i3 vs Phenom II quad vs AMD LLano for basic system

jaybee · 13 Oct 2011 at 12:53

I notice that these come in at about the same price. This is going to be for a PC I am building someone and the intended stuff the PC should do is:

- Streaming duties with PS3 Media server with on the fly transcoding of high quality bit rate rips

- Basic office apps

- Internet

- Occasional encoding duties

- NO GAMING

Requirements are more for it to be cool and quiet and not use too much power.

What would you go for and why? Is an i3 Dual Core sufficient these days or should I really be going quad?

Ta

SeraphX · 13 Oct 2011 at 12:56

I3 dual should be sufficient for those tasks IMO
the i3 will certainly pip the Llano at encoding task because of the hyperthreading, although i would say the Llano would run cooler

malfunkshun · 13 Oct 2011 at 12:59

No Hyperthreading on i3

SeraphX · 13 Oct 2011 at 13:01

the clarkdale i3 offer hyperthreading,
OP didn't state if they wanted the very latest tech

malfunkshun · 13 Oct 2011 at 13:04

So they do, is it still possible to buy them new though?

SeraphX · 13 Oct 2011 at 13:05

Ocuk have a few in stock
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/productlist.php?groupid=701&catid=6&subid=1671

and with a nice OC upto say 4.3Ghz only the SB variant would keep up i'd imagine lol

malfunkshun · 13 Oct 2011 at 13:10

those are a decent buy, actually. If you can find a decent motherboard it has to be worth a look.

jaybee · 13 Oct 2011 at 13:10

Oh sorry I should have said if I went i3 it would be Sandy Bridge so no hyper threadng on any of the current 1155 i3 processors. Is Hyper threadng worth while anyway then?

Normally it would be a no brainer and get a Phenom II quad, but they appear to have a TDP of 125watts which is much higher than the i3 or Llano stuff. Perhaps a bit overkill I mean in terms of power sapping. So I guess, it is between Llano and i3. I think the Llano would be like comparing an Athlon II quad to i3.

SeraphX · 13 Oct 2011 at 13:16

hmmm thats interested,
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/289?vs=143

go with the sandybridge one then, looks like the hyperthreading on the clarkdale model don't really add very much at all

although for encoding video etc etc
the 3650 seems to match the 2100 i3 pretty solid
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/289?vs=403

and i'd imagine the 3850 Llano would only increase the lead

DragonQ · 13 Oct 2011 at 13:32

What is all of this nonsense? All Core i3 CPUs have HyperThreading, including the Sandy Bridge ones.

malfunkshun · 13 Oct 2011 at 13:40

ok I'm confused, according to Intel they do indeed have HT enabled. Despite many other sources saying otherwise.

jaybee · 13 Oct 2011 at 13:45

DragonQ said:
What is all of this nonsense? All Core i3 CPUs have HyperThreading, including the Sandy Bridge ones.

Do they? Wonders off to google.... Anyway is it that significant? Hyper threading are not real cores are they?

jaybee · 13 Oct 2011 at 13:57

Yep they do. Wikipedia states all models in all architectures do.

malfunkshun · 13 Oct 2011 at 14:15

I'm genuinely confused because when I see reviews (and I read a lot of them) the i5 and i3 chips are usually stated as 4core/4thread and 2c/2t. Oh well, Intel says yes so yes it is.

mmj_uk · 13 Oct 2011 at 14:25

malfunkshun said:
I'm genuinely confused because when I see reviews (and I read a lot of them) the i5 and i3 chips are usually stated as 4core/4thread and 2c/2t. Oh well, Intel says yes so yes it is.

AFAIK all i3 are 2c/4t, all i5 are 4c/4t, only the Pentium series is 2c/2t.

jaybee · 13 Oct 2011 at 15:31

Hmm thinking of going i3 for this build.

CAT-THE-FIFTH · 13 Oct 2011 at 16:37

jaybee said:
I notice that these come in at about the same price. This is going to be for a PC I am building someone and the intended stuff the PC should do is:

- Streaming duties with PS3 Media server with on the fly transcoding of high quality bit rate rips

- Basic office apps

- Internet

- Occasional encoding duties

- NO GAMING

Requirements are more for it to be cool and quiet and not use too much power.

What would you go for and why? Is an i3 Dual Core sufficient these days or should I really be going quad?

Ta

I have a Core i3 2100 myself which is quite decent as a general purpose CPU especially for gaming with a discrete graphics card.

What software are you using for video encoding??

If you are using HandBrake an A8-3850 will be ahead. The A8-3850 has decent power consumption at idle even when compared to a Core i3 2100.

Here is table I compiled on another forum from scores submitted by forum members:

http://i559.photobucket.com/albums/ss33/CAT-THE-FIFTH/HandBrakeChart26-09-2011-1.png

The software used is HandBrake 0.9.5 and the encodes were MOV,WMV and MP4 files to MKV.

If you are using Sony Vegas 10,the Core i3 2100 is ahead AFAIK.

Edit!!

It seems OcUK have the 95W version of the Phenom II X6 1055T is in stock too:

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CP-309-AM&groupid=701&catid=6&subcat=1944

jaybee · 13 Oct 2011 at 17:14

CAT-THE-FIFTH said:
Edit!!

It seems OcUK have the 95W version of the Phenom II X6 1055T is in stock too:

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CP-309-AM&groupid=701&catid=6&subcat=1944

Interesting, I was not aware this chip even existed. Apparently been out about a year? Are they popular then? Hard to get hold of? Only, that shows as no reviews of it at all. I would have though this would be more popular? Or is it because it is not a black edition and hence not as overclockable having unlocked multi etc?

This sounds like a good bet.

CAT-THE-FIFTH · 13 Oct 2011 at 18:18

jaybee said:
Interesting, I was not aware this chip even existed. Apparently been out about a year? Are they popular then? Hard to get hold of? Only, that shows as no reviews of it at all. I would have though this would be more popular? Or is it because it is not a black edition and hence not as overclockable having unlocked multi etc?

This sounds like a good bet.

Type this into Google: "PHENOM 1055T 95W REVIEW"

The first link is a review but I cannot add the link as OcUK would block for some reason. The CPU seems to have similar power characteristics to an Athlon II X4 635 but has much greater performance.

The 95W Phenom II X6 1055T was originally an OEM CPU and you could occasionally get it in bundles from OcUK and other retailers. AMD for some daft reason would not allow it to be sold on its own,but it seems despite the locked multipliers they were decent for overclocking.

Now,with Bulldozer out it seems they are trying to clear stock so for the price it looks a decent CPU for video encoding. Looking at the chart I linked to it is in between a Core i5 2300 and Core i5 2500 in HandBrake. Another advantage is that you allocate 5 cores for encoding and one for the OS, so as long as encode writes are on another hard disk you can continue doing other stuff.

jaybee · 13 Oct 2011 at 19:22

I think that seems a nice compromise that 1055t 95w edition. Might well go for that. Cheers guys. Other two machines I am building for people should be easier to spec. i5 for gaming rig, and i7 for a big apps machine.