How much better is i3 / X4?

Marine-RX179 · 22 Jul 2011 at 19:23

marms said:
The OP also asked about Windows 7 proformance and productivity and if the two processors were almost equal in gaming at stock the Phenom will then pull ahead when overclocked.

If you read the bench I posted before, you will see that a Phenom II X4 980BE at 3.7 GHz basically represent 955BE at 3.2GHz overclocked to 3.7GHz, and it is only par with i3 2100 even in games like BFBC2 that are well-optimised for quad, and in games that don't use the 4 cores fully, the Phenom II X4 at 3.7GHz falls well behind.

Danny862 said:
Very ture....

anyone against this

AMD Phenom X4 955BE @3.8GHz
Artic Cooling Freezer Pro 7
4GB DDR3 1600
ASUS Motherboard (FullATX)

If you get the i3 2100/2120, you wouldn't even need to spend money on getting a 3rd party cooler.

Windows 7 won't make general applications, or games that run in one or two thread suddenly become running in 4 threads. Unless you got any specific/specialised software for work that runs in multi-thread, the i3 2100 will still be faster in everyday applications, as I have said before. The seriously aging K10 architecture of the Phenom II is simply too slow comparing to new architecture like SandyBridge when running light-threaded software and application (which is what majority of general applications that people use). Also, have a look at the multi-tasking comparison:
http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/cpus/2011/07/01/intel-core-i3-2100-review/5

And for gaming, let me put it this way:
Let's assume i3 2100 and Phenom II X4 955BE at 3.8GHz is the same in quad-core games like BFBC2
i3 2100 at 100% performance
Phenom II X4 955BE 3.8GHz at 100% performance

But what about in two core games like Crysis?
i3 2100 at 100% performance
Phenom II X4 955BE 4 cores with only 2 cores used for the game=50% performance

I hope you understand what I'm saying.

Jayster · 22 Jul 2011 at 19:53

Danny862 said:
Very ture....

anyone against this

AMD Phenom X4 955BE @3.8GHz
Artic Cooling Freezer Pro 7
4GB DDR3 1600
ASUS Motherboard (FullATX)

thanks agian

Yes don't get that cooler, it performs around the same as the stock cooler.

Marine-RX179 said:
Not real world? Different CPUs are compared on the same graphic card with the same graphic settings and ran through the same bench under the same condition. Bar chart showing the frame rate aside, they have shown a line-graph showing the ups and downs during the bench for comparing between different CPUs.

They are not real world because its at settings which are only demanding on the cpu and use little of the gpu real world would be how two cpu's stack up against each other with normal gaming settings and not just settings which put stress on the cpu. If this where the case the difference between the two systems would be far less.

Marine-RX179;19642164 I think you probably just failed to perceive the difference in smoothness said:
more expensive[/I].

The graphics settings where maxed out at 1080p on all the games. His i7 is indeed overclocked, on water at that and the fact that both cards are very close in performance is entirely possible they are two high end cards. As I said the 580 only pulls away when extreme tessellation is involved.

I personally don't think anybody on here really cares about how much energy their main rig uses and just care about its capabilities. A third party cooler is only need if op really wants to push the chip and as said before the stock cooler is fairly beefy and will allow the chip to be pushed past stock and the only reason the i3 does not need a third party cooler is because it cannot be overclocked.

As I said before in a real world gaming scenario the difference in frame rate will be tiny while in other applications/games which make use of the extra cores the Phenom will pull ahead.

And the AM3+ build I was able to make came in cheaper than a 2100 based system with roughly the same features.

Marine-RX179 said:
And for gaming, let me put it this way:
Let's assume i3 2100 and Phenom II X4 955BE at 3.8GHz is the same in quad-core games like BFBC2
i3 2100 at 100% performance
Phenom II X4 955BE 3.8GHz at 100% performance

But what about in two core games like Crysis?
i3 2100 at 100% performance
Phenom II X4 955BE 4 cores with only 2 cores used for the game=50% performance

I hope you understand what I'm saying.

Problem with that is most new games now make use of more cores and even a lot older games. Also Crysis performs better with more than 2 cores.

Marine-RX179 · 22 Jul 2011 at 23:52

Jayster said:
Problem with that is most new games now make use of more cores and even a lot older games. Also Crysis performs better with more than 2 cores.

Problem? How is it a problem when the i3 2100 performance is on par with Phenom II X4 at 3.7~3.8GHz in games that are optimised for quad? If there's any problem, it is with Phenom II X4 performance being worse in games that use less than 4 cores; and there are still many new games don't use all 4 cores fully, but only around 2~3 cores.

You keep claiming how in actual gaming it is not as CPU demanding as bench, but the fact is except for scenes that are closed area and with few enemies or indoor linear games, fighting in open area with lots of background details plus lots of enemies IS CPU demanding. It's fine if the game uses all 4 cores, but if not, during those CPU intentive moments (with lots of thing going on at a place with lots of graphic details) GPU usage will drop from the constant 99% right down by anything between from 10% to 60% depending on how fast the graphic card is, and frame rate would drop rapidly when that happens.

And yea, for 1920 res performance between 6970 and GTX580 is not really noticeable since both can handle settings like 4xAA or even 8xAA on the mid-high damanding games at ease, and you won't notice the much different unless you take frame rate readings considering the minimum wouldn't be too huge a different, and max fps is capped by monitor at 60fps.

Also, going down the AM3+ path is not such a good idea...as performance of Bulldozer is uncertain...in fact, even when will the CPU really gonna be availiable still not yet confirmed, with delay after delay. The OP would be much better of just stretch the budget right now, grab a P67/Z68 and go for a 2500K build right now and get next gen performance "today", not next gen performance "don't know when and if it is going to be faster than SB".

It is quite sad how not all games are well-optimised for Quad after such a long time...if the games developers would make it strict standard to make all their games run great on Quad, I wouldn't even have to consider upgrading from my overclocked Q6600 right now- it is such a pain playing MMOs that only using 2~3 cores, and with my 5850's GPU usage dropping from 99% right down to 50~60% going from none busy area into a busy area, and with frame rate dropping from 70fps at 99% GPU usage right down to 23fps at 50% GPU usage. If the game would use all 4 cores, my GPU usage wouldn't drop to so low, and frame rate would most likely have no problem remaining above 30fps at all time. If I had the i3 2100 in this situation, the GPU usage would most likely be around 90%~ with frame rate well above 30fps instead, since 2 cores isn't bottlenecked by the game's low number of threads.

Here's another review on i3 2100...it has a clear lead over the 955BE:
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu/display/core-i3-2120-2100_5.html#sect0
Overclocking the 955BE to 3.7~3.8GHz would put it on par with i3 2100. Yes in rare occasion it might be a tiny be faster (like 1~2fps faster) in games that well-optimised for quad, but most games isn't unfortunely....as the list have shown. This is probably something to do with console porting, which franky isn't going to change.

And if you are gonna say benchmark doesn't reflect actual gaming again, you should probably consider leaving this forum- as when we post a point/claim here, we always use reviewer's results and findings as reference as evidence to back up our points, not the "because I say so" like you are doing at the moment. Yes benchs isn't everything, but it is still considered as the most reliable form of evidences effective for showing comparison between performance of hardware here on the forum.

Davedree · 23 Jul 2011 at 01:32

Marine guy i've read posts by you in the past and respect you do have valid opinions. I agree with you on many on them, especially on the basis of max power consumption underload an i3 2100 vs a pII X4 the intel clearly can provide a good performance for almost half the power requirements.

However when comparing in gaming performance and has been noted by Jayster yes the i3 2100 can provide greater fps than any amd offering when the resolution is lower than 1920 x 1080, but once you are at 1920x1080 and above as you are well aware the cpu plays a less important part.

All your links

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu...0_5.html#sect0
http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/cpu...-2100-review/5

show the resolution below or equal to 1680x1050, Now if you happen to use that resolution then fair enough but then you wouldn't need a 580 or 6970 to run at that res you could get by with a less powerful gpu. But at 1920 x1080 the intels may have a slight advantage 3-5 fps maybe than an amd system. But it really comes down to the gpu now.

let me show you evidence if you dont trust my own experience and findings.

http://www.guru3d.com/article/phenom-ii-x4-980-be-processor-review/15
http://www.guru3d.com/article/crysis-2-dx11-vga-and-cpu-performance-benchmarks/5
http://www.guru3d.com/article/crysis-2-dx11-vga-and-cpu-performance-benchmarks/6

So its a compromise between the screen size and resolution you need to play at vs the quality settings of the gpu you run and your budget.
So basically if you're running 1680x1050 or below then you want the cheapest intel with a mid range gpu. and anything above 1680 then an amd x4 or the cheapest intel equivalent with a poweful gpu will provide better bang for buck.

Like you mention there also the problem with console porting and the still lack of games to utilise quad cores, What we are seeing is identical to when the first dual cores from amd arrived. People who had their old 3800+/4000+ single cores were getting better performance than the x2's, until the software caught up. But my pc isn't just for gaming it works very well for my needs, for encoding blu-ray dvd's, making and editing films.

Jayster · 23 Jul 2011 at 01:33

Marine-RX179 said:
And if you are gonna say benchmark doesn't reflect actual gaming again, I would suggest you consider leaving this forum, as when we make a point/claim in what we post here, we always use reviewer's results as reference as evidence to back up our points, not the "because I say so" like you are doing at the moment. Yes benchs isn't everything, but it is still considered as the most reliable form of evidences here on the forum.

Basically what I said was at the settings and resolution those benchmarks where done at does not compare to real world gaming framerates where a GPU is the limiting factor with any modern CPU (Which I would consider Phenom II or i series processors). In a scenario where the resolution is at 1920x1080 or higher and settings are maxed out the framerate difference between two modern cpu's is tiny.
Also I am not trying to say benchmarks mean nothing just that the ones you posted do not relate to the real world.
I personally think that the reason reviews don't use real world settings for benchmarks is because the performance difference is so small.

As for you saying a Phenom II X4 will bottleneck a GPU from your experience with a Q6600 is simply not valid a C3 stepping Phenom II X4 is a lot faster than a first gen core2quad and will clock further.

I am just trying to give AMD a fair representation, They can still produce potent CPU's which are priced very well and tend to cater to a audience with a smaller budget, You could say that I am biased however there is a reason that just at the start of this week I switched from a Q8300 to this setup.

Edit: This is a very interesting thread.

CAT-THE-FIFTH · 23 Jul 2011 at 01:57

BTW,I would ignore ANY CPU review from Bit-farce. They seem to be under the delusion that a Phenom II X4 is slower than a Core i3 2100 in HandBrake and that a Phenom II X6 was marginally faster!! Since I own a Core i3 2100 myself I was interested to see if this was true. Against my mildly overclocked Q6600 it was slower and it was slower than a 2.9GHZ Phenom II X4 in a mates computer. After comparing a few more results(actually over 40) on another forum it does seem the Bit-tech results for HandBrake are weird and many other review websites also seem to confirm this.

Another thing! The current Phenom II X4 955BE CPUs seem to be hitting 4GHZ+ relatively easily too.

Davedree · 23 Jul 2011 at 02:09

if only phenom II came out as the original phenom I hey ho..

Yeah Amd have had a refined 45nm process for quite a while now.

Marine-RX179 · 23 Jul 2011 at 02:59

Davedree said:
Like you mention there also the problem with console porting and the still lack of games to utilise quad cores, What we are seeing is identical to when the first dual cores from amd arrived. People who had their old 3800+/4000+ single cores were getting better performance than the x2's, until the software caught up. But my pc isn't just for gaming it works very well for my needs, for encoding blu-ray dvd's, making and editing films.

But the situation here is different...Quad-core is already fully utilised in games like BFBC2...and a Phenom II X4 at 3.7~3.8GHz has already been shown to be only on par with i3 2100 in it. So the simple logic is that- why pray and hope for new games (or older games that you wish to play) is optimised for Quad so that the Quad-core can give it a 100%, when the i3 can deliver 100% regardless of the game being 2 or 3 or 4 thread?

Also, the OP has not mentioned he's gonna be doing anything specific that's multi-threaded like video encoding etc, so it would only natural to assume he's only gonna be using the PC for general usage and gaming.

5fps differenct might not seem like a lot, but 5fps difference in minimum frame rate, such as 25fps vs 30fps could make the difference of whether or not the game is considered as smooth. For example, dropping from 35fps down to 30fps might not be too noticable, but dropping from 35fps down to 25fps would be quite noticable and give off the feeling of not smooth due to the steeper fall in frame rate. SB Quad will deliver higher minimum frame rate than Phenom II X4/X6, due to the better architecture. Looking at BFBC2's benchs...how I wish all games were as well-optimised for quad-core as it does...sigh...

Putting the subject of i3 2100 and Phenom II X4 955 performance aside, going down the AM3+ path not a very good idea, with Bulldozer performance and launch date still not confirmed. Comparing to getting a Phenom II X4 955 now and open up his wallet again to upgrade to Bulldozer in the future, he'd better off just stretch his budget and get a 2500K build right now.

CAT-THE-FIFTH said:
BTW,I would ignore ANY CPU review from Bit-farce. They seem to be under the delusion that a Phenom II X4 is slower than a Core i3 2100 in HandBrake and that a Phenom II X6 was marginally faster!! Since I own a Core i3 2100 myself I was interested to see if this was true. Against my mildly overclocked Q6600 it was slower and it was slower than a 2.9GHZ Phenom II X4 in a mates computer. After comparing a few more results(actually over 40) on another forum it does seem the Bit-tech results for HandBrake are weird and many other review websites also seem to confirm this.

Another thing! The current Phenom II X4 955BE CPUs seem to be hitting 4GHZ+ relatively easily too.

Not quoting's bit-tech video encoding result since they seem to use a different encoding test method, and I don't think we need to know video-encoding performance unless the OP specified he'll be video encoding. On the gaming side the performance of i3 2100/2120 being on par with overclocked Phenom II X4, and with the i3 being ahead in lighter-threaded games has been confirmed in various reviews.

Actually looking back at OP's original post, he'd probably best just make do with what he's got at the moment, save up more money. By the time he got enough money (may be £400 budget instead of current's £200), Bulldozer should hopefully be out, and then he can decide whether to go SB or BD then.

CAT-THE-FIFTH · 23 Jul 2011 at 04:09

Marine-RX179 said:
Not quoting's bit-tech video encoding result since they seem to use a different encoding test method, and I don't think we need to know video-encoding performance unless the OP specified he'll be video encoding. On the gaming side the performance of i3 2100/2120 being on par with overclocked Phenom II X4, and with the i3 being ahead in lighter-threaded games has been confirmed in various reviews.

Those video encoding results are very dodgy and the opposite of what is seen with virtually every other review website out there using MULTIPLE review methods. This is the same bunch of reviewers who are unaware of core unlocking on AMD CPUs. However, virtually every other review website has mentioned this or even tried it themselves.

I would not trust any CPU results from that website TBH and avoid them. After all this is the very website who recommended an £80 mATX motherboard with two RAM slots. They are part of Dennis publishing BTW.

There are plenty of other websites out there who do a better job.

LittleChimp · 23 Jul 2011 at 07:26

Amd build with a am3+ motherboard comes into budget.

Uploaded with ImageShack.us

Marine-RX179 · 23 Jul 2011 at 08:26

LittleChimp said:
Amd build with a am3+ motherboard comes into budget.

Uploaded with ImageShack.us

If you are going down the AM3+ path, I would strongly suggest you get a motherboard that ideally has a 900 chipset...or 800 series chipsets at least (rumour has it that 800 series chipets has the same feature wise as 900 series chipsets, but AMD doesn't comment on it...possibly because they need to make money on the "new" chipset). 900 series chipsets is the only chipsets that AMD themself officially acknowledge to support next gen CPU like Bulldozer- boards that use old chipset like 760 but only with the socket updated from AM3 to AM3+ would most likely deliver very poor performance when you put a Bulldozer CPU into it in the future.

Marine-RX179 · 23 Jul 2011 at 08:39

CAT-THE-FIFTH said:
This is the same bunch of reviewers who are unaware of core unlocking on AMD CPUs. However, virtually every other review website has mentioned this or even tried it themselves.

I was under the impression that they don't mention core-unlocking because it not a guaranteed success, so they rather not advise on core unlocking, than have advised their readers and then with them coming back to complain when the cores fail to unlock. Like the 6950 2GB...they didn't keep banging on the unlocking to 6970 2GB drum to their readers, because success/result is not guaranteed.

I agree gaming performance on bit-tech comparing between the i3 2100 and Phenom II X4 980BE doesn't show the whole picture, but their result still valid representation for CPU damanding games that are thread-limited (mmos etc). Putting bit-tech's result aside, most other reviewers confirm that i3 2100 is on par with overclocked Phenom II X4 in games that are heavy threaded/optimised for Quad...so there's no significant advantage in having a Quad-core in this situation.

CAT-THE-FIFTH · 23 Jul 2011 at 09:50

Marine-RX179 said:
I was under the impression that they don't mention core-unlocking because it not a guaranteed success, so they rather not advise on core unlocking, than have advised their readers and then with them coming back to complain when the cores fail to unlock. Like the 6950 2GB...they didn't keep banging on the unlocking to 6970 2GB drum to their readers, because success/result is not guaranteed.

It is because it makes the AMD CPUs look better value. They are a more pro-Intel and pro-Nvidia review site and this has been the case for years now. The fact of the matter is that they use the "maximum overclocks" argument to determine CPU value which is stupid. Overclocking is not guaranteed either especially in the best case scenario which they always seem to try and push.

On top of this they also make multiple errors in their articles(linking to wrong cards for example).

FFS,who the heck would recommend an £80 mATX socket 1155 motherboard for £80 which has only two RAM slots?? There are plenty of better motherboards for the price especially since it was an H67 based one!!

On top of this they recommended an aftermarket cooler for an H67 motherboard and Core i3 2100 combination!! What is the point when neither can be overclocked and the stock cooler is not noisey?? Even in my mini-ITX case with limited airflow the CPU runs within its rated temperatures.

They were also recommending paying £130 for a GTX460 when the retailers they were suggesting were having HD6870 1GB cards for the same price!!

They are rubbish review site and a joke.

Marine-RX179 said:
I agree gaming performance on bit-tech comparing between the i3 2100 and Phenom II X4 980BE doesn't show the whole picture, but their result still valid representation for CPU damanding games that are thread-limited (mmos etc). Putting bit-tech's result aside, most other reviewers confirm that i3 2100 is on par with overclocked Phenom II X4 in games that are heavy threaded/optimised for Quad...so there's no significant advantage in having a Quad-core in this situation.

I agree with you that even in multi-threaded games the Core i3 2100 has decent performance but like I mentioned before the newer Phenom II X4 955BE CPUs can hit 4GHZ+ relatively easily it seems nowadays. However,as you mentioned before maybe the OP should wait a bit longer to see what the new CPU releases this look like.

OTH,the main reason I bought a Core i3 2100 was for its mix of performance and power consumption which was ideal for a SFF light gaming build.

Marine-RX179 · 23 Jul 2011 at 10:06

CAT-THE-FIFTH said:
They were also recommending paying £130 for a GTX460 when the retailers they were suggesting were having HD6870 1GB cards for the same price!!

I think they way the do recommendation is that they don't really factor in the price drop too much after launch, but then again if we were to say 6870 can be picked up for £130~£140, then we could say GTX460 1GB is sub £100 as well base of prices we've see recently. With the 6870 being 30~40% more expensive, how much faster is an overclocked 6870 comparing to an overclocked GTX460 1GB? Is it really worth the 30~40% extra in price? That's something worth thinking about. But personally, I think the Sapphire 5850 extreme makes both of these cards not as bang for bucks in comparison.

To be fair they did recommend 5870 over GTX470/GTX480 back then, and now they are recommending the Sapphire 5850 Extreme above everything else for entry level £100 range gaming card

CAT-THE-FIFTH said:
I agree with you that even in multi-threaded games the Core i3 2100 has decent performance but like I mentioned before the newer Phenom II X4 955BE CPUs can hit 4GHZ+ relatively easily it seems nowadays. However,as you mentioned before maybe the OP should wait a bit longer to see what the new CPU releases this look like.

OTH,the main reason I bought a Core i3 2100 was for its mix of performance and power consumption which was ideal for a SFF light gaming build.

Out of curiousity have you tried playing light-threaded CPU demanding games like mmos or FSX on the i3 2100 and comparing with overclocked Phenom II X4? I'm currently playing on Global Agenda, and my 5850 is being bottleneck by my overclock Q6600 in intensive battle at open area, with the GPU usage dropping down to as low as 50-60% and frame rate dropping to as low as around 23fps from 70fps at 99% GPU usage, because the stupid game developer didn't optimised the game for Quad-core (CPU usage only max at around 63~65%, rather than at 82%+ like a few others games that are well-optimised for quad which I play). Was wondering what's your take regarding this...

Danny862 · 23 Jul 2011 at 11:56

Thanks, and i did say that 1156 was worthless beacause it is old, by this i ment tthat with 1156 i would be spending £200 minimum to get a motherboard that will (soon enough) be out dated, if i spend £100 and get a Core2Quad Q8300 then, although it is an old socket, i can continue to use my hardware and still have a fast machine,

Any objection to a Q8300??

i dont know how well they overclock but looks like an easier upgrade option than the X4, then i can wait till next few years i can get an i7 IvyBridge or X6 Buldozer (or whatever comes after)

CAT-THE-FIFTH · 23 Jul 2011 at 12:13

Marine-RX179 said:
I think they way the do recommendation is that they don't really factor in the price drop too much after launch, but then again if we were to say 6870 can be picked up for £130~£140, then we could say GTX460 1GB is sub £100 as well base of prices we've see recently. With the 6870 being 30~40% more expensive, how much faster is an overclocked 6870 comparing to an overclocked GTX460 1GB? Is it really worth the 30~40% extra in price? That's something worth thinking about. But personally, I think the Sapphire 5850 extreme makes both of these cards not as bang for bucks in comparison.

To be fair they did recommend 5870 over GTX470/GTX480 back then, and now they are recommending the Sapphire 5850 Extreme above everything else for entry level £100 range gaming card

Out of curiousity have you tried playing light-threaded CPU demanding games like mmos or FSX on the i3 2100 and comparing with overclocked Phenom II X4? I'm currently playingl on Global Agenda, and my 5850 is being bottleneck by my overclock Q6600 in intensive battle at open area, with the GPU usage dropping down to as low as 50-60% and frame rate dropping to as low as around 23fps from 70fps at 99% GPU usage, because the stupid game developer didn't optimised the game for Quad-core (CPU usage only max at around 63~65%, rather than at 82%+ like a few others games that are well-optimised for quad which I play). Was wondering what's your take regarding this...

The GTX460 was not 130 quid at launch and they tend to link to recent prices many times .
The company they usually use has the GTX460 for 110 quid and anyway they could easily have an HD6870 if they ditched the pointless cooler in their recommended build. However, I did manage to correct them one time as they did not realise that a GTX460SE was a slower card and even when the GTX460 was still 130 quid you could get HD6870 cards for around 140 quid.

I have two desktops ATM.The first is a Q6600 and an HD5850 and the second is a Core i3 2100. The only game which pushes the Q6600 is Metro2033.

Global Agenda seems fine on the Core i3 2100 and HD5670 at 1680x1050.Sins of a Solar Empire us fine with both computers IIRC.

Danny862 · 23 Jul 2011 at 16:22

CAT-THE-FIFTH said:
I have two desktops ATM.The first is a Q6600 and an HD5850 and the second is a Core i3 2100. The only game which pushes the Q6600 is Metro2033.

Global Agenda seems fine on the Core i3 2100 and HD5670 at 1680x1050.Sins of a Solar Empire us fine with both computers IIRC.

Just one question: Have you ever used the 5850 in the i3 build?

CAT-THE-FIFTH · 24 Jul 2011 at 11:51

Danny862 said:
Just one question: Have you ever used the 5850 in the i3 build?

The Core i3 based build is an SFF based one which can take short single slot cards such as an HD5670.

koolpc · 24 Jul 2011 at 12:01

What about the Athlon x4. Is that worth considering or does the i3 2100 blow it out of the water?