I5-2500k w/ IGP or Phenom X4 965 Black?

[backtits]

I'm thinking of two builds (for gaming) atm; one with an i5-2500k and the other with the X4 965 black edition.

The main difference between the two is the GPU. The intel system will run off the IGP until I have enough for a dedicated GPU, while the AMD build with come with a GTX 560. I'm wondering; since my budget is so tight what would be the better option? I've no problem running lowest settings with the i5 until I can afford a good GPU, but on the other hand the AMD build will come ready to take on those high-ish settings. Would the i5 system provide me with more power in the long run after it's complete, or would it only slightly surpass or match-up to the power of the AMD build?

 

[djangoringo]

See if you can buy a pentium g850/g860 with h61/h67/b75 mobo with the 560 gtx at a similar price of the 965 be build, cause then you can latter add one a i5 cpu or i7.

 

[backtits]

See if you can buy a pentium g850/g860 with h61/h67/b75 mobo with the 560 gtx at a similar price of the 965 be build, cause then you can latter add one a i5 cpu or i7.

It's funny 'cause I was initially going to do exactly that, as I could build something much cheaper with that setup, though I thought maybe going straight for the i5 would be a better idea since I have the money and am quite comfortable with waiting for the GPU. Then I thought of maybe just getting the AMD CPU since it's much cheaper and similar clock-speed.

Though I suppose I could flip it, and wait for the CPU instead of the GPU. That is of course assuming I'm going with the intel build. Which would be a better idea do you think?

 

[jaguarskx]

Well, it depends on what your expectations are when it comes to playing games on the Intel HD 3000. You would need to play games at 1366x768 resolution and with low settings or a combo of low & medium for slightly older games. For example, I can play Mass Effect 3 on my laptop using the Intel HD 3000 on low settings. The desktop version is a liitle more powerful though since laptops needs to conserve power. I have also tested Fallout 3 and it does give decent performance with a mix of low & medium settings. Crysis on the other hand was not really playable with low settings. Gameplay was choppy. I didn't test Crysis 2, but I would assume it would be less choppy since it is not as demanding as the original game.

I recommend that you actually go for the Ivy Bridge i5-3570k. It is not much more expensive than the i5-2500k. Additionally, at the same clockspeed it is on average 6% more power. It also has built-in PCI-e 3.0 controller so using a PCI-e 3.0 card in a PCI-e 3.0 slot will mean it can use up to the PCI-e 3.0 bandwidth limit. With the i5-2500k, the PCI-e 3.0 card is limited to PCI-e 2.0 bandwidth.

More importantly, the i5-3570k has the Intel HD 4000 which is 35% on average more powerful than the Intel HD 3000. That's basically going from a Radeon HD 5450 to a Radeon HD 5550. Both suck as desktop gaming cards, but the Radeon HD 5550 is a big improvement for 1366x768 resolution.

 

[djangoringo]

It's funny 'cause I was initially going to do exactly that, as I could build something much cheaper with that setup, though I thought maybe going straight for the i5 would be a better idea since I have the money and am quite comfortable with waiting for the GPU. Then I thought of maybe just getting the AMD CPU since it's much cheaper and similar clock-speed.

Though I suppose I could flip it, and wait for the CPU instead of the GPU. That is of course assuming I'm going with the intel build. Which would be a better idea do you think?

Yes, the pentium G850 or G860 is about the same performance as the x4 965 Be and a 560 gtx beats by miles any igpu, especially the intel ones, they're not good for gaming not even at 720p on low, while a 560 gtx can do 1080p medium settings in almost any game.
Then you can add an i5-3570 or i7-3770 depending on the prices.

 

[backtits]

Well, it depends on what your expectations are when it comes to playing games on the Intel HD 3000. You would need to play games at 1366x768 resolution and with low settings or a combo of low & medium for slightly older games. For example, I can play Mass Effect 3 on my laptop using the Intel HD 3000 on low settings. The desktop version is a liitle more powerful though since laptops needs to conserve power. I have also tested Fallout 3 and it does give decent performance with a mix of low & medium settings. Crysis on the other hand was not really playable with low settings. Gameplay was choppy. I didn't test Crysis 2, but I would assume it would be less choppy since it is not as demanding as the original game.

I recommend that you actually go for the Ivy Bridge i5-3570k. It is not much more expensive than the i5-2500k. Additionally, at the same clockspeed it is on average 6% more power. It also has built-in PCI-e 3.0 controller so using a PCI-e 3.0 card in a PCI-e 3.0 slot will mean it can use up to the PCI-e 3.0 bandwidth limit. With the i5-2500k, the PCI-e 3.0 card is limited to PCI-e 2.0 bandwidth.

More importantly, the i5-3570k has the Intel HD 4000 which is 35% on average more powerful than the Intel HD 3000. That's basically going from a Radeon HD 5450 to a Radeon HD 5550. Both suck as desktop gaming cards, but the Radeon HD 5550 is a big improvement for 1366x768 resolution.

Thank you for the replies btw! I appreciate them a lot. I like the idea of the HD 4000 and the increase in power, however I don't understand the bolded part of your post. I'm not very good with this sort of stuff, just sorta trying to learn as I go.

I'm leaning towards getting the strongest CPU I can right now and just waiting for the GPU, but getting a GPU right now and settling for a weaker CPU seems like a really good idea to me too, especially with the notion of waiting to see if the 3570k goes down in price, like on boxing day perhaps.

 

[jaguarskx]

The controller circuitry for the PCI-e slot is integrated into the CPU. Sandy Bridge was released prior to PCI-e 3.0 so the internal circuitry will not allow a PCI-e 3.0 slot to run at 3.0 speed. It will default to PCI-e 2.0 speed. If you buy a mobo with only a PCI-e 2.0 slot then it doesn't matter if there is a Sandy Bridge or Ivy Bridge CPU.

It will be a more than a year before graphic cards start to become bottlenecked by PCI-e 2.0 bandwidth (and I am not talking about a serious bottleneck). At first, only the real high end expensive graphic cards will be somewhat limited; $500+. But as graphic cards in the $200 - $400 range become more powerful, they too will eventually be limited by PCI-e 2.0, but probably not for another 3 - 4 years.

 

[jaguarskx]

Just be aware that only the Ivy Bridge Core i5 and i7 CPUs have the integrated PCI-e 3.0 controller circuitry. The Ivy Bridge Core i3 and Pentiums still have PCI-e 2.0 circuitry.

 

[djangoringo]

The b75 mobos have pcie 3.0/2.0 slot, he can pair a pentium g850(stays @2.0) for the time being there is no card that take advantage of pcie 3.0.
Latter on he can add an i5 or i7 and have pcie 3.0 with that board if by then if there will be cards that will take advantage is just speculation ...

 

[backtits]

So running the i5-3570k on a mobo with only PCI-e 2.0 support will cause the CPU and my system as a whole to be slower, is that what we're getting at? How slow exactly, or does the PCI-e only affect the GPU? If so, for either case, how much of an increase in performance would I see with a 3.0 over a 2.0? I've looked it up a bit and it doesn't look too substantial to me.

 

[jaguarskx]

PCI-e 2.0 / 3.0 only affects the performance of the graphics card. As of now using a PCI-e 3.0 graphic card in a PCI-e 2.0 slot will not bottleneck current generation PCI-e 3.0 cards because they currently do not use more data bandwidth than what PCI-e 2.0 slot provides.

Starting in 2014 the very high end performance graphic cards ($500+) will likely start to be bottlenecked by the bandwidth of PCI-e 2.0. Graphic cards below very high end will be bottlenecked at a later date because the use less bandwidth.

If you are going to buy an i5-3570k, then you might as well buy a motherboard with either the H75 or H77 chipset. Those motherboards will have a PCI-e 3.0 slot.

There are no performance gains when using a PCI-e 2.0 card in a PCI-e 3.0 slot.
There are no performance gains when using a PCI-e 3.0 card in a PCI-e 3.0 slot.
There are currently no performance penalties when using a PCI-e 3.0 card in a PCI-e 2.0 slot.