Budget Cpu - I3 2130

[Allnamestaken]

Hey guys,

I managed to get my hands on one of these.

For my entry level budget gaming mini Pc.

I got it for £75 unboxed.

Whats your opinions?? i been reading reviews but they vary it seems that it would be a good card with say a 6950 etc specialy for bf3.

Still cant argue for the price I guess.

 

[Fire_fly]

They are a good budget CPU, and should pair well with either a 6950 or 7850. I think it may struggle a bit on the very large multiplayer maps in BF3 with lots of players though as this puts a lot of load on the CPU.

 

[Marine-RX179]

Yes it would be a good match for 6950/GTX560Ti level cards. I built my friend a PC with a i3 2120 pair with GTX560Ti 2GB (overclocked to 950MHz). On BF3 64 players map there is indeed a slight bottleneck, but not too bad. With your i3 2130 the extra 100MHz would certainly help a bit, and for £75 I really think it's a bargain.

The only bad thing I could think of is may be the timing of getting this CPU. IvyBridge i3 was around the corner (or supposed to be launched at end of June but got delayed), and considering the the improvement on IPC, a IvyBridge i3 at 3.4GHz is probably around as as a SandyBridge at around 3.8-4.0GHz. Then again, the IvyBridge would definitely cost more than £75.

 

[SouthEastBlue]

I have the slightly slower i3 2100 version, and it's pretty much acceptable to game with but I rarely max out my GPU usage (drops to 70% at times) in BF3 with a 6870 overclocked to 970 core so it's definitely holding it back.

It performs almost the same as my old unlocked Phenom II X4 @ 3.5Ghz in that specific game. It did do VERY well on World of Warcraft though on 25 man raiding compared to my old CPU, so will excel in single or dual threaded games.

So yeah it's a good budget CPU, with the upgrade path to a quad core.

 

[Marine-RX179]

I have the slightly slower i3 2100 version, and it's pretty much acceptable to game with but I rarely max out my GPU usage (drops to 70% at times) in BF3 with a 6870 overclocked to 970 core so it's definitely holding it back.

Just wondering...have you enabled vsync in game? Cause with the frame rate dipping, the vsync would force the frame rate down more than it should, which would lead to lower GPU usage. My friend had low GPU usage problem with vsync, and it was resolved (well, with higher GPU usage and frame rate) by disabling the in game vsync and use the driver's triple-buffer vsync.

 

[SouthEastBlue]

V-sync is enabled in game yeah. I'm not home to test until the weekend though, but will give that a go when I get back, thanks for the tip!