Intel i3 vs AMD Phenom 2

can you explain (cause I'm stOOPid) why my 570w trust psu is rubbish but the lower wattage 500w 550w you reccomend would be find to run a i5 2400 system?
 
Because your Trust is built down to a price using crappy components and will never get close to delivering it's stated 570w. What the guys are recommending you are quality units.
 
eggybob said:
can you explain (cause I'm stOOPid) why my 570w trust psu is rubbish but the lower wattage 500w 550w you reccomend would be find to run a i5 2400 system?
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What you want is maximum power delivered on the combined 12V rails. Most OEM PSUs have poor power distribution, not counting their rubbish voltage control and lack of circuit protection.

For example, the BeQuiet L7 is 530W but has 35A on 12V rail (420W). That means it can deliver most of its power to the CPU and GPU, which is what you want in a gaming rig. That PSU is basically minimum spec for gaming. So looking at PSUs that characteristic is often the first clue. There are other things as well, such as efficiency (more efficiency = less wasted power = less heat = less stress on PSU = quieter), various circuit protections for over-current / over-voltage, voltage ripples and rated operating temperatures (the higher the better meaning the PSU has been tested in hot conditions). Only good PSUs tick all those boxes.

There are more powerful PSUs than the L7 of course, but it's a good entry level.
 
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thanks for the advice pastymuncher. would I be better with a higher wattage I was thinking of 600+ any reccomendations in that range?
 
eggybob said:
thanks for the advice pastymuncher. would I be better with a higher wattage I was thinking of 600+ any reccomendations in that range?
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A 650W XFX, 620W Antec High Current Gamer, 650W Corsair TX / HX are solid PSUs for single GPUs. For Xfire / SLI, it's usually best to go 750W (560ti, 6950, 6970), or 850W for beasts like SLI 570, 580 and 480.
 
With a good quality 520W PSU like the Antec or the 550W XFX you can happily run an overclocked i5 2500K system with pretty much any single-GPU graphics card on the market.

So unless you want to be ready for a second graphics card or go for one of the really high end graphics card (eg GTX 580) then an even higher capacity, more expensive PSU isn't strictly necessary - especially if you are compromising on other components to afford it.

However, if you do want to for a good quality 600W+ PSU, then the best options are the 620W Antec High Current Gamer, XFX Core 650W or the Corsair TX 650W v2.
 
james.miller said:
yeah. for instance, a 965 is quicker than an i7 870 in batman AA (still an old game, mind), but because the i3 2100 was never benched in that game, it isnt included in the i3 vs 965 results.
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You are missing the point...who cares if Phenom II X4 965BE beat i7 870 by a little at Batman when comparing at stock speed? What people cares to know is the Phenom II X 965BE can only overclock by around 12-16%, when the i7 870 can overclock by 33-40%. Which is a better chip? it is obvious.
 
cmndr_andi said:
With a good quality 520W PSU like the Antec or the 550W XFX you can happily run an overclocked i5 2500K system with pretty much any single-GPU graphics card on the market.

So unless you want to be ready for a second graphics card or go for one of the really high end graphics card (eg GTX 580) then an even higher capacity, more expensive PSU isn't strictly necessary - especially if you are compromising on other components to afford it.

However, if you do want to for a good quality 600W+ PSU, then the best options are the 620W Antec High Current Gamer, XFX Core 650W or the Corsair TX 650W v2.
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i have a gtx 550 Ti fpb in my system that i will be transfering. so maybe a 600w+ may be better ?
 
Na, that a pretty low-medium end card (on its own the stock 550Ti can only draw up to 115W maximum) - a good quality 520 to 550W PSU will be absolutely fine with it in a i5 2500K overclocked system.

You only need to worry that a 520-550W PSU is not enough when you are talking about cards like the GTX 580 which draws up to 244W (and a heck of a lot of current) from the 12V rail.
 
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Yea, it's a pretty decent unit - but I would still go with the seasonic designed, higher effiency XFX 550W for £4 more. With your setup you certainly won't be needing the extra 50W capacity the OCZ can offer.
 
Marine-RX179 said:
You are missing the point...who cares if Phenom II X4 965BE beat i7 870 by a little at Batman when comparing at stock speed? What people cares to know is the Phenom II X 965BE can only overclock by around 12-16%, when the i7 870 can overclock by 33-40%. Which is a better chip? it is obvious.
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oh no, i know that very well. However that's another discussion, i was mearly commenting on a misleading post. you've taken that out of context however - i added that link to show where the stock performance was in that particular game - well above where the i3 would be had it have been tested.

Anand's gaming benchmarks are all out of date anyway, so as far as I'm concerned none of them are relevant any more.
 
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james.miller said:
oh no, i know that very well. However that's another discussion, i was mearly commenting on a misleading post. you've taken that out of context however - i added that link to show where the stock performance was in that particular game - well above where the i3 would be had it have been tested.

Anand's gaming benchmarks are all out of date anyway, so as far as I'm concerned none of them are relevant any more.
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Well, I agree that Anandtech bench is far from perfect, but there are a few places which clearly show the i3 2100 alone has made Phenom II X4 or X6 a bit...well, not worth getting if building a new system for gaming now.
Just look at the following:
http://techreport.com/articles.x/20873/2

Here's what I think:
The i3 2100 is faster than ANY Phenom II in BFBC2, even the Phenom II X4 980 which is clocked at 3.7GHz. And then look at CPU intensive game that that are not optimised to use 4 cores fully such as Civilization V...the i3 2100 has a clear lead over the Phenom II CPUs. In F1 2010 the i3 2100 has a clear lead again. In Metro2033, the Phenom II does slightly better than the i3 2100. Now the important part- the i3 2100 can deliver better/compariable performance to a Phenom II X4 at 3.7GHz, with only half the power consumption (i3 2100 TDP 65W vs Phenom II X4 980 TDP 140W), so why give extra money to the energy company? Plus the i3 2100 runs so much cooler and is perfectly fine to use just a stock cooler, whereas the Phenom II X4 at 3.7GHz would pretty much require a 3rd party cooler with cost another £25-£35.
 
stulid said:
Concentrate on the gaming results;)
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I really don't get why so many knowledgeable people on here seem to place so much weight on gaming results running at low res, low settings and without AA. In any realistic usage the difference between CPU types is much much smaller.

The PII is clearly the better choice here (vs the i3). It's cheaper and once overclocked likely to be measurably faster for any games with quad core support. Of course, if the OP is going to run all their settings in low res and without any AA, they may 'lose out' in the games that don't support multiple cores.
 
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Marine-RX179 said:
Well, I agree that Anandtech bench is far from perfect, but there are a few places which clearly show the i3 2100 alone has made Phenom II X4 or X6 a bit...well, not worth getting if building a new system for gaming now.
Just look at the following:
http://techreport.com/articles.x/20873/2

Here's what I think:
The i3 2100 is faster than ANY Phenom II in BFBC2, even the Phenom II X4 980 which is clocked at 3.7GHz. And then look at CPU intensive game that that are not optimised to use 4 cores fully such as Civilization V...the i3 2100 has a clear lead over the Phenom II CPUs. In F1 2010 the i3 2100 has a clear lead again. In Metro2033, the Phenom II does slightly better than the i3 2100. Now the important part- the i3 2100 can deliver better/compariable performance to a Phenom II X4 at 3.7GHz, with only half the power consumption (i3 2100 TDP 65W vs Phenom II X4 980 TDP 140W), so why give extra money to the energy company? Plus the i3 2100 runs so much cooler and is perfectly fine to use just a stock cooler, whereas the Phenom II X4 at 3.7GHz would pretty much require a 3rd party cooler with cost another £25-£35.
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That's another suite of tests that use low settings for the games. Utterly pointless.
 
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