i3-530, i3-540, i5-750, or AMD

yellowplum · 13 Mar 2010 at 09:07

I need a new PC, mines old and starting to get quite slow. So I started looking around to see what to buy. I have seen reviews of the i3-530 and 540 and found that the 530 is an excellent chip that can be overclocked quite easily.

The 750 is a better performance chip for gaming, however £150 (ish) is a bit of a stretch (can't justify it) at the moment considering I don't use the machine for gaming at all these days.

I was looking at AMD also because people still state that life exists in these chips yet.

I have been an AMD fan for years, but I am not sure I want an AMD again. What would people recommend?

(USE: General Business Use, some photoshop, accounting etc. and I want to make sure it can play Diablo when it comes out

- Will get 4GB DDR3 and windows 7 x64 Ultimate)

gurusan · 13 Mar 2010 at 09:11

If there's any way you can afford it, go with i5 750. It's far superior to the Phenom 2 and i3 5-series. Otherwise I would go with a Phenom 2 build.

yellowplum · 13 Mar 2010 at 09:14

gurusan said:
If there's any way you can afford it, go with i5 750. It's far superior to the Phenom 2 and i3 5-series

I really didn't want to go that far, but I keep looking back at it myself. Although an overclocked 530 does fair quite well.

What mobo would you suggest for either?

gurusan · 13 Mar 2010 at 09:15

well to be fair, the i3 is not a bad choice either as it's a superb overclocker and should you find it's not enough power you can always swap it out in the future for an i5 CPU.

And as above, the P55-UD5 is a great board and on this week only special.

I would also advise looking for the G.Skill ECO 1.35V 4gb ddr3 kits as they are some of the best memory available.

yellowplum · 13 Mar 2010 at 09:21

Do you mean the gigabyte one? That is on offer, can't find an Asus one on offer. That is what I was thinking take the i3 overclock it and then if you want to you can replace it in six to twelve months time with something even better.

gurusan · 13 Mar 2010 at 09:24

Yes the gigabyte GA-P55-UD5

easyrider · 13 Mar 2010 at 09:30

Budget?

yellowplum · 13 Mar 2010 at 09:37

About £100 mobo, £90 ish 4GB, £100 CPU, £60-80 Graphics - the rest I will deal with separately if I require them. I am only really concerned with the three elements I am unsure on, GPU, CPU and Mobo

Oh and I was looking at this board Asus P7P55D-E Intel P55 as it had USB3 and Sata6/GBs not sure if it is worth it though.

easyrider · 13 Mar 2010 at 10:42

Intel Core i3 530 2.93GHz (Clarkdale) (Socket LGA1156) - Retail £98.00
(£83.40) £98.00
(£83.40)
Geil Value 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (GV34GB1600C9DC) £84.99
(£72.33) £84.99
(£72.33)
Gigabyte GA-H55M-S2H Intel H55 (Socket 1156) DDR3 microATX Motherboard £66.99
(£57.01) £66.99
(£57.01)
Sub Total : £212.74

Total : £249.97

Thats a lot of PC for £250 thats leaves you enough money left over for a 5770 GPU...

In fact you don't even need the GPU until the games come out you want to play as the H55 and i3 offer onboard HD GFX

USB 3 and sata 6 are no biggies. Card will be out that allow you to use USB 3 when it comes mainstream. I certainly woudn't base a new mobo on it right now.

That mobo I suggest will take that i3 to 4ghz no problem and at 66 quid its a bargain.

gurusan · 13 Mar 2010 at 10:51

If clocking I'd avoid the lower end P55 and H55 boards tbh. Especially if there's a chance of you clocking an i5 750 in the future. The CPU power section just isn't beefy enough and there's zero cooling for the mosfets.

easyrider · 13 Mar 2010 at 11:02

gurusan said:
If clocking I'd avoid the lower end P55 and H55 boards tbh. Especially if there's a chance of you clocking an i5 750 in the future. The CPU power section just isn't beefy enough and there's zero cooling for the mosfets.

at 400 he close to i7 money :eek:

Somethings got to give.

I would only buy an i3 with a H55 mobo really on the cheap.

Getting an i3 and a 120 quid P55 mobo doesn't make sense to me.

When you get to this level you can find that extra 50 for a 750 cpu imo.

yellowplum · 13 Mar 2010 at 11:40

I would agree either it's a cheap system that can be upgraded or it's not. Because you end up having to upgrade things here there and everywhere. Coming from an SKT939 X2 4400 with 1.5GB anything would be better.

I was actually thinking, since I am not going to play anything on it for the moment I will stick with the built in GPU and see how it goes. I haven't upgraded my monitor as yet and probably won't for a while - I do quite like this one I have, again probably wont until the game is out and I start playing more.

What is the difference between H55 and H57 - What do you think of Biostar boards? Or Evga? I note MSI isn't reviewed as well any more, any reason?

shroomz · 13 Mar 2010 at 11:41

If you want that kind of money, AMD are pretty good, although bit-tech were impressed with the overclocked i3 530 on a Biostar TH55XE mainboard:
http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/cpus/2010/03/03/overclocking-intel-core-i3-530/1

This is of course at the maximum they could squeeze out of it and I don't know of anyone running their maximum speeds 24/7, just benchmarking.

But to be honest, as easyrider said, at that kind of price you would be better off with the i5-750 since you would upgrade it anyway thus not wasting £100 in the long run

shroomz · 13 Mar 2010 at 11:46

yellowplum said:
I would agree either it's a cheap system that can be upgraded or it's not. Because you end up having to upgrade things here there and everywhere. Coming from an SKT939 X2 4400 with 1.5GB anything would be better.

I was actually thinking, since I am not going to play anything on it for the moment I will stick with the built in GPU and see how it goes. I haven't upgraded my monitor as yet and probably won't for a while - I do quite like this one I have, again probably wont until the game is out and I start playing more.

What is the difference between H55 and H57 - What do you think of Biostar boards? Or Evga? I note MSI isn't reviewed as well any more, any reason?

Some people have a bad experience with MSI and decide never again; it's brand (dis)loyalty.

Biostar boards are amazing BUT that's only if you're lucky. Their manufacturing process isn't at the level of the big companies so buying one is essentially a lucky dip: you could get a great one and insist for the rest of your life that Biostar are t3h sh1zz or you could get a very poor one that will refuse to POST.

As for the graphics unit on the Lynnfield CPU's it's actually not too bad: there are people playing HL2 and WoW on it with decent settings and rates

yellowplum · 13 Mar 2010 at 12:48

To be honest it depends what I get out of the processor if I upgrade or not, if it functions ok then I will stick with it for longer than needed. I only tend to upgrade when the CPU etc has run its course. Henceforth I need to upgrade now - DDR and an Athlon X2 has run its course.

If I use the i5-750 I will have to purchase a separate GPU, whereas if I stick with the i3 then I don't. That was my plan to begin with over the i5-750. Also when I have seen tests of the 530 against the 750 it does catch up in most instances in an overclocked environment. Hence the interest in it...

Just have to pick the board now...Gigabyte, Asus - Seen an Asustek that was interesting also but again not sure about them (know what you mean about Biostar, I had a Biostar 200P Shuttle thing, one was great build the other was a crock of ****)

Decisions Decisions....I know I don't want to get the separate graphics to begin with, hence i3, but it's the board that I am not sure now.

CAT-THE-FIFTH · 13 Mar 2010 at 13:59

The socket 939 X2 processors fetch a decent price secondhand on a famous auction website.

If this build is not primarily for gaming has the OP considered an Athlon II X4 630 or 635?? A motherboard like the Asus M4A785TD-V Evo has integrated graphics and an enhanced VRM which is fine for even overclocking any of the higher end Phenom II processors.

Anyway the OP should check this comparison tool to get a rough estimate of what processor will be best suited to their needs:

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/default.aspx?b=2&c=1

yellowplum · 13 Mar 2010 at 14:06

CAT-THE-FIFTH said:
The socket 939 X2 processors fetch a decent price secondhand on a famous auction website.

If this build is not primarily for gaming has the OP considered an Athlon II X4 630 or 635??

Anyway the OP should check this comparison tool to get a rough estimate of what processor will be best suited to their needs:

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/default.aspx?b=2&c=1

All components will be on the 'famous' auction site when I upgrade

I will stick with the i3-530 but now it's which mobo

CAT-THE-FIFTH · 13 Mar 2010 at 14:23

yellowplum said:
All components will be on the 'famous' auction site when I upgrade

I will stick with the i3-530 but now it's which mobo

If you want to upgrade to a processor like the Core i5 750 at a later date and also overclock it then the following motherboard would be a good choice IMHO:

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MB-381-AS&groupid=701&catid=5&subcat=1124

It has all solid capacitors and VRM cooling too. OTH,you could get some aftermarket VRM coolers and get a cheaper H55 motherboard.

However,if the next time you upgrade you want to upgrade you replace the processor,motherboard and RAM together I would get a cheaper H55 motherboard.

Big.Wayne · 13 Mar 2010 at 14:50

yellowplum said:
I need a new PC, mines old and starting to get quite slow

General Business Use, some photoshop, accounting etc. and I want to make sure it can play Diablo when it comes out

About £100 mobo, £90 ish 4GB, £100 CPU [£290]

yellowplum · 13 Mar 2010 at 16:43

Big.Wayne said:

Not going to convince me for AMD at the moment lol