Cheap(ish) build i3-4340 or i5-4440?

[fallenangle]

I'm looking to build a sub-£400 desktop (already have monitor etc and HD Radeon 7770 GPU). It will be for day to to day stuff and really just a replacement for a 10 year old Pentium 4 Dell laptop which has always been used as a desktop.

My initial plan was to use an AMD FX-6300 but after much research, luckily, I realised in the expected lifetime of the build it would have running costs so high it would negate it's low purchase price.

My attention was next drawn to the new Intel i5-4440: better than the FX-6300 in all the benchmarks, on board graphics and much lower power consumption in typical use despite its TDP 84W rating. But then I noticed the i3-4340........

I'd dissmissed the older i3s during my earlier researches on the FX-6300 but this new one seems much more like what I'm looking for. £20+ cheaper than the i5-4440, same on board graphics and dramatically lower TDP at 54W.

I know there is a thread here poo-pooing some of the comparison benchmarks you can find for the i3 but as my interest is not OCing or HD gaming I'm not that bothered. I just want the cheapest, best performing/lowest daily running costs CPU I can afford which is going to be useable for years to come.

So the question is really do I go for the i5-4440 with a cheap MB (<£50) or the i3-4340 and something better. With the RAM (2 x 2GB) to include as well ie. CPU, MB and RAM, I can only afford to dedicate around £220 of the build cost to these components if I'm going to bring the total in at under £400, preferably much less.

Any opinions, alternative CPU and MB suggestions welcome.

 

[fallenangle]

Yes I've been looking for cheap deals and I've found both the i5 and i3 with good prices. It is really only because of this I can consider the i5 because much higher than £140 and it would bust my budget.

I hadn't tried eBay so thanks for reminding me to do that.

So that's one vote for the i5-4440.

Edit

Just looked on eBay and the prices there are all over the place and in fact my previous researches seems to have turned up the some of the best current deals already.

However I would like some specific suggestions on the best MB for either mentioned CPUs ie. >£75 for the i3 and >£50 for the i5.

 

[fallenangle]

Can i ask what tasks exactly will you be doing with the PC now ? Id like to give you the best answer for your needs and keeping within your price range.

McT

Everything except serious gaming. I have a so far unfinished gaming desktop build based around a i5-3550 and IGB Radeon 7850 but I need something cheaper to run for everyday use. My 10 year old Dell laptop (used as a desktop) with Win XP is showing signs of its age and will need to be retired to backup when MS XP support ends.

I thought about just buying a new laptop but you've got to spend at least £350 to get something decent new and as I had a Radeon 7770 GPU from the initial build of the gaming rig it just seemq stupid not to use it. So really I want to put together the best performance /cheapest running cost build I can get at the same sort of price.

CAT-THE-FIFTH

Your calculations look good and I had come to a figure of around £12/year extra cost using the FX-6300. You'd also have to factor in the GPU power consumption on top as for the day to day stuff I'd use the i5's or i3's integrated graphics instead of the 7770.

Monitor is a 35W max Dell VGA only 5:4 LCD which I use with my current laptop and the PSU for the build will be a Coolermaster Elite 330U case/500W PSU package.

Lets call it £15 extra a year for the FX-6300 and I expect it would actually be more than that as the "Active Idle" power figures I've seen suggest that the AMD CPU uses twice as much power as an i5.

Now if I'm going to be using the rig for three years at least (I'd hope to be able to use it for much longer) and almost certain electricity prices rise it is not unreasonable to think that £50 initial cost price difference between the FX-6300 and i5-4440 will have evaporated, In other words because of the higher running costs, small as they may seem, over such a period they mean at that point the real cost is actually very similar. After this the i5 becomes increasingly cheaper in comparison.

If you accept the figures then why would anyone want to use the FX-6300 in a build like this? Similar cost over the minimum time period expected but the i5-4440 performs better in almost every benchmark.

The similar priced FX-8350 performs significantly better only when OCed and even at stock uses 41W more than the i5-4440 (125W againts 84W) so that rules itself out without even having to do the calculations.

It is the i3-4340 that is still interesting me. Undoubtedly it is cheaper initially and over time too but does it provide a significantly better overall build cost to performance ratio solution than the i5-4440?

 

[fallenangle]

Thanks, helpful and interesting but I think you're wrong in you conclusions.

1). Sure plenty of people are likely using the FX-6300 not caring about its power consumption in comparison to anything else. But what are those power use figures there for if not to give at least a guide to their comparative consumption? You can argue all you like about the specifics and practical considerations but how else are you going to work out running costs except by using the figures provided and checking out reviews of real world rigs using each CPU?

Your argument seems to be that in practice due to the large number of variables the likely differences in power consumption are either so small it doesn't matter and/or unknowable unless you built two rigs and tested them against each other.

Yet at the same time we do have to make purchase decisions based on expected power consumption ie. the PSU. We tot up the total, bung it into a PSU calculator and buy the PSU based on that or, which a lot of people do apparently, spend more money on an over-spec supply.

If I put my FX-6300 build into such a calculator the recommended PSU is almost 100W higher than an otherwise identical i5-4440 build. That is to a large extent down to having to use a separate GPU. You can't ignore that. Of course it doesn't mean it will be using 100W extra power all the time but it does mean the FX-6300 is, without question, going to be more expensive to run.

I don't think we're going to agree about how significant that difference is so I'll leave it there.


2). I've had the 7770 up for sale at £25 less than I paid for it (£100) for six months and no takers despite it being a genuine clean pull.

3). Thirdly, if you have one PC you MUST have a spare. It should be the law. If something goes wrong with one how else are you going to find out how or if it can be fixed quickly and easily except online?

I've been breaking that law for over a year. My first BSOD was only sorted out because I could get online using a dial-up TV browser. That option is gone and yet I've become, like most of us, more and more reliant on online services and facilities. Every time my laptop throws a wobbly I start worrying in case I lose access to the internet and can't sort it out.

I need a safety net backup machine and I need one that isn't going to be much more expesive to run than my laptop. So getting both my neglected gaming rig build and this new cheaper build up and running is my priority for the new year.

4). Fourthly, as for your other alternative energy saving suggestions: I already do all that. I'm sitting here in a room with a temperature below 10 degrees C in four layers of clothing. Amongst many other energy saving things I measure out my kettle water in a jug before boiling it and I haven't run the central heating in my house for three years. It is why my total dual fuel costs are consistently under £650/year. It is also why a £12/year saving is significant to me.

 

[fallenangle]

But it isn't a couple of pence a week that's the point.

It seems to have been misunderstood that it is the fact that when you include those, basically agreed on, running costs in the calculations over a 3 year period the FX-6300 and i5-4440 will likely work out roughly the same in total. The question is therefore more one of performance and any other practical advantages of one over the other, not the cost.

The i5-4440 has better performance, yes? Built in graphics also means that if the 7770 GPU failed I wouldn't have to shell out on another just to keep the rig working like I would with the FX-6300.

As I indicated, I'm not sold on the i5-4440 yet either, the £25 cheaper i3-4340 option still looks attractive, With that being cheaper to buy and run I could possibly fit the better PSU suggested or more RAM at the same overall cost.

As regards the gaming oriented rig: the 7850 IGB was bought over a year ago. The reason it was chosen is because it was being sold cheap <£125 after the 2GB version was released and unlike the 7770 it would give 30+fps in most games at 1080p. Also the 1GB actually gave better fps in some games than the 2GB version in the comparison tests I found. My idea was to sell the 7770 to part fund the upgrade but that didn't work out because nobody wanted it.

Now if you'd read my first post you'd also know that the Win XP laptop I referred to is getting dodgy that's the main reason I'm having to go for a new rig. I don't want to spend the money but I need to get a reliable second PC. But, as I explained I still want the best overall performance at the build price point I've set. That's all I've been asking about.

Sure I could go for an ultra cheap CPU or buy secondhand or a Chrome Netbook or something like that and use that as backup to the 'gaming' PC. But I've done that, been there and bought the T-Shirt.

I've been using old and redundant tech exclusively to get online since 2000; my laptop is 10 years old and I only got that 3 years ago after 7 years regular home and business use by the previous owner. Now I just want something new and better for a change, something I'm likely to be using for years to come and without having to upgrade. That's what the 'gaming' PC is for: upgrading when and if I can afford it.

Hell I bet some of you guys here have been through thousands of pounds of kit in the same period and you're lecturing me who, prior to the 'gaming' rig (which I had to fund intermitently over the course of a year), had never spent more than £90 to get online and was still on dial-up less than a year ago.

There's also nothing "hippy" about being concerned about running costs, far from it. It is all about simple economics for me. Why should I pay the power companies even £12 more than I need to when they're making millions of pounds in profits but still threatening us with higher bills and energy shortfall? Just this week I had them questioning me on my low energy use because it "didn't match their predictions" !!!!!!!

 

[fallenangle]

You think I have some ridiculous anti-AMD CPU agenda?

I'm just looking for the best performing, best value build components at the £350 - £400 price point I specified. I don't care if it's AMD or Intel and if you'd read my first post you'd see my original concept was based around the FX-6300. It was only because of my further researches that I started to question that solution and came here hoping for, and getting some advice and alternative ideas.

I'm not ignoring that advice either I'm just questioning it. I've showed that the running cost issue IS important over the time minimum period I mentioned. I would also point out that the average cost of a kilowatthour in the UK (14p/22 cents) is 75% more than the US (12.3 cents/8p).

The performance figures and costs are from other experts, not my own, I've reduced them down to the bare essentials but they were derived from extensive review testing sources of the CPUs I've been talking about, So if I've dug a hole for myself it is with tools provided by other experts.

Just humour me and take a look at this review, in this case for the i3-4340, one of many for all the CPUs I've looked at:-

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu/display/core-i3-4340-4330-4130.html

Look particularly at the extensive benchmark testing against the FX-6350. Ask yourself why, for under £30 more than the lower spec FX-6300, particularly when that purchase cost difference is going to negated by the running costs over time, a sensible potential buyer reading that review would not choose the i3-4340 in preference?

Also, if they could cut back on other elements of the build, ie. not affecting performance or reliabilty but maybe reducing available facilities or storage space, they wouldn't also consider spending an additional £20 on a quad cored i5 as alternative solution instead?

We're talking about exactly the same amount of money in the long run but I'm still not sure. Nobody has even mentioned the RAM. My plan was for 2x2GB but if I went for more eg. 2x4GB with the i3 or 2x8GB with the FX-6300 would that be a better solution?

 

[fallenangle]

Thanks.

I should point out that the comparison on that web site was with the higher spec FX-6350 not the FX-6300 and so reduces those specific application advantages.

But I used this review also which does have direct comparisons with the FX-6300:-

http://www.hardcoreware.net/intel-core-i3-4340-review/15/



My laptop is 10 years old and running WinXP I thought it very sensible to have an alternative in place by April. I just don't get why a build like this is thought irrational when most people I know own laptops or tablets, internet connected 'phones and at least one desktop as well. Many replace them regularly so who knows how many working machines they actually have available.

I doubt anyone here relies on just one machine either.

Maybe the 'gaming' rig is so little different in power usage that it'll make no significant difference which I use for the day to day stuff. The point is to have that alternative, so why not another slightly lower spec desktop? The build will be interesting to do and I should end up with a machine better than anything I could get off the shelf at the same price.

The power saving issue is purely one of economics so even if the new build saves only £10/year I'm not going to spurn it.

 

[fallenangle]

I had thought seriously about the tablet/cheap laptop solution and I'd probably find it useful. But it would be a limited luxury bit of tech rather than something I need.

The screen size is also a big issue for me as even with glasses I simply cannot use a 15.6" 4:3 let alone a <14" WS for any length of time without eye strain. It is why I use a Dell 19" 5:4 monitor with my existing laptop and I think mentioned I required VGA output, something that many laptops now don't include.

^I'll have a look at the other i5 alternatives so thanks for the suggestions but again I'd point out that the benchmarks are secondary to the overall cost. I really don't think that going for an even better and more costly CPU is going to be possible within the budget without some severe compromises in the other hardware.

I've been looking at the Intel MB options and the Z87s do exclude themselves due to their cost and the fact is many of their features would be unecessary luxuries. H87s too seem to be at the upper cost limit ie. around £75 if I chose the i3 and £55 if I go for an i5. So I've been sifting through the B85s and H81s mostly m-ATX boards.

Any advice about specific LGA 1150 MBs welcome.