Which CPU road should I go down?

Criller · 14 Apr 2010 at 16:49

Hello,
I'm looking to build a PC, which I haven't done for a long time now. I'm not sure what CPU I should be looking at. I want to stick with Intel but don't know the differences between Core 2 Quad and i5. I'm looking to spend around £160'ish. The PC will be used for gaming, low level photo editing, web design and music/video playback. At this stage I'm not looking to overclock.

Any advice you guys can give will be appreciated. Can you suggest any good websites I can use for reference?

Thanks in advance.

PJ

Azuse05 · 14 Apr 2010 at 16:52

i5 750, best cpu in the bracket.

Lleot · 14 Apr 2010 at 17:16

The i3's are great processors for gaming.

jorzeh · 14 Apr 2010 at 17:46

I5 750 and OC to 4ghz
If your going to add 1-4 Cards in SLI or crossfire go for X58 mainboard and I7 920-930.

I hope you mean £160 for the CPU alone otherwise you won't get anything for that money even a E5300 + ram + cooler + mb is £240?

Marine-RX179 · 14 Apr 2010 at 17:57

If building fron scratch, definitely i5 750 over Core2Quad. Cost less, faster and newer tech.

If going down the i5 750 road and think you might go xfire/SLI in the future, make sure the motherboard you getting would provide 8x/8x lane when xfire/SLI, as most sub-£120 1156 motherboard their 2nd PCI-E x16 slot drop down to 4x lane when xfire/SLI, meaning that it 'support' xfire/SLI on paper, but in reality it doesn't.

Angst · 14 Apr 2010 at 18:00

Tbh with your budget you may be best off looking at a Phenom II cpu because they come with a higher stock frequency than the i5's which is good since you mentioned that you werent looking to overclock. But if you insist on intel the i5 is a good choice.

AaronS · 14 Apr 2010 at 18:08

Phenom II cheaper, cheaper motherboards usually too, the 955 is 3.2GHz and 965 is 3.4GHz but don't have the intel features.. might be worth thinking about if not OC'ing

But best in the price bracket is the i5 750.. it's pretty much an updated Core 2 Quad, and has turbo mode.. hence the 'update', the i5 is on offer at the moment . Turbo mode means it will reach 3.2GHz without you changing any settings or overclocking yourself, the other i5's are dual core

Both are similar but Intel will OC better

I love AMD but have an i7 XD

Azuse05 · 14 Apr 2010 at 18:50

Not really, the 750 is a long way ahead of the 965be but they're (virtually the same price) while the ram/mobos are too (see here).

pastymuncher · 14 Apr 2010 at 18:58

AMD makes more sense at the moment as both of Intels sockets are EOL next year.

AaronS · 14 Apr 2010 at 19:16

I think the AMD socket will be ok for the new 6 core CPU's, with a kind of AM3+ backwards compatibility

smilertoo · 14 Apr 2010 at 19:18

Intel is getting through sockets stupidly fast lately. With all their money you'd think they could design one that didnt need to be updated 2 years later.

Marine-RX179 · 14 Apr 2010 at 19:42

phill0i said:
Tbh with your budget you may be best off looking at a Phenom II cpu because they come with a higher stock frequency than the i5's which is good since you mentioned that you werent looking to overclock. But if you insist on intel the i5 is a good choice.

You do realise that i5 750 stock speed at 2.66GHz is actually FASTER than Phenom II 965BE at stock speed 3.4GHz and even Q6600 oc at 3.7GHz right? Guess not.

Also, the i5 750 can overclock by around 1.5GHz, whereas Phenom II 965BE only overclock by around 600MHz.

As for 6 cores AMD CPU, it would need to be significantly faster than the current Phenom II to be consider meaningful upgrade. Having 2 extra cores over Quad would benefit multi-thread applications and video encoding etc, but it won't boost gaming performance unless game developers write the games to support 5th and 6th cores, which I don't see will be happening in the near future.

Justintime · 14 Apr 2010 at 19:45

How many people actually upgrade the cpu after the first build?

AaronS · 14 Apr 2010 at 19:50

If you keep up to date then with AMD you need to change every 2 years aswell, with the except (maybe) of AM2+

AaronS · 14 Apr 2010 at 19:53

Justintime said:
How many people actually upgrade the cpu after the first build?

I keep mine until I need to, by then the CPU socket changed 2-3 times, AMD and Intel, my last one didn't support DDR3, or have PCI-E, and just had SATA, DDR3 will last probably another year, I hope PCI-E stays and SATA is good just because it's backwards compatible. If you upgrade the CPU and keep the motherboard, you are almost always going to be behind the latest CPU sockets anyways..

Chapa · 14 Apr 2010 at 20:53

i have the intel i5 750 together with Gigabyte P55 US3L.

What a monster of a combination this has been.

Really cheap and very overclockable if you need it.

Just remember to buy
the 1600mhz ram, so that you have the best option when overclocking.

Runs really fast and smooth with win7 64 bit

CAT-THE-FIFTH · 14 Apr 2010 at 20:58

I would probably wait until the Phenom II X6 1055T comes out in the next week or two to see how it performs. The Core i5 750 has started to creep up in cost over the last few months and having another CPU in a similar price range should hopefully lead to a reduction in price.

AaronS · 14 Apr 2010 at 21:42

CAT-THE-FIFTH said:
I would probably wait until the Phenom II X6 1055T comes out in the next week or two to see how it performs. The Core i5 750 has started to creep up in cost over the last few months and having another CPU in a similar price range should hopefully lead to a reduction in price.

That's true but even then the i5 will be better for gaming as I don't think any will be able to use all 6 threads, but 6 cores will be nice and tempting for many

Angst · 15 Apr 2010 at 00:11

AaronS said:
That's true but even then the i5 will be better for gaming as I don't think any will be able to use all 6 threads, but 6 cores will be nice and tempting for many

The i5 is good for gaming when overclocked but since the op has stated he does not wish to overclock the high stock frequency of the phenom II 965BE and the upgrade path of the am3 socket seems better suited to his uses.

AaronS · 15 Apr 2010 at 02:54

Numbers don't matter, the Intel has better architecture, A faster dual core will run faster than a slower quad core in terms of FPS, also in terms of FPS the i5 750 is just behind the i7 speeds, comparing the Intel and the AMD are really comparing apples and oranges.. you won't notice a difference in either really.

Intel supports higher ram speeds and has turbo mode
AMD is cheaper and higher stock speeds

If you went for i7 then you'd be able to use the x6 i7's aswell... once the price drops..