Im gonna do a Mini-ITX "mobile" PC, and I got a really hard question.
Is it better to get a fast i3 bottlenecked by 2 cores or an meh FX with 4?
Yes, I know the FX 4100 is "slower". However, the I3 is only 2 cores. Now I know cores doesn't mean power, but a good amount of my games benefit from more then 2 cores. Plus, I am coming from a Phenom x4 9150e, so pretty much anything, including an Athlon II, is faster then this ****. I am wiling to get the FX if it is just a tad slower then the i3 and gets like 1-2 FPS less.
That's the other thing. The CPU isn't the huge star when it comes to game performance, the GPU is. Now, I know that an FX no doubt will support an 7770. But, I do know that an i3 squeezes about 1-3 more FPS. If you run things in Vsync like I do, you just wasted 20$ more for 2 less cores and a boost you wont get.
If the 4100, for whatever reason, gets bad for gaming (****, gaming on a Phenom makes a Core 2 duo seem fast), I could always get the 4350 that comes out approx next month. With the i3, your on a dead socket, and Intel products seem to vaporize if they are 2 gens behind.
Im gonna do a Mini-ITX "mobile" PC, and I got a really hard question.
Is it better to get a fast i3 bottlenecked by 2 cores or an meh FX with 4?
Yes, I know the FX 4100 is "slower". However, the I3 is only 2 cores. Now I know cores doesn't mean power, but a good amount of my games benefit from more then 2 cores. Plus, I am coming from a Phenom x4 9150e, so pretty much anything, including an Athlon II, is faster then this ****. I am wiling to get the FX if it is just a tad slower then the i3 and gets like 1-2 FPS less.
That's the other thing. The CPU isn't the huge star when it comes to game performance, the GPU is. Now, I know that an FX no doubt will support an 7770. But, I do know that an i3 squeezes about 1-3 more FPS. If you run things in Vsync like I do, you just wasted 20$ more for 2 less cores and a boost you wont get.
If the 4100, for whatever reason, gets bad for gaming (****, gaming on a Phenom makes a Core 2 duo seem fast), I could always get the 4350 that comes out approx next month. With the i3, your on a dead socket, and Intel products seem to vaporize if they are 2 gens behind.
But the i3 is fast now, and will be for a while
Do not get the FX. It eternally sucks. Most games don't benefit from more than 2 cores, and the i3 has hyper threading, which means it has 4 virtual cores. Also, the i3 pwns the FX 4100 in every way possible.
The FX4100 is 2 cores split in half. So really it is a dual core that can split into "by split, split its floating point units (FPUs)" 4 processing virtual cores. The resources for each core has to be split amoung the other 2 virtual cores.
The i3 on the other hand, uses a much better method to control resources. Hyper threading does not make the processor have to split its resources, it just processes 2 threads at once on each core. This is much more efficent at moment since most programs can detect and utilize hyper threading. Games benifit little from 2 or more cores.
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The FX4100 is 2 cores split in half. So really it is a dual core that can split into "by split, split its floating point units (FPUs)" 4 processing virtual cores. The resources for each core has to be split amoung the other 2 virtual cores.
The fx4100 has 4 Integer units and and sources claim almost 90% of operations don't use the FPU so on them so for 90% of programs it is as much a quad core as a phenom x4 is. Each core also has its own cache.
If I wanted an i5, I would put it in in the first place.
No, the i3 isn't hyperthreaded.
Also, I plan to be video recording and editing, something that benefits greatly from more cores/HT.
The i3 is hyperthreaded and the FX 4100 isn't a conventional quad core. Up until the FX series, quad cores have had a floating point unit assigned to each core. The FX processors have each floating point unit shared by two modules, or cores. The i3 is better than the 4100 at both singlethreaded and multithreaded applications.
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Is it better to get a fast i3 bottlenecked by 2 cores or an meh FX with 4?
Yes, I know the FX 4100 is "slower". However, the I3 is only 2 cores. Now I know cores doesn't mean power, but a good amount of my games benefit from more then 2 cores. Plus, I am coming from a Phenom x4 9150e, so pretty much anything, including an Athlon II, is faster then this ****. I am wiling to get the FX if it is just a tad slower then the i3 and gets like 1-2 FPS less.
That's the other thing. The CPU isn't the huge star when it comes to game performance, the GPU is. Now, I know that an FX no doubt will support an 7770. But, I do know that an i3 squeezes about 1-3 more FPS. If you run things in Vsync like I do, you just wasted 20$ more for 2 less cores and a boost you wont get.
If the 4100, for whatever reason, gets bad for gaming (****, gaming on a Phenom makes a Core 2 duo seem fast), I could always get the 4350 that comes out approx next month. With the i3, your on a dead socket, and Intel products seem to vaporize if they are 2 gens behind.
But the i3 is fast now, and will be for a while
Do not get the FX. It eternally sucks. Most games don't benefit from more than 2 cores, and the i3 has hyper threading, which means it has 4 virtual cores. Also, the i3 pwns the FX 4100 in every way possible.
The i3 on the other hand, uses a much better method to control resources. Hyper threading does not make the processor have to split its resources, it just processes 2 threads at once on each core. This is much more efficent at moment since most programs can detect and utilize hyper threading. Games benifit little from 2 or more cores.
"Never try to teach a pig to sing; it wastes your time and it annoys the pig." — Robert Heinlein
If I wanted an i5, I would put it in in the first place.
No, the i3 isn't hyperthreaded.
Also, I plan to be video recording and editing, something that benefits greatly from more cores/HT.
Uh ya, the i3 is dual core hyper threaded. The i5 is 4 real cores, the i7 is 4 cores and hyper threaded.
Intel® Core™ i3-2120 Processor
(3M Cache, 3.30 GHz)
Status Launched
Launch Date Q1'11
Processor Number i3-2120
# of Cores 2
# of Threads 4
Clock Speed 3.3 GHz
Intel® Smart Cache 3 MB
Bus/Core Ratio 33
DMI 5 GT/s
Instruction Set 64-bit
Instruction Set Extensions SSE4.1/4.2, AVX
Embedded Options Available
Yes
Lithography 32 nm
Max TDP 65 W
Recommended Customer Price TRAY: $117.00
BOX : $125.00
Datasheet Url Link
The fx4100 has 4 Integer units and and sources claim almost 90% of operations don't use the FPU so on them so for 90% of programs it is as much a quad core as a phenom x4 is. Each core also has its own cache.
The I3 is still better.
The i3 is hyperthreaded and the FX 4100 isn't a conventional quad core. Up until the FX series, quad cores have had a floating point unit assigned to each core. The FX processors have each floating point unit shared by two modules, or cores. The i3 is better than the 4100 at both singlethreaded and multithreaded applications.
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If you're doing lots of rendering, go with an i5.