Question for the PC Gamers

[Jimp]

I'm building a new rig at the moment and need a hand with processors. I'm looking at Intel i3 and i5 processors and wondering, is there a point in paying more for a quad core i5 when the dual core i3s have hyper threading? Would there be a difference in real-world performance? Let's assume I'm usually running a game (SC2, WoW, TF2, etc), Teamspeak, Winamp, some messenger program and maybe Firfox with plenty of ram.

[AlexMozza]

Yes, go for an i5 sandy bridge

Lots of performace and scope for overclocking etc and they are not to expencive either,

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/intel-core-i5-2500-s1155-sandy-bridge-quad-core-33ghz-gpu-850mhz-6mb-cache-95w-retail
 

[Jimp]

Unfortunately that one is too expensive  The budget for the build is tight so I'm wondering is the extra €50+ for an i5 processor worthwhile over an i3 like this one.

[Ridg]

Yes, go for an i5 sandy bridge

Lots of performace and scope for overclocking etc and they are not to expencive either,

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/intel-core-i5-2500-s1155-sandy-bridge-quad-core-33ghz-gpu-850mhz-6mb-cache-95w-retail
 

+1

best value chip you can get at the moment

the i3 is real entry level, it should cope with the games you've mentioned, HT is much better than it was on the P4 chips, but some games and apps still struggle on it in comparison to actually having 4 physical cores.

If you're on a budget then you'll probably want to consider an AMD system, AMD can't touch intel at the moment, but they are pretty good value; personally I'd pay the extra €50 as it's going to significantly increase the life of the system.

[AlexMozza]

I went down the AMD route
You will get better bang for your buck with an AMD, Motherboards are cheeper too but if your on a budget any cheap processor will be out of date within a year, as said spend a little more and you have several years out of it 

[Evoss]

What is your budget and ill spec you a system.

[Jimp]

Budget is an absolute max of €600, preferably closer to €500.
4 gigs of Corsair ram comes in at a very reasonable price, as does a hard drive and case+psu. I was looking at an Asus ATX motherboard since they quite good and there's room for upgrading to a LGA 1155 socket i7 when funds allow in a few months time. The gfx card was going to be an Asus GTS 450. The final €100->€200 is for the processor.

[Evoss]

Dont skimp on products at the start or else you will just have to rebuy them to play any modern games.

This is a very cheap build with decent components.


All products from: http://www.overclockers.co.uk

YOUR BASKET
1 x MSI GeForce GTX 560Ti Twin FrozR II 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card  £173.99
1 x Asrock Z68 PRO3 Intel Z68 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard  £99.98
1 x Intel Core i3-2100 3.10GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - Retail  £89.99
1 x Cooler Master CM-690 II Lite Dominator Case - Black  £66.98
1 x Corsair Builder Series CX V2 '80 Plus' 500W ATX Power Supply (CMPSU-500CXUK)  £52.99
1 x Samsung SpinPoint F3 1TB SATA-II 32MB Cache - OEM (HD103SJ)  £40.99
1 x Corsair XMS3 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (CMX4GX3M2A1600C9)  £27.98
Total : £567.91 (includes shipping : £12.50).

[AlexMozza]

Scan.co.uk is cheaper on almost everything

[Jimp]

Thanks for that Evoss The ram, case, psu and processor are the exact ones I had looked at   Only differences are the gfx card and this motherboard:
ASUS_P8P67_LE_B3_Revision_Motherboard.
Apart from the the extra cooling technology on that MSI gfx card is there a particular reason you chose it?