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How is the i3 CPU for gaming

Don't play a lot of RTS games, so hard for me to tell you on that front, but an i3 at 4.2GHz (as I have mine) is a very capable processor.

Unless you are doing shed loads of encoding or something else seriously CPU intensive, I don't think you can go wrong with it.
 
It seems like a very capable processor when overclocked. It also runs CPU intensive games like flight simulator X very well too!
 
timmyt said:
gaming PC mostly to play RTS games and the occasional FPS
Click to expand...
Hey timmyt,

Can't see an i3 having any problems really, I'd be interested to see some "RTS Gaming" results though showing how it compares to an Athlon II X4 as the latter has more "Processing" power than the Intel Dual-Core but I've yet to see this materialise in gaming bench data . . .



£84.99 inc and £76.36 inc
 
You can bench supreme commander pretty easily by creating a shortcut to the game and adding " /perf" (without quotes) to the target in properties. Target will look like this

C:\Program Files\THQ\Gas Powered Games\Supreme Commander\bin\SupremeCommander.exe" /perf

Then just start the game using that shortcut and it'll run the benchmark. Remember to set your settings before you run the benchmark shortcut.
 
Even at 4GHz the Intel® Core™ i3 Dual-Core still doesn't offer as much "processing" power as an AMD® Athlon™ II Quad-Core @ 3.5GHz . . . As I said before I've got a feeling this should make a difference in really intensive RTS games with Thousands of units running around . . . The Intel® chip does have a nice little chunk of L3 cache though which is handy for some games . . . nice to have a choice though! :cool:

i3630fritz.jpg
 
Thanks for the replies everyone while the i3 does look great and i think it might do the job i need it to plus ive never overclocked a CPU. But the AMD option also looks like it could do the job. I will do something thinking and have a look at benchmarks and compare the two. Thanks
 
One thing to keep in mind with the I3 is that it requires very little in the way of cooling at 4GHz, and consumes far less power than the likes of the AMD.
 
Depends on the game, not every rts can use 4 cores. Starcraft 2, possibly the most popular rts at the moment uses 2 cores and the i3 would be faster than the x4 630. |However in something like supreme commander the quad core would be faster the the hyperthreaded i3.
 
It's strange that? . . . you would think that RTS game developers would be bang on the Multi-Core vibe? . . . I mean people call the Processor the "Brain" of the computer and in an RTS game every single thing that moves has a pseudo brain or artificial intelligence, whether its a spaceship or a knight on horseback to an elven archer, each unit needs to "think" and work out whats best to do?

Intuitively, I would have thought the more processing power available would result in more units being able to execute their A.I with greater intelligence and speed? :confused:
 
Its called lazy developing imho.

Quad core is more future proof yeh but for current games dual core is more then enough.

Heck one of the games i play, ok its old, but still going strong, only uses 8% of my I7's power, that still makes me laugh every time i see it.
 
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