon this purchase will be happening, probably go to microcenter on his next day off but I don't know for sure. Gives me some more time to research possible Ivy Bridge compatibility issues and explain it to him.

He'll probably still go with the I3/H61, he always opts for the cheap solution. Never spent over $100 on a processor, and never more than $65 on a motherboard before.

Thanks for the feed back, opinions, and advice. As usual this is a great community. I probably won't be posting in this thread again unless I run into any complications.

 

[VirtualLarry]

I'm also toying with a Microcenter "upgrade". This from my Q9300 C2Q chips, overclocked from 2.5 to 3.0.

I looked at the AT CPU bench results, between a Q9650 (3.0Ghz C2Q) and an i3-2100 SB chip. For some heavy multitasking benches, and even a few gaming benchmarks, the Q9650 pulls ahead.
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/49?vs=289

So this would likely be nothing more than a sidegrade for me, especially since I do DC, where a quad-core can be fully utilized. But it would get me to a more updated platform.

However, I want to keep my IDE and floppy ports. So there's two options for me:
http://www.microcenter.com/single_pr...uct_id=0367877
Fatal1ty P67 Performance Socket 1155 P67 ATX Intel Motherboard
$100

http://www.microcenter.com/single_pr...uct_id=0379553
Fatal1ty Z68 Professional Gen3 Socket 1155 Z68 ATX Intel Motherboard
$260

The Z68 Pro is an all-singing, all-dancing, platform. Three PCI-E x16 physical slots (x8/x8/x4), is "Gen3" ready, but is SO DAMN EXPENSIVE.

I once bought some expensive X48 mobos, and then six months later, Gigabyte released their EP45-UD3R/UD3P boards which were as good or better overclockers, and half the price. So I've gotten burned before buying high-end motherboards.

I guess I could definately do with the P67 Performance board, but it's OOS. I hope it gets restocked. (Is Intel still making P67 chipsets even?)

If it doesn't get re-stocked, I'll probably just choose this board:
http://www.microcenter.com/single_pr...uct_id=0367879
Z68 Pro3-M Socket 1155 Z68 mATX Intel Motherboard
$110

Micro-ATX, but WTH, if I'm only going to use one graphics card, might as well. It's cheap enough. ($60 after promo discount)

The Z68 would be nice. I currently own several 30GB OCZ Agility SSDs. I could use one for SSD caching if I get a Z68 board, combined with a 1TB Seagate 7200.12.

If I got the P67 Performance board, then I'd probably just run the OS off of the SSD, and I might dump the 30GB and buy a 60/64 or 120/128GB SSD instead, with the objective to move to a SATA 6Gb/s SSD, instead of just SATA2.

Edit: The other possibility, is to go all-out with ONE of my rigs, and keep that as my gaming rig, and sell off my other two Q9300 rigs (with some low-budget video card in them). In that case, I would get the Z68 Pro, and keep my two GTX460 1GB cards and run them in SLI, and get a 2500K and OC to 4.5 (or whatever I can reasonably get to, at as safe a voltage as possible).

 

[Tsavo]

I'm also toying with a Microcenter "upgrade". This from my Q9300 C2Q chips, overclocked from 2.5 to 3.0.

I know you said MC upgrade, but I got this on sale for my i3. It's pretty half decent.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...MSI%20Z68A-G43

It's still not bad for $118.

nm, just sank in that you want a floppy port for whatever reason.

edit #2: Can't get a Z68 because Intel deprecated their floppy RAID array driver, which sux for anyone that ran their floppies in any set of RAID.

 

[onelivinlarge]

i have an i3 2120 and it bests my friends amd athlon II dual core thats over clocked.
and i keep up with my friend with a amd phenom hex core thats overclocked and we both use gtx 560ti

but i am using a z68 board aswell

 

[jacktesterson]

I can't believe how much "omg u can't buy anything but a 2500k" is going around lately?

Seriously, a 2500k + P67 or Z68 mobo is nearly double the price of an i3-2100 and a h61/h67 mobo... DOUBLE.

And tell me, oh please tell me, for an AVERAGE USER, what benifit will they see in a 2500k over a i3-2100? IF ANY, it will be SMALL.

Sure, I want a 2500k, but do I really need one?

This

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk

 

[VirtualLarry]

I can't believe how much "omg u can't buy anything but a 2500k" is going around lately?

Well, they certainly lasted.

Seriously, a 2500k + P67 or Z68 mobo is nearly double the price of an i3-2100 and a h61/h67 mobo... DOUBLE.

And tell me, oh please tell me, for an AVERAGE USER, what benifit will they see in a 2500k over a i3-2100? IF ANY, it will be SMALL.

Sure, I want a 2500k, but do I really need one?

I think that the concepts in this thread are relevant to today's Ryzen 3000-series CPUs.

You may be asking yourself, "Do I really need a 3900X"? Well, consider this thread as proof.

 

[misuspita]

Lol, a useful necro

 

[SPBHM]

the i3 2100 was under $120 in Q1 2011, I think it did OK for that

 

[Shmee]

The best deal is getting a $1500+ Xeon for under $25 today. Of course finding a working X58 board may be difficult.

 

[CluelessOne]

Is a 7 years old discussion resurrection a record?

 

[UsandThem]

Is a 7 years old discussion resurrection a record?

Not even close.

7 years is bush league. Noobs (and spammers) necro 17-19 year old threads on a semi-regular basis.