I admit I'm slightly lost as far as sandy bridge goes. I believe it's faster at a given clock speed than the last generation, but the chipsets now force you to choose between overclocking and onboard graphics.
I didn't pay enough attention to the i3 chips really, but have vague recollections about a gigabyte m-itx board consistently getting them to 4ghz. This would suggest that the i3 550 or i5 650 is currently as good as it gets, and will remain so when the sandy bridge dual cores come out.
So, assuming I need some form of onboard graphics, and two cores rather than four, is the i3 550 (or 650) the way to go? I do want the cores to be fast, I just don't think I'll need more than two of them.
I didn't pay enough attention to the i3 chips really, but have vague recollections about a gigabyte m-itx board consistently getting them to 4ghz. This would suggest that the i3 550 or i5 650 is currently as good as it gets, and will remain so when the sandy bridge dual cores come out.
So, assuming I need some form of onboard graphics, and two cores rather than four, is the i3 550 (or 650) the way to go? I do want the cores to be fast, I just don't think I'll need more than two of them.
