Mini-review: i3 4130

[Yuriman]

Reason the Q6600 wasn't overclocked is that it had some wake-from-sleep issues that were pretty common with Gigabyte boards. When it was my primary system, I ran it at 3GHz@stock voltage, but while my wife was using it I set it back to stock to avoid issues. Plus, with power saving features disabled, it still dumps tons of heat when idling.

 

[Headfoot]

This thread makes me reaaaallly wish they weren't releasing an unlocked pentium, and were releasing an unlocked i3 instead

 

[DownTheSky]

This thread makes me reaaaallly wish they weren't releasing an unlocked pentium, and were releasing an unlocked i3 instead

Yes but then all you'd have to do is buy an i3 and OC-it and beat pretty much all CPUs except the K parts in 95% of the stuff you use.

Since it's smaller I'm sure it would OC better than the i5 as well.

 

[crashtech]

I have to wonder if an unlocked i3 would eclipse the performance of Intel's low-end i5s. What other reason would there be not to provide one?

 

[SPBHM]

I have to wonder if an unlocked i3 would eclipse the performance of Intel's low-end i5s. What other reason would there be not to provide one?

pretty much, i3 K for $180 wouldn't really make any sense, so it would have to be cheaper, and by not enabling HT they can protect the $ 180 3GHz i5s

if you look at things like this:

HT can make a huge difference in a few cases for dual core CPUs, some games (and NV drivers) can work pretty poorly with only 2 threads,
but for others not really, so Pentium K is probably going to be great for most MMOs, some RTS and so on anyway.

 

[frozentundra123456]

pretty much, i3 K for $180 wouldn't really make any sense, so it would have to be cheaper, and by not enabling HT they can protect the $ 180 3GHz i5s

if you look at things like this:

HT can make a huge difference in a few cases for dual core CPUs, some games (and NV drivers) can work pretty poorly with only 2 threads,
but for others not really, so Pentium K is probably going to be great for most MMOs, some RTS and so on anyway.

Possibly, but I dont really see the point of the Pentium K, unless it is 100.00 or less. The problem with the pentium is not clockspeed, really, but the number of threads. I suppose if one only played certain lightly threaded games it could make sense, but I dont really see why one would want to limit themselves for what, 30 or 40 dollars at most cheaper than an i3?

 

[crashtech]

Possibly, but I dont really see the point of the Pentium K, unless it is 100.00 or less. The problem with the pentium is not clockspeed, really, but the number of threads. I suppose if one only played certain lightly threaded games it could make sense, but I dont really see why one would want to limit themselves for what, 30 or 40 dollars at most cheaper than an i3?

The graph SPBHM provided illustrates your point perfectly. Even at 4.6GHz, 2 cores alone with no HT just can't keep up.

 

[Revolution 11]

Yuriman, I don't know if your offer still stands but I would be interested in benchmarks for the Dolphin emulator and Minecraft on whatever PCs you still have.