Phenom II x4 vs. Core i3

[Killer of Trees]

i have an on going debate with a close friend and we never get anywhere with just the two of us chiming in, so here is my first post on Toms Hardware and hopefully not my last i would like to get others opinions and overviews on the subject...


my friend claims that the 3.2GHz Core i3 550 Clarkdale is superior to the 3.4GHz Phenom II x4 965 Deneb (BE)

1st to point out the obvious the Core i3 listed above is a 3.2 Dual-Core Processor whereas the Phenom is a 3.4 Quad-Core Processor

the core i3 has an L2 cache of 2 x 256MB and an L3 cache of 4MB

the phenom features an L2 cache of 4 x 512MB and an L3 of 6MB

so far common sense claims phenom the winner.. however lets go deeper..

according to http://www.cpubenchmark.net

the i3 earned a score of 3100 and ranked 262
the Phenom scored 4200 with a rank of 151

the two CPU's in question are very closely priced but the Phenom is a quad core for the price of an intel dual core, i realize not many will need a quad core to run their desktop but if u can get a Lamborghini for the price of a Mustang, why not?


if there is something i dont kno about intel i3 then this should be quite obvious who the winner is in this scenario, however i would love to hear others input on the matter at hand and just wanna say.... AMD FTW!!!

 

[rolli59]

Here is 540 and 955 compared (since 550 not avail) http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/88?vs=143
They are pretty close but there are applications that use more than 2 cores so the over all win would go to the X4!

 

[wr6133]

I'd take the Phenom over the i3 especially if you clock it to 4GHZ or near.

 

[truegenius]

per core of first gen i3 is only 15-20% faster than phenom 2 at same clock speed.

 

[truegenius]

per core of first gen i3 is only 15-20% faster than phenom 2 at same clock speed.

 

[geekapproved]

Superior in what?

I don't know about the first gen i3's, but the i3-2100 will certainly outgun a X4 965 in gaming.

 

[Killer of Trees]

Superior in what?

I don't know about the first gen i3's, but the i3-2100 will certainly outgun a X4 965 in gaming.

the original debate was over all around performance, then he claimed the i3 would smash a phenom ii x4 in gaming and says intel ships are designed for gaming, ofc in the same argument he stated intel chips are designed for rendering audio and such... yea im lost too -_-

but i still fail to see how an i3 would outperform a phenom ii x4 in gaming or any aspect, as the x4 has overall double the processing power and if matched with the right RAM (as AMD is dependent on correct RAM) there should be no contest .

if im wrong id love an explanation as to how the i3 could handle gaming better.

just as his current core2 duo is supposedly soo much faster than my Athlon64 x2 5000+ (BE) .. the only thing that really sets up apart atm is he sprung for water cooling where i spent more on my case and RAM. but compare any core2 dup price to an athlon64 x2

 

[Killer of Trees]

Here is 540 and 955 compared (since 550 not avail) http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/88?vs=143
They are pretty close but there are applications that use more than 2 cores so the over all win would go to the X4!

in your comparison you used a phenom II x4 955 which showed scores just under the i3.

the Phenom in question is the 965 Black Edition which the scores are ... http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/102?vs=143

 

[rolli59]

I took a step down from the 965 since I only had an option of the 540 not the 550! 965 compared to the 550 would be similar!

 

[FALC0N]

the original debate was over all around performance, then he claimed the i3 would smash a phenom ii x4 in gaming and says intel ships are designed for gaming, ofc in the same argument he stated intel chips are designed for rendering audio and such... yea im lost too -_-

but i still fail to see how an i3 would outperform a phenom ii x4 in gaming or any aspect, as the x4 has overall double the processing power and if matched with the right RAM (as AMD is dependent on correct RAM) there should be no contest .

This is an easy question. Why is everyone making it so hard?

The X4 965 is substantially faster than the i3-550. The X4 is around 20% faster at stock speeds and will OC better as well. Stock, the two are more or less even in games with the X4 soundly defeating the 550 in non-gaming apps.

So your right and your friend was wrong. Any questions?

 

[FALC0N]

I took a step down from the 965 since I only had an option of the 540 not the 550! 965 compared to the 550 would be similar!

You do guys even know how to read benchmarks? The 965 kills the 550 overall. It even has better scores in the games.

 

[bawchicawawa]

Phenom II x 4 will performs better in more current games, namely bf3 in multiplayer.

 

[cmi86]

Idk why people need to make things so complicated. In gaming and ONLY gaming (not online muti player) would an i3 and a Phenom II X4 be close to equal as most games do not take advantage of more than 2 cores. At the rest of the computing world the Phenom's wound hand the i3 it's ass quite handily. X2 < X4

 

[sarinaide]

I am sorry, Phenom II's pretty much pwned first gen i3 and i5's, consider how quickly intel discontinued 1156, the reason their own core2 range was running better and don't even start on the overclocking or lack thereof.

 

[Killer of Trees]

i love you guys <3

 

[Raidur]

Edit: In gaming...

Considering the i3-2100 beats the Phenom II 955 (which most of us can agree on)... I'd go for the i3-540.

Not sure why you guys don't think a 30% overclocked (and it's capable of more with the right bin/HS/OCer) i3-540 can keep up with an i3-2100. This is simply false by simple addition. "i3-2100"="i3-540"*1.15, so... "i3-540"*1.3>"i3-2100".

i3 ftw.

Give this a read OP.

http://www.legionhardware.com/articles_pages/radeon_hd_5870_crossfire_cpu_scaling_performance_part_1,2.html

 

[cmi86]

Considering the i3-2100 beats the Phenom II 955 (which most of us can agree on)... I'd go for the i3-540.

Not sure why you guys don't think a 30% overclocked (and it's capable of more with the right bin/HS/OCer) i3-540 can keep up with an i3-2100. This is simply false by simple addition. "i3-2100"="i3-540"*1.15, so... "i3-540"*1.3>"i3-2100".

i3 ftw.

Are you retarded ? No seriously are you ? An i3 will match a Phenom II in one thing and one thing only GAMING. And this in it's self is only because most games are not coded to use more than 2 cores. Outside of gaming a phenom will slaughter any i3 out there for the simple fact Phenom is 4X i3 is 2X.
C'mon man it's fine if you are an intel guy but don't be ignorant. U are only lying to yourself.

 

[Raidur]

Are you retarded ? No seriously are you ? An i3 will match a Phenom II in one thing and one thing only GAMING. And this in it's self is only because most games are not coded to use more than 2 cores. Outside of gaming a phenom will slaughter any i3 out there for the simple fact Phenom is 4X i3 is 2X.
C'mon man it's fine if you are an intel guy but don't be ignorant. U are only lying to yourself.

Whoa... you sound angry.

Is it due to your bottlenecked GPU setup? (Find out!)

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/289?vs=88

2100 seems to keep up quite well in multi-threaded tasks.

Are we not talking about gaming?

I agree, in appls that fully utilize 4 cores efficiently the Phenom II would have a slight advantage. But we're talking about a CPU with worse IPC than Core2...

 

[FALC0N]

Whoa... you sound angry.

Is it due to your bottlenecked GPU setup? (Find out!)

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/289?vs=88

2100 seems to keep up quite well in multi-threaded tasks.

Are we not talking about gaming?

I agree, in appls that fully utilize 4 cores efficiently the Phenom II would have a slight advantage. But we're talking about a CPU with worse IPC than Core2...

I realize your arriving mid-stream and the poster you were quoting was non-specific, but the issue being discussed was between the I3-550 and the X4 965. The 2100 is not a topic of discussion.

 

[cmi86]

Whoa... you sound angry.

Is it due to your bottlenecked GPU setup? (Find out!)

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/289?vs=88

2100 seems to keep up quite well in multi-threaded tasks.

Are we not talking about gaming?

I agree, in appls that fully utilize 4 cores efficiently the Phenom II would have a slight advantage. But we're talking about a CPU with worse IPC than Core2...

Bottlenecked ? Sure maybe a tad but what high end CFX or SLI system isn't unless you are running a $1000 i7 @ 4+ Ghz ?
Benchmarks are all fine and dandy and do have a fair indication of performance but there are many variables and synthetic testing is not real world usage where I can say from experience that my personal phenom rig (even locked X4 at stock clocks) feels much more responsive and powerful when compared to the computers at my work (which we ordered in 2100's for their low TDP and intel gave us a deal for buying in bulk)
There is no denying that intel is more efficient but that does not make up for the lack of 2 physical cores on any i3 model.

 

[cmi86]

I realize your arriving mid-stream and the poster you were quoting was non-specific, but the issue being discussed was between the I3-550 and the X4 965. The 2100 is not a topic of discussion.

Here is a comparison then of the of the i3 540 (close enough) and the 955 where it is quite clear the i3 has the advantage in single threaded applications. Most everything other than that the 955 has a substantial lead over the i3.

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/143?vs=88

 

[Raidur]

I realize your arriving mid-stream and the poster you were quoting was non-specific, but the issue being discussed was between the I3-550 and the X4 965. The 2100 is not a topic of discussion.

Yeah, I think I wrongly assumed it was about gaming, my bad.

Read someone saying the 2100 was as fast as the Phenom II so I assumed while skimming through.

 

[Raidur]

Bottlenecked ? Sure maybe a tad but what high end CFX or SLI system isn't unless you are running a $1000 i7 @ 4+ Ghz ?
Benchmarks are all fine and dandy and do have a fair indication of performance but there are many variables and synthetic testing is not real world usage where I can say from experience that my personal phenom rig (even locked X4 at stock clocks) feels much more responsive and powerful when compared to the computers at my work (which we ordered in 2100's for their low TDP and intel gave us a deal for buying in bulk)
There is no denying that intel is more efficient but that does not make up for the lack of 2 physical cores on any i3 model.

A $1000 CPU isn't going to help you in 99% of gaming over the i5-2500k. Nearly all multi-threaded games simply don't use more than 4 threads efficiently at all.

Reviewers are still using first gen i-core CPUs and getting full scaling out of their GPUs, so I'd say it doesn't take much at all for Intel to keep the bottleneck at bay.

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/ASUS/Radeon_HD_6950_CrossFire/2.html

Here you can see techpowerup using an i7-920 @ 3.8ghz for their review. They use the same CPU/clock in most of their crossfire reviews.

Here is a comparison then of the of the i3 540 (close enough) and the 955 where it is quite clear the i3 has the advantage in single threaded applications. Most everything other than that the 955 has a substantial lead over the i3.

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/143?vs=88

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/88?vs=117

This is a little closer, as the i3 tends to overclock higher than Deneb (being 32nm w/ 2 cores). I would use the i5-670, but with turbo taking single threaded tasks to ~3.7ghz it's a little unfair.

However I do agree, like I said, with full and optimized quad core utilization the Phenom II would win. However for most consumers uses its a loss.

Like I said, I wrongly assumed it was all about gaming.

However, it does seem the OP mentioned in a later post that their original argument was about gaming.

SO I guess I'm somewhat relevant =P.