G3258 vs i3 vs i7 950

[unpealableorange]

Hi all. Now I was wondering what my new PC should be and would it be a good idea to get a used i7 950 and x58 motherboard combo for the same price as a G3258/i3 and motherboard.

I will be mainly gaming and light productivity in applications like Photoshop, Dreamweaver etc.

I'm coming from an e8300 with 4gb of ddr2 atm. Also would it matter if I used 2x4gb ddr3 in the x58 instead of triple channel.

Thanks in advance

 

[Forever Oleg]

i7 950 will be much better in Photoshop, Dreamweaver, Video Editing, Streaming as it is a quad core with hyper threading. On the other hand it is gonna lag behind considerably in games.
G3258 will be a beast in games and is very cheap but will not do as good with multi threaded programs.
Your best choice would be getting and i3. It is a dual core with hyperthreading. It has good single thread performance which will help you in games and will not be too bad in Photoshop, Dreamweaver, and editing.

Each processor is much better than the e8300 you had before.

Also, G3258 and i3 have a better upgrade path to modern i5 and i7, where as i7 950 is the top of the line for its socket and isnt good anymore anyways

Cheers

 

[Hiemal1]

Alternatively try looking at Sandy bridge i5's or i7's.

The 2500k i5 can be had for anywhere from $100-$130 and the motherboards are relatively cheap. A 2500k i5 Oc'd to 4.5-4.7 Ghz will pretty much kick the i7's butt along with the pentium while being upgradeable in the future to an Ivy bridge.

 

[Forever Oleg]

Alternatively try looking at Sandy bridge i5's or i7's.

The 2500k i5 can be had for anywhere from $100-$130 and the motherboards are relatively cheap. A 2500k i5 Oc'd to 4.5-4.7 Ghz will pretty much kick the i7's butt along with the pentium while being upgradeable in the future to an Ivy bridge.

Also true, but upgrading from sandy to ivy is gonna give you like 5-10% improvement