I Downgraded - i7 to i3,

antipesto93 · 20 Jan 2011 at 22:04

So i downgraded from my an I7 rig to an I3, There where two main reasons, 1) Save money- being a student it was not much point keeping such expensive hardware 2) I never do any video encoding/folding, So no need for an i7 set-up.

(Kept a GTX470 as GPU)
Before:
I7-920 (4.2ghz)
Rampage III extreme
6GB Geil Value plus 1600mhz cl9

Sold all of the above for £380.00

Purchased:
i3-540, 4.4ghz (might get 4.6)
H55M-UD2H
4GB Ripjaws CL7

Cost: £200

= £180 Profit (and Yes its a lot of money to me)

So for benchmarks:
SuperPI time increased (Single threaded benchmark)
Crysis warhead benchmark - No change in FPS
Windows 7 restart time - Increased .
Bad company 2 - No change in FPS -The game really does push the boundaries of this chip, But its a game with exceptionally high cpu requirements
GTA IV - No change in fps (runs maxd out, 80% cpu usage)

So overall it was a pretty good move, I only plan on keeping the rig for another year and it should run any game for the next year as easily as an I7.

1) There are a few downsides - If i ever do any video encoding/edition/design work my I7 would have been better
2) The motherboard is MATX and looks kind of retarded compared to my R3E
3) No usb 3.0/sata 6.0gbps on this specific mobo
4) I3 not ideal for SLI, but am not a fan of SLI anyway
5) hopefully my cpu wont by a bottlenext for Crysis 2!

What's more is i can spend the £180 on things like new graphics card/ speakers/peripherals - where i will actually notice a difference in my urm..'computer useing ' experience

siumatfung · 20 Jan 2011 at 22:07

just buy an i5 if you need it for crysis 2 but wasnt selling your kit in order to save money not ***** it on other stuff ?

antipesto93 · 20 Jan 2011 at 22:08

siumatfung said:
just buy an i5 if you need it for crysis 2 but wasnt selling your kit in order to save money not ***** it on other stuff ?

I guess, But the money i save i can spend on thigs that would really make a difference to my gaming experience, That i would not have otherwise had, No point having a i7 gaming setup with a dell keyboard and ***y speakers!

poor times.... ;(

the1gooner · 20 Jan 2011 at 22:37

I did something similar and now also run an i3 540.

Great processor and I'm running mine at 4Ghz.

antipesto93 · 20 Jan 2011 at 22:39

http://hwbot.org/blog/wp-content/asus_rampage3_small1.jpg
to
http://motherboards-reviews.com/motherboards/Gigabyte/GA-H55M-UD2H/Gigabyte_GA-H55M-UD2H_top.jpg

Painfull.
lol

MaxP779 · 20 Jan 2011 at 22:40

i3 is a good cpu, beats the old Q6600s in most things surprisingly

antipesto93 · 20 Jan 2011 at 22:41

MaxP779 said:
i3 is a good cpu, beats the old Q6600s in most things surprisingly

Yeah, the overclocking potential is amazing, On a megahalem 90% of chips can do 4.0ghz, All of the early batches can safely to 4.4/4.6 :eek:

tiny e-peen though

Chuggerboom · 20 Jan 2011 at 22:45

You can't be that skint if you bought the i7 set up in the first place :confused:

Rizo-UK · 20 Jan 2011 at 22:45

OC potential is Huge on these chips. Im running a 530 @ 4.6 under water at 1.40v and my superpi is 9.790secs almost a 2 seconds faster than my q6600 @3.2.

Relativly cool running too.

antipesto93 · 20 Jan 2011 at 22:49

Chuggerboom said:
You can't be that skint if you bought the i7 set up in the first place

You can be if your'e a student!

antipesto93 · 20 Jan 2011 at 22:51

Rizo-UK said:
OC potential is Huge on these chips. Im running a 530 @ 4.6 under water at 1.40v and my superpi is 9.790secs almost a 2 seconds faster than my q6600 @3.2.

Relativly cool running too.

Yeah, i can idle 23c!, In superPI, there are very few i7's that can beat an i3 as its a single threaded benchmark

Rizo-UK · 20 Jan 2011 at 22:53

Folding im hitting 49oC thats with my GPU in the loop too now.

Idle at approx 31oC.

GPU seen the most benefit from WCing. temps under folding were 80oC with stock cooler. now with WB on GPU its 38oC and ive cranked the clocks up to 1000|2000

P.S sorry for the Thread HiJack

J.D · 21 Jan 2011 at 13:40

Turn HT on when playing BFBC2, there's a significant performance increase for me with my i3 @ 4.2Ghz (This is as far as I'm overclocking on stock cooler).

alfalavala · 21 Jan 2011 at 13:57

antipesto93 said:
You can be if your'e a student!

Whole first term's loan on new computer

Then you get hungry later that day...

Ranger07 · 21 Jan 2011 at 14:08

You should have sold the graphics card and bought a cheaper one. Then you can stop playing games when your ment to be studying

iamtheoneneo · 21 Jan 2011 at 14:12

i always like to see threads like this...just goes to show that nowadays an i3 is better than a q6600 (even though the fanboys would have you believe otherwise) and further confirms that if your not doing else other then gaming an i3 is all you need.

MikeHunt79 · 21 Jan 2011 at 14:13

i3 is nice, enjoy a quieter system and reduced power consumption also.

As you say, if you don't do folding/encoding then it does seem a little OTT to be getting an i7...

daz · 21 Jan 2011 at 14:21

antipesto93 said:
You can be if your'e a student!

Word. Student loan comes through... you think you're rich... ***** it on some cool stuff. Few weeks later, you've had a rent and some bills go out... you then realise you have another couple of months to go before the next loan installment.

antipesto93 · 21 Jan 2011 at 14:25

iamtheoneneo said:
i always like to see threads like this...just goes to show that nowadays an i3 is better than a q6600 (even though the fanboys would have you believe otherwise) and further confirms that if your not doing else other then gaming an i3 is all you need.

- In my case- Even if you are gaming

Runs bad company 2 as well as my i7

MikeHunt79 said:
i3 is nice, enjoy a quieter system and reduced power consumption also.

As you say, if you don't do folding/encoding then it does seem a little OTT to be getting an i7...

18c idle temps, thats with 1.4v voltage going through it! - pretty sure i could turn off moey of my fans

J.D said:
Turn HT on when playing BFBC2, there's a significant performance increase for me with my i3 @ 4.2Ghz (This is as far as I'm overclocking on stock cooler).

Yeah an i3 with no HT could not handle many games at all, with HT it runs BC2 fine, wich is like one of the most cpu intensive games...ever

iamtheoneneo · 21 Jan 2011 at 14:43

antipesto93 said:
Yeah an i3 with no HT could not handle many games at all, with HT it runs BC2 fine, wich is like one of the most cpu intensive games...ever

why do you say that? yod still have 2 effective cores? more than enough for gaming bar say bc2 which runs well on 4 cores and why HT is important for that.