Core i3-3220 vs i5-3450

Discussion in 'Player Support' started by Tuco, Nov 29, 2012.

  1. Kamiman

    So I work for Intel, but this is my personal opinion.

    You probably want to go with a CPU that is 2C at the minimal. Unfortunately anything above 4C doesn't really make sense either as for most consumer grade applications you simply cannot split up the workload into portions to achieve scalability - especially in gaming. To really make the best choice you probably want to look at benchmarks which are at least taking advantage of three cores (given SOE information on loading in other threads). Stuff like Civ 5, Starcraft II, PC Mark Vantage are good mainstream ones.
    For memory, you only need as much as your programs handle +20%
    Theoretically, Hyper Threading gives you 100% performance increase but in the real world it is around 30%
    I would venture to bet that you would actually see a difference in performance in high load situations (i.e. big battles) with the i5, given the 'Turbo' capabilities.

    Bought an i7-2600K and AMD HD 5850 last year and runs the game great, so you will be just fine with the 3570K.

    Finally, Anandtech is a great site - for the most part un-biased opinions. Set a price, look at the benchmarks, and then you will know what the best CPU is for you.
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  2. Kamiman

    I also want to add a fun fact regarding energy.

    125W CPU, 4 Gaming Hours / day, 365 days / year = $51 / year in electricity
    77W CPU, 4 Gaming Hours / day, 365 days / year = $29 / year in electricity

    And this doesn't even take into account actual power efficiency, just TDP
  3. Irathi

    I pay my electrical bill with pleasure, my FX-8320 both heats my cold feet, the room and the apartment, thus saving the same amount of money in heating bills! Haha take that you intel scum!

    Joke aside, that price would depend heavily on your electricity provider, it'd be better if you just show the total power saved. I would also claim that you might as well buy more efficient light bulbs, thus reducing your power consumption more.

    Anyway the most environmentally friendly solution is to stick with your old cpu for as long as you can. After all the real power consumption and pollution derives from the production of the chip (also disposal) not the use. That would then depend on the manufacturer's production method / efficiency. Whether intel is better than AMD at production I have no idea or opinion on though.

    Oh and during the winter months I actually really take pleasure from the heat blowing out of my AMD powered radiator! It's freaking freezing in the morning, but after a couple of minutes my feet are warm (placed over the cabinet) and after an hour or two the room gets comfy :) Haha so take that again you intel scumx2!

    Also: you are actually comparing the FX-8350 (125w) an 8 core CPU to a 4 core (3570K 77W), the truth is that all of your mainstream 6-core cpu's run at 130W with the exception of the Xeon (95w).
    FX-8350, 125 / 8 = 15,6 w pr core
    3570K, 77 / 4 = 19,25 w pr core

    Thus making AMD 4 W less power hungry pr core.

    You might not justify this in gaming, but if you want multi-thread performance with low W consumption, then the FX-8350 is a good choice. Now if AMD could just get their heads around and increase single core performance, then you might get a decent competitor again on that front as well.
  4. Irathi

    I could not agree more, set your price and compare the benchmarks for the game/application you intend to run. Many will just shout out average performance / price, but the truth is that individual titles can often vary by as much as 20%+ even though the CPU on average is 5% faster than the competitor.
  5. BLKThumb

    and what do you do?
  6. BLKThumb

    If I were you and you didnt get the win7 cd I would get a z77 mobo and better ram
  7. BLKThumb

    So I need 232 GB? I run after effects and it can use 192GB of ram
  8. Tuco

    lol, I know what you mean. Sometimes don't even have to run the heater with this 800 watt power supply, 125 watt CPU.

    I live in Phoenix.
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  9. Irathi

    what on earth are you talking about?

    232 GB of ram?
  10. Tuco

    I read that zero games use hyperthreading (except Civ V which I don't have cause it's worse than Civ IV)
  11. JonboyX

    The i5 will be a lot faster than the i3. You will also gain the benefit of better multitasking in other games in the future.

    If you have 4 cores, your computer will use all 4 in multi-threaded tasks. It doesn't actively just use two and ignore the other two; work is spread across the cores (assuming you don't set affinities directly). This kind of load balancing minimises those little (or not so little) stutters that happen when things get busy.

    Having local cache also makes a big difference, especially in games. Micro calculations don't have to access the RAM sticks, so the whole experience is slicker.

    In terms of overclocking; you won't overclock your chip. However, it will overclock itself with practically no risk (Turbo Boost). Can't say this will knowledge of these chips in particular, but i5's generally clock higher via TurboBoost.

    And Sandy vs Ivy bridge; I think the main difference is down to energy efficiency at the lower end rather than speed.
  12. BLKThumb

    he said you need 20% more ram then you actually use. I can use 192gb of ram 20% of that is 40 so i need 232gb of ram. 32 IS NOT ENOUGH GAAAAH
  13. Irathi

    Yeah I honestly do not consider low W consumption to be a sale argument at all (unless in a laptop/server). If the high power consumption where causing temperature problems and messing up for its ability to overclock it would be a problem. As far as I know, the FX-8350 did just break the world record at over 8Ghz (cooled by nitrogen, but it illustrate my point).
  14. Irathi

    No you can not use 192 Gb of ram, it might be possible theoretically, but for 99.999999% of the users it is impossible.

    What he says is that if your computer use 4 Gb of ram (note USE, not what it has installed) then it is good to have another 20%. This means that you should have 4x1,2 = 4,8 Gb ram.
  15. BLKThumb

    If I have the ram I would use it (3d rendering)
  16. Irathi

    Still.. your post are pure trolling, not actually helping anyone or being constructive.
  17. Tuco

    So you guys think solid state harddrives will make RAM obsolete? :) How awesome would that be. No load times for anything, infinite RAM!
  18. Irathi

    I think it would probably be the other way around one day :)
  19. Daxer

    as I understand it, the Ivy bridge allows for PCIe 3.0 communication with your addon GPU. For example in the specs of that motherbaord you purchased it states this:

    The PCI Express x16 slot supports up to PCI Express 2.0 standard when an Intel 32nm (Sandy Bridge) CPU is installed.


    On the Tom's hardware site where he compares the i3 3220 and the i5 3450 he talks about the Ivy Bridge CPUs (of which both of these are) including 16 lanes of PCIe 3.0 connectivity even if this isnt currently a limiting factor to us as system builders/gamers.
  20. Tuco

    Yeah that's probably why my MOBO was cheaper. But I also read PCIe 3.0 doesn't effect frames in any games that exist today, and for the moment I'm keeping my old 9800GT.

    Certainly was a cinch building a computer these days. I didn't have to worry about matching timings and MHZ or GHZ nonsense of the Northbus memory cpu and video card.