Question I3 3240

[heavymetal2000]

Is the i3 3240 still a viable gaming chip?

My cousin is looking to upgrade on the extreme cheap and i can grab one of these cpus for 30$ brand new.

Hes still using an old 3 core amd with ddr2 and id like to bump him up to an i3 and ddr3 as cheap as poddible.

 

[cdrkf]

Is the i3 3240 still a viable gaming chip?

My cousin is looking to upgrade on the extreme cheap and i can grab one of these cpus for 30$ brand new.

Hes still using an old 3 core amd with ddr2 and id like to bump him up to an i3 and ddr3 as cheap as poddible.

It would probably suffice for a very cheap gaming machine, paired with a basic graphics card....

There may be better options though. That i3 is only dual core (4 threads), which is going to hold it back. I think you would be better off with an i5 if you can stretch to it (4 real cores), even if you go a generation older (The Sandy Bridge i5 2400 for example) would be a better choice imo.

The other thing to look out for on the second hand market is old Xeon processors, such as a Xeon E3 1230 (version 1)- which is actually a Sandy Bridget i7 (4 cores, 8 threads with turbo). Those can be picked up pretty cheap and fit into standard LGA 1155 motherboards same as the i series chips...

 

[heavymetal2000]

Yeh its mostly so he can play pubg and cs:go nothing crazy like witchery 3 or those styles of AAA titles.

Hes got an older GPU(HD 7850 2gb) but its working alright and I used it prior to him with a 965 BE CPU and was able to play pubg on lower settings.

 

[cdrkf]

Yeh its mostly so he can play pubg and cs:go nothing crazy like witchery 3 or those styles of AAA titles.

Hes got an older GPU(HD 7850 2gb) but its working alright and I used it prior to him with a 965 BE CPU and was able to play pubg on lower settings.

Hmm, trouble with pubg is it's quite cpu heavy, then again I guess anything is going to be better than his current (1st gen?) amd tri core (is it a Phenom or is it one of the cut down Athlon parts?). It's a shame his AMD build is DDR2, if it was the newer AM3+ socket on DDR3 there would be a few processors that might be worth upgrading to as a quick drop in replacement (e.g. Phenom II X6 or an FX series part even- something like a 6300 can still handle most games well enough, it would certainly keep pace with a HD 7850). Actually if you are on an extreme budget it might be worth looking at the FX series- they have such a bad reputation they have virtually no value so you might be able to get something halfway decent for very little money (e.g. FX 6300 or FX 8320)- which would be much stronger than that i3....

 

[heavymetal2000]

Yeh main reason I was considering the i3 was 30$ brand new and it seems that the per core performance according to most people was better.

I'm not opposed to a 6300 as I'm an AMD guy myself. I'll have a look around.
The idea is to somehow get together a mobo/cpu/8gb ram for ~150$ that will do pubg alongside that radeon GPU.

Used parts are fine.

And yeh it's a first gen athlon x3 unfortunately.

 

[cdrkf]

Yeh main reason I was considering the i3 was 30$ brand new and it seems that the per core performance according to most people was better.

I'm not opposed to a 6300 as I'm an AMD guy myself. I'll have a look around.
The idea is to somehow get together a mobo/cpu/8gb ram for ~150$ that will do pubg alongside that radeon GPU.

Used parts are fine.

And yeh it's a first gen athlon x3 unfortunately.

$150... you might be able to get something a bit newer then... for that budget maybe look out for some first gen Ryzen stuff. Quite a few people upgraded when second gen came out, I'll bet you might be able to pick up a deal on an old B350 mobo with say a 1300X in it

 

[heavymetal2000]

$150... you might be able to get something a bit newer then... for that budget maybe look out for some first gen Ryzen stuff. Quite a few people upgraded when second gen came out, I'll bet you might be able to pick up a deal on an old B350 mobo with say a 1300X in it

I'm in Canada Haha, so wont be any ryzen for him at that price.
I'll look anyways but I have a pretty good feeling the fx lineup is gonna be my best bang for buck.
Unless i could get a good deal on an older Intel like you mentioned.