Gaming on i3? Advice requested

[happyjolly]

Intel i3 Ivy Raid" Intel Core i3 3220 Ivybridge Dual Core Gaming System
Kingston HyperX Genesis Grey 8GB £55.99
NO OPERATING SYSTEM £0.00
Seagate Barracuda 2TB £79.99
No Second Hard Drive Option (ZERO Cost) £0.00
HIS HD 7850 IceQ X 2048MB Graphics Card £161.99

VAT and shipping Total : £555.60

+ £50 for the cheapest i5 and maybe another £20 for the cooler, making it £625

That's without an SSD - a better all round system considering the £600 budget? Could probably get the GTX 660 for only £8 more, a toss up really, I don't really know what games he likes to play - which is always the question that's asked, but I don't think it really applies here, as we're not watching frame rates, and the 10% diff in games between cards probably won't come into affect due to the res. I did get a HD7950 myself recently, and been playing batman arkham asylum at 2560x1600, I turned on physx, and it murdered the card. When I turned it off it was fine, but could see a lot of "missing" stuff when rebenching.

On Nvidia cards, what's the performance impact of having physx switched on? I wonder if he'll get similar performance in games with the 660 and physix on as opposed to the hd 7850 without physx

I suppose the toss up is i3 and an SSD and standard cooler, or i5 and no ssd but better cooler and (better?) nvidia card.

 

[happyjolly]

is that stock FX6300 Flashhart against your i7 920?

 

[Martini1991]

is that stock FX6300 Flashhart against your i7 920?

He's over shooting a little.
An i7 920 at 3.8GHZ is going to nail an FX6300 in gaming, you'd need a 4.6GHZ clock on the FX6300 to game at the same level consistently in ~4 threaded games as the i7 920.

But I'd get an FX6300 as opposed an i3 3220 anyway.
If there's no OC'ing, I'd try and push upto an i5.

 

[Marine-RX179]

He's over shooting a little.
An i7 920 at 3.8GHZ is going to nail an FX6300 in gaming, you'd need a 4.6GHZ clock on the FX6300 to game at the same level consistently in ~4 threaded games as the i7 920.

But I'd get an FX6300 as opposed an i3 3220 anyway.
If there's no OC'ing, I'd try and push upto an i5.

I have to agree. Strictly between the FX6300 and the i3, the FX6300 (with overclock) is the better choice. However for that level of budget, I'd rather try to find a 2nd hand non-K i5 at around £90, or a 2500K at up to £120, but I guess that would be out of the question for a pre-built system.

 

[Gibbo3771]

i3 with my 7850 seems fine for me, never struggles in any games unless you go heavy on AA and shadow detail lol.

Crysis however, another story completely.