i3 or i5 for me?

[Cpeden7]

Simple question here is my build

http://pcpartpicker.com/p/2pqf4D

Do I stick with my i5 or try and save a few bucks and get the i3? any ideas? will be used for typical college student tasks and also some light to moderate gaming. Mainly CSGO

 

[timeconsumer]

i3 is fine for CS:GO and general use. But the i5 is a great purchase if you can afford it.

If you want to save money I'd first switch the mobo to an H97 Asrock that still has wifi for $68. Next I would get an XFX 550w PSU for $6 less.

 

[Cpeden7]

Or do I go pentium? what would that do for me? I see it everywhere

 

[Dan425811923]

Are you doing video rendering or 3d modeling or things like that.

 

[Dan425811923]

If so get a i5. If not a i3 will work. A Pentium is like an i3 without hyperthreading. But if you do the best is a E3 Xeon which is a i7 without an igpu which you do not need as you have a r9 280. So to sum everything up a Pentium or i3 is good for normal use. However if you do professional pc work a Xeon like this http://ca.pcpartpicker.com/part/intel-cpu-bx80646e31220v3 will be better. An i5 is a good mid-high range processor but in your case you wouldn't need an i5.

 

[johnnyb105]

Why not go to a pent g3258 There dual core great power and over clockable and There dirt cheap at 69 bucks on the egg... Btw I have mine running 4.4 easy

 

[synphul]

If you can I'd stick with the i5 at that budget. You're already looking at $600-650, chances are you'll be keeping the pc for a year or two. Going i3 will save you about $70. A 'cheap' 1231v3 xeon would be almost $70 higher than your current build and unneeded. The extra $70 over an i3 for the i5 moves you from dual core with ht to an i5 with 4 true cores. The additional $70 beyond that only gives you the addition of ht, ht is never as strong as physical cores. Either will probably work, so it's your call but for the year or two (or longer) you plan to keep the pc, I think the i5 would be worth it. Unless you wanted to go with an i3 for now with the option to upgrade to an i5/i7 later.

 

[geofelt]

My reading says that CSGO is single threaded.
Then, by far your best choice would be a cheaper G3258 and plan on an overclock to the 4.0 range.
The nice thing is that if you ever need a i3 or i5, it will be easy to sell and upgrade.
There are some ITX cases that are more reasonable if you would use a USB wifi adapter.

I would also consider building around a SSD instead of a hard drive. SSD prices are down, and a 240gb ssd can hold a fair number of games.
You will not regret it. Look at Samsung 840/850 evo.

What case will you be using?

I think you could save some on the power supply.
Something like a 550w XFX or Seasonic.

And... R9 cards are getting a bit old. Might not a more efficient GTX960 work better in a small case?

 

[LookItsRain]

An i3 would work fine, but an i5 is the better buy from the start and will allow future upgrades to the gpu without a potential cpu bottleneck for a couple years.

As a side note change that psu to the 750 B2 from evga, the model you selected is not high quality, the 750w b2 is built by superflower.

 

[spdragoo]

Don't go with the Pentium. Games are already starting to require quad-cores as their minimums (GTA V, Witcher III, etc.), which means a dual-core Pentium isn't going to cut it, no matter how much you overclock.

Same with the i3: the HyperThreading helps a little bit, but even the i3s have been having some issues with the quad-core games when the CPU-intensive areas are reached. And your R9 280 is already a decent GPU, so unless you want to invest in an SSD I'd say keep the i5.