Need Intel CPU & MB combo for under $250 (some gaming)

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Maverick2002

Diamond Member
Jul 22, 2000
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I'm looking for the best Intel CPU & motherboard combo I can get this month for under $250 when all is said and done. I won't be playing any games for a while, but I do plan on maxing out Starcraft2 and Diablo3 on a 1920x1200 screen when they're released. I probably will overclock. Intel only.

So far I'm thinking i3 530 & some board. Do I really need more than 2 cores? For the board I was thinking either H55/57 (what's the difference?), preferably with 6G Sata and USB3. I'll be using the on-package video until the games are released, then purchase whatever card makes sense at that point.

Is this a good CPU choice? I hear they're quiet/cool.
What about motherboard? Looks like there are a few options at the 'egg, not sure if there's a "best".

TIA!
 
Spikesoldier

Spikesoldier

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Oct 15, 2001
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i went with the i3 530 with p55 extreme asrock mainboard. i knew full well that if my max OC didnt get to where i wanted it to, or i destroyed the cpu trying to get it where i wanted, or lastly in the future when it became too slow that i could throw a real i5 or i7 in it down the road.

for a 99 dollar chip and ~120 mainboard, i feel the value is very high. i ensure 4.0 with stock cooler every time.
i would even venture to say that with a quality mainboard that you can hit north of 4.0 every time with the i3 530.

if i could do it over again i would have sprang for the i3 540 with the 1x higher multiplier in my pursuit of max air OC.
 
jthunderloc

jthunderloc

Senior member
Dec 28, 2009
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I picked up an i3 540 from frys with a mobo combo for $130 AR. Sold the board that came with it and picked up the MSI H55M-ED55. Planning on running it with dual 4890s. The board comes in tomorrow, the 2nd 4890 comes in friday and I'll report back with my findings. reviews seem positive on this board and its one of the lowest priced 8x8x crossfire board.

This i3 540 easily OC'd to 4.29 in a gigabyte board.

-Wes
 
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soccerballtux

Lifer
Dec 30, 2004
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jthunderloc said:
I picked up an i3 540 from frys with a mobo combo for $130 AR. Sold the board that came with it and picked up the MSI H55M-ED55. Planning on running it with dual 4890s. The board comes in tomorrow, the 2nd 4890 comes in friday and I'll report back with my findings. reviews seem positive on this board and its one of the lowest priced 8x8x crossfire board.

This i3 540 easily OC'd to 4.29 in a gigabyte board.

-Wes
Click to expand...

great deal for the price, but I am a little worried about being bottlenecked by your CPU with only 2 logical cores.

If you could bench minimum, average, and max framerates, that would be really neat to see. Crossfire has overhead, etc. etc.
 
jthunderloc

jthunderloc

Senior member
Dec 28, 2009
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I was planning on running a few benchmarks on it, 3Dmark06 and 3DVantage and a Crysis benchmark. Any requests? Free or trail editions. Plan on trying out Bad Company 2 as well.

-Wes
 
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Maverick2002

Diamond Member
Jul 22, 2000
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So will an i3 be sufficient for SC2/D3 maxed at 1920x1200 (assuming the video card is good enough)?

What's the difference between H55 and 57 boards and is there a good one I should go for in particular? As I mentioned I'll be using the on-chip graphics until those games are released, then switch over to a separate card.
 
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saratoga172

Golden Member
Nov 10, 2009
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I was at Frys over the past weekend and picked up their i5-750/MSI mobo combo for $220 after MIR. $250 plus tax at the register. Haven't tried overclocking it as I see no need. Upgraded from an e2160 with 2GB of ram. Huge improvement.

I also paired it with an XFX 5770. Needless to say I play everything maxed out at 1080p.

Cliffs: If you're located by a Fry's check out their i5-750/mobo combo if its still available.
 
jthunderloc

jthunderloc

Senior member
Dec 28, 2009
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from the little bit of testing I've done, the i3 should be plenty unless its a really CPU intensive game. Its performing about the same in game as my Q6600 did. I was going to attempt a crossfire setup but have been unable. TigerDirects XFX card was the crap one with terrible performance. Thus far I've ran BF: Bad Company 2, BF: 2142, and 3Dmark06. The 3Dmark score was pretty close to the score with my Q6600, similar fps in BF2142. Never had a chance to run BF:BD2 on my Q6600 so I cant compare. I did go from 4gb DDR2 on the Q6600 to 2gb DDR3 on the i3 540.

the i3 should be plenty of chip for most, if not all, games. I think the only point you're really going to feel it is in raw computing power for compressing/rendering/etc. Frys sales run from Friday to Thursday, I use this link to check out their sale prices.

as far as H55 vs H57 there is a chart here showing the difference, doesn't really seem to be much. I'm running the MSI H55M-ED55 board from newegg. Doesn't seem too bad, not quite the overclocker the gigabyte board that came with the chip was and the "1 sec OC Genie" is pretty useless, OCing my chip to 3.2ghz and 1.33 vcore. I'm currently running it on a manual OC at 4.0ghz on 1.28 vcore. if running dual GPUs with dual slot coolers doesn't leave room anything else and there is not much room between them.

I'd reckon that an i3 with a little bit of an overclock and a nice GPU will be a screaming little budget gaming rig. Microcenter tends to carry the i3 530 for $99. I would highly recommend getting a combo from Frys. Most of the time its retail price for the CPU with a free mobo and a rebate. they tend to release new cpu/mobo combos fri/sat/sun/mon and sometimes Wednesday. I've got 2 near by and might be able to help out if you don't have one near buy (PM me if your interested)

Edit -
a little googling has found the most likely system specs and even some confirmation regarding GPUs. Looks like there is plenty to read but an i3 and a 5850 should be more then enough.
http://starcraft.incgamers.com/articles/comments/starcraft-2-graphics-requirements-confirmed/
http://starcraft.incgamers.com/articles/comments/starcraft-2-system-requirements

-Wes
 
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jthunderloc

jthunderloc

Senior member
Dec 28, 2009
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I3 is the budget CPU, i5 is mainstream and i7 is enthusiast. I3 have integrated graphics.

Best? Depends on what you need. Clock for clock, core for core they're pretty similar
 
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Maverick2002

Diamond Member
Jul 22, 2000
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I was actually playing the SC2 beta last night on my system (1.8 c2d stock, 7900gs) and it's playable at medium settings at 1280x800, but is a little disappointing from the graphics perspective. I cranked up some settings and it made my system crawl. I assume something like a slightly overclocked i3 with a GTX275 or equivalent should be sufficient to max out SC2/D3 on a 1920x1200 screen? Are there any games that use more than 2 cores?
 
jthunderloc

jthunderloc

Senior member
Dec 28, 2009
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they're starting to become more available, but most are not. I know Dragon age Origins is multi thread optimized, WoW is CPU intensive as well. I'm an FPS guy and for the most part its more about GPU then CPU. With multi core chips being more and more popular programs and games that support them are increasing all the time

-Wes
 
S

soccerballtux

Lifer
Dec 30, 2004
12,553
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Maverick2002 said:
I was actually playing the SC2 beta last night on my system (1.8 c2d stock, 7900gs) and it's playable at medium settings at 1280x800, but is a little disappointing from the graphics perspective. I cranked up some settings and it made my system crawl. I assume something like a slightly overclocked i3 with a GTX275 or equivalent should be sufficient to max out SC2/D3 on a 1920x1200 screen? Are there any games that use more than 2 cores?
Click to expand...

from what I understand SC2 is yet another WoW engine, which was a modified WC3 engine.
 
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Maverick2002

Diamond Member
Jul 22, 2000
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I understand WoW is CPU-heavy, but how many threads can it really use? If the i3/5/7 are all pretty similar core-for-core/clock-for-clock and games don't really use more than 2 cores, what's the point of having a quad core/HT for gaming?
 
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SR1729

Senior member
Jan 11, 2010
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If you live near Microcenter and can stretch your budget just a tad, you can get an i750 for $179 and a Gigabyte mATX P55 for $100 flat. Built one this weekend and is running wonderfully.
 
Arkaign

Arkaign

Lifer
Oct 27, 2006
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Maverick2002 said:
I understand WoW is CPU-heavy, but how many threads can it really use? If the i3/5/7 are all pretty similar core-for-core/clock-for-clock and games don't really use more than 2 cores, what's the point of having a quad core/HT for gaming?
Click to expand...

For whatever reason, WoW sucks CPU like mad, much more than it did at initial release. So yeah, the i3 is a dual-core that seems to not be up to the same performance as the i7 quads for many reasons.

Core for core / clock for clock similar basically means that a dual-core i3 at the same clock will be about half as fast as a quad-core i7 at the same clock, purely for raw CPU performance. An apps friendliness with HT skews this somewhat, and also apps which aren't that cpu dependent. But an i7 Quad will always >>> an i3 Dual, unless the i3 is clocked to neptune. Hell, that Q9400 + P45 combo that Mark posted as the first reply in this thread is a lot more capable than an i3. Overclocked into the mid to high 3ghz range, it will run circles around the 4.6ghz i3 for more things than you'd expect.
 
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