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Core i3 Ivy Bridges Released

I'm building a gaming computer at the moment and am struggling to decide whether the ivybridge i3 would do considering the money saved over a 3570k. About £90. I won't be doing any significant encoding, only downside is the absence of a k version.
 
matt1 said:
I'm building a gaming computer at the moment and am struggling to decide whether the ivybridge i3 would do considering the money saved over a 3570k. About £90. I won't be doing any significant encoding, only downside is the absence of a k version.
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Same here, I'm wondering if it will be good enough for a couple of years. I don't care for the lack of pci express 3 support, and it's half the price of a 3570k which is something.
 
After a little bit of searching I found a review of sub £160 in January 2012, which still applies now. Particularly the comparison of dual core i3 vs quad core i5 gaming performance.

http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/gaming-fx-pentium-apu-benchmark,review-32368.html

Starcraft II showed the best comparison from a CPU limited game point of view.

In most games I don't think the difference will be as obvious, value for money the i3 looks pretty hard to beat. I'm thinking this may be a good option now and then in 6-12 months consider picking up a second hand quadcore if you require a performance boost.

dq215d.jpg
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matt1 said:
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In most games I don't think the difference will be as obvious, value for money the i3 looks pretty hard to beat. I'm thinking this may be a good option now and then in 6-12 months consider picking up a second hand quadcore if you require a performance boost.
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For the much lower price I think the slight loss in performance is worth it.

Also with the new socket in a year I wouldn't want to fork out a huge amount for an 3570k based system now, when the i3 part will do. And then just upgrade together with the board and memory by the end of next year.
 
If you're happy with your current performance, you may as well.



As an aside (as a general statement at no one in particular), for the typical user, the cadence of socket changes and gen improvements looks to make buying a platform within its lifecycle with the intention to upgrade a kind of self deception where we invest in a false economy. The performance increase tends not to be worth the depreciation cost, full price of the higher spec cpu and effort/time.

I know there is no one size fits all, and worth is is entirely subjective but for most cases the only times I think the upgrade path makes sense is if you can't yet get (whether due to finances or awaiting its release) the cpu spec of choice and settle for a low end stop gap to tide you over. The other is for professional or genuine productivity reasons ofc, but I think of that beyond the scope of the general user.

Perfromance increases that justify the expense (if not like the above stopgap) are only going to come with the longer term performance improvements that come from architecture jumps which usually means a new socket.
 
Now all they need to do is provide a k version of this. 3.8/4ghz would run very nicely i reckon. It was like my E4300 i had running at 3.5ghz for while, was a great little chip for the money.
 
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Trusty said:
Now all they need to do is provide a k version of this. 3.8/4ghz would run very nicely i reckon. It was like my E4300 i had running at 3.5ghz for while, was a great little chip for the money.
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Never gonna happen. An overclockable chip with 4 threads(i3 K) vs an overclockable chip with 4 threads(i5 K). Would shoot themselves in the foot really.
 
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