Intel Core i3 2100 Vs AMD Phenom X4 955 for GAMING.

Intel Core i3 2100 Vs AMD Phenom X4 955 For GAMING.

  • Intel Core i3 2100

    Votes: 19 59.4%
  • AMD Phenom X4 955

    Votes: 13 40.6%

  • Total voters
    32

rickytrux11

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Mar 11, 2011
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Am going to build a new gaming pc within this month, am on a strict budget and I want to get the best withing my budget.

As people are always interested to know the budget, i will say the both Intel i3 and the Phenom II X4 just suites my budget perfectly. But dont know which one to get. My main aim for the build will be Gaming and Gaming. And i will Never OC the CPU.

I will be getting

Radeon HD 6670
4GB RAM

And, i will be playing at 1024*768(I Know its very low but am fine and not going to upgrade).

Games like Crysis, GTA 4, Battlefield BC 2, NFS Shift, Metro 2033, Call of duty Black Ops, Dead Space, Assassin's Creed Brotherhood etc.

Thanks....:)
 

kingofspades

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Jul 27, 2011
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In that case I would say the Phenom 955, even though you aren't overclocking...Passmark benches the Phenom about 20% faster than the i3-2100. Your motherboard will likely cost less as well.

I did a 965be build that I still use for gaming, but it is heavily overclocked.
 

tulx

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May 17, 2009
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I'd say: take the Phenom. If you put it in a AM3+ MoBo, you will be fit for upgrading for years to come. Bulldozer is at the doorstep and you never know how it may perform - it might and probably will be on par with Sandy Bridge. It could be a worthwhile upgrade in the future. At least you can be quite sure that AMD, unlike Intel, will support a certain socket for years to come.
As for overclocking, saying "I simply do not overclock and that's that" doesn't make much sense. Modern motherboards have such good auto-overclocking abilities now that you only have to press one button and it will automatically fine tune to a fast AND stabe setting. Remember that processors with unlocked multipliers are meant to be overclocked. It really does not harm the part in any way if you don't push it over the limits, and auto-overclock utilities do not. My Phenom I 9850 is running overclocked from 2,5 to 3,1 GHz for four years now, and will probably run for another four, if I don't replace it (I probably will buy either Sandy Bridge, if Bulldozer turns out bad, or Bulldozer, if it's good).
In short - the Phenom II is highly overclockable, you can safely reach 4,1 GHz. I'd say - go for it. With it, you can get a AM3+ MoBo which willl be able to run all the newest AMD CPU's for years to come.
 

ghnader hsmithot

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You might be wrong according to a slide we might have a new platform for Piledriver cores.
2011-07-27-image-2.jpg
 

tulx

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May 17, 2009
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Mmmh, there's been SO much fabricated nonsense in the internet regarding Bulldozer and AMD plans in general that I'd recomment not to trust all that "info" one bit. It MIGHT be true, of course...MIGHT. The only thing we do know, is that so far AMD's CPU's have been very backwards-compatible. It might of might not change.
Fact is, that AM3+ will at least suppports CPU's ranging from Phenom II's to the FX series and its later revisions. That sounds good enough for me already.
Not my decision to make, of course, just saying how I would act.
 

ghnader hsmithot

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Just telling OP the rumors.I might be wrong too.
 

ghnader hsmithot

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Sorry, we cant tell you.You have to weigh out pros and cons to arrive to this decision.
 

robin banks uk

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Mar 15, 2010
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amd! you can get a program that comes with your motherboard that will overclock :) all you need is a cpu fan like:

Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro rev 2 Socket 775, 1156, 1155, 1366, AM2, AM3 Heatpipe CPU Cooler

use the motherboard cd program and let it do the work :)
 

tulx

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May 17, 2009
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As so often in life, there is no the right answer :cry: . Like Mr. hsmithot said - we try to provide you with an overwiev of the possible benefits and shortcomings of each processor. You need to decide which benefits outweigh which shortcomings and decide upon that.
To try to sum it up: Intel will provide you with more power if you just put the CPU in and that's it. AMD will provide you with more power if you over-clock it and it might also provide you with a more future-proof platform for CPU upgrades to come. Decisions, decisions.
 

tulx

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May 17, 2009
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I'd say they definitely will, yes. At least the demanding games. Most "mainstream" titles like BFBC2 already use all of my four cores, so quad-core is becoming the standard for high-end gaming, if it already isn't.
 

tulx

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May 17, 2009
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Mm, I guess you could say that. Someone linked some comparison charts at the begining of the thread, I think. Check how the CPUs perform in quad-core optimised games.
And I sincerely recommend not to throw the overclocking idea out of the window. It would mean vasting about 30% of the Phenoms potential.
 

tulx

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May 17, 2009
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PS - from a quick glance at the charts, Phenom outperforms the i3 in multi-threadded applications and some of the muti-threaded games.
 

ionut19

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Oct 31, 2008
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Buy the intel chip with intel motherboard, next year buy a 2500k and sell the CPU you have. You should be able to rise money until then if you do not have them now. The i52500k can be overclocked and you will have big improvements in games with it.
The motherboard should be a p67 or above chip set to be able to overclock the CPU.

That's what i would do.
 

ghnader hsmithot

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all mobos that support the Sandy Bridge would support all i3, i5,i7(with some exceptions).

However we advise you for the p67 chipset or a z68 chipset. so that it allows you to Overclock.The h61 and h67 dont support any Overclocking functions.