Why is the i3 always overlooked and underestimated?

[Speedstang]

Whenever ANYONE is talking about building a gaming rig, everyone jumps straight to the i5's and i7's. Nobody every even considers i3's. And when people want a budget build, everyone directly jumps to the Pentium anniversary and AMD FX processors. Why are they so overlooked? My system has an i3, and I have NEVER been able to lag it, I can do anything you can imagine and it keeps going strong. The integrated graphics, of course, can lose a lot of framerate on more intensive games, but for integrated graphics they really pack a lot of power. So why are i3's so overlooked? They cost about the same as budget FX CPU's, they beat out the Pentium anniversary (NOTE: Any i3 with a U, T or any other letter at the end doesn't count, I'm talking about REAL i3's not laptop power saving ones) so why aren't they ever considered?

 

[cilliers]

Depends if you are playing AAA titles or indie games

 

[Speedstang]

Depends if you are playing AAA titles or indie games

What do you mean?

 

[cilliers]

Depends if you are playing AAA titles or indie games

What do you mean?

Point and case

 

[jaguarskx]

Generally because it only has two core and people think that there are more games that can use more than 2 cores than actually exists. Overall performance depends on the game and to many people surprise there are some games where a Core i3 CPU can provide almost the same performance as a FX-8350... or better...

Outside of games, there are programs that do perform better with more than 2 cores.

 

[Speedstang]

Most i3's are hyperthreaded to quad cores though, and that truly works, the thing is detected as quad core by everything and runs like quad core.

 

[cilliers]

Most i3's are hyperthreaded to quad cores though, and that truly works, the thing is detected as quad core by everything and runs like quad core.

LIES

 

[jaguarskx]

Most i3's are hyperthreaded to quad cores though, and that truly works, the thing is detected as quad core by everything and runs like quad core.

It is more complicated than that.

While a Core i3 can handle up to 4 threads like a Core i5 CPU only Hyper Threading (HT) allows it to do so. It is less efficient than a quad core CPU at handling 4 threads at once and the program needs to be designed to take advantage of HT.

 

[Speedstang]

Most i3's are hyperthreaded to quad cores though, and that truly works, the thing is detected as quad core by everything and runs like quad core.

It is more complicated than that.

While a Core i3 can handle up to 4 threads like a Core i5 CPU only Hyper Threading (HT) allows it to do so. It is less efficient than a quad core CPU at handling 4 threads at once and the program needs to be designed to take advantage of HT.

I understand that, but still, it works, it will function better than any dual core with similar specs.

 

[LookItsRain]

i5 and i7 are better of course, but an i3 performs very well for the cost

 

[jaguarskx]

While a Core i3 can potentially perform better than a dual core CPU with no HT like a Pentium, the actual performance difference depends if the program can make use of HT. If not then only background Windows processes can take advantage of HT which generally means only a minor performance increase at best.

 

[USAFRet]

IMHO, the i3 falls into a no man's land between the budget G3258, and the i5. If you have the money to build more than the cheapest, the actual $$ difference between the i3 and i5 isn't that much. So go with the i5.

If you don't have that money in the budget, then the low end will work.

 

[madmatt30]

^ it does indeed but I personally dont think they're overlooked at all.
Price point wise the 6300 is its competitor & although I do think the 6300 is a better all rounder there have been times I've recommend the i3 over it.as you say for gaming at least ht works very very well .

The i3 is dreadfully overpriced in the far east & asia & it seems that these regions are the ones where people tend to be on a tight budget & amd wins out on price.
I'd never recommend the Pentium irregardless of budget anyway.

 

[Speedstang]

Most i3's are hyperthreaded to quad cores though, and that truly works, the thing is detected as quad core by everything and runs like quad core.

LIES

Uh, 6300?

 

[Blueberries]

IMHO, the i3 falls into a no man's land between the budget G3258, and the i5. If you have the money to build more than the cheapest, the actual $$ difference between the i3 and i5 isn't that much. So go with the i5.

If you don't have that money in the budget, then the low end will work.

I think it's the other way around. The i3 should be the productivity choice and the i7 the performance choice. The i5 is the weird one.

 

[Speedstang]

IMHO, the i3 falls into a no man's land between the budget G3258, and the i5. If you have the money to build more than the cheapest, the actual $$ difference between the i3 and i5 isn't that much. So go with the i5.

If you don't have that money in the budget, then the low end will work.

Aren't decent i5's priced at around $200 at the moment? My i3 is priced at just above $100. The anniversary Pentium is at around $70. $30 to $40 and you get a massive boost. The i5 is like $90 more.......

 

[Speedstang]

IMHO, the i3 falls into a no man's land between the budget G3258, and the i5. If you have the money to build more than the cheapest, the actual $$ difference between the i3 and i5 isn't that much. So go with the i5.

If you don't have that money in the budget, then the low end will work.

I think it's the other way around. The i3 should be the productivity choice and the i7 the performance choice. The i5 is the weird one.

EXACTLY what I've always thought. The i5 is just, kind of there.........

 

[Blueberries]

What they need to do is release a 95W version of the i3 that fills the gap and scrap the i5 completely. Most people don't even need 4 cores so two strong threads and two hyper-threads should be the ideal for gamers that need extra juice.

There's no reason we can't have a 95W i3 with a 4.0Ghz stock clockrate, 2 cores produces less heat than 4 cores.

 

[Speedstang]

What they need to do is release a 95W version of the i3 that fills the gap and scrap the i5 completely. Most people don't even need 4 cores so two strong threads and two hyper-threads should be the ideal for gamers that need extra juice.

There's no reason we can't have a 95W i3 with a 4.0Ghz stock clockrate, 2 cores produces less heat than 4 cores.

Honestly, they should just do a k edition of an i3. If my 3220 was a k edition, it'd blow a couple of the i5's away. Just imagine a k edition skylake i3. Only issue is that they're making a lot of money off the i5, doing the i3 thing would be a loss of money to them :/

 

[Dragos Manea]

Most of the current games require a native quad core, if you want to play with 60 fps+ and all maxed out then you need an i5, most people build a gaming pc so that’s why i5 and i7 are preferred. If you put a high end videocard on a i3 it will bottleneck the videocard very badly, you cant play 60+ fps with everything maxed out.

 

[Speedstang]

Most of the current games require a native quad core, if you want to play with 60 fps+ and all maxed out then you need an i5, most people build a gaming pc so that’s why i5 and i7 are preferred. If you put a high end videocard on a i3 it will bottleneck the videocard very badly, you cant play 60+ fps with everything maxed out.

Higher end i3's wont bottleneck, they can basically handle anything that isn't hyper intensive like Witcher 3. So again, back to my the previous post, i5's don't really have a point. If you want maxed out performance get an i7, if you want good performance at a lower price get an i3.

 

[g1abhi]

Whenever ANYONE is talking about building a gaming rig, everyone jumps straight to the i5's and i7's. Nobody every even considers i3's. And when people want a budget build, everyone directly jumps to the Pentium anniversary and AMD FX processors. Why are they so overlooked? My system has an i3, and I have NEVER been able to lag it, I can do anything you can imagine and it keeps going strong. The integrated graphics, of course, can lose a lot of framerate on more intensive games, but for integrated graphics they really pack a lot of power. So why are i3's so overlooked? They cost about the same as budget FX CPU's, they beat out the Pentium anniversary (NOTE: Any i3 with a U, T or any other letter at the end doesn't count, I'm talking about REAL i3's not laptop power saving ones) so why aren't they ever considered?

Pure marketing , i3 performs better than amd processors , but amd gives boasting rights of 3.5gz quad core and hexacore.
as for the i5 choice , 2013 and later games use 4 cores around , the ones over 10gb and significantly benefit over the i3 due to dual core limit like 20% fps with a 20% cost increase. whereas for the i5 to i7 , its just a 5% FPS jump. while cost rises 40%.

 

[Blueberries]

Clock-rate is more important than core count. i3s have a lower base clock rate and underclock themselves when running 4T, this is the reason i5s perform marginally better in video games or other tasks that make use of more than three threads.

 

[synphul]

I'd disagree, the i5 isn't really the odd one. Especially since they have the k series, something the i3 lacks. I look at it this way, cores win over ht any day. Pay $100 more for twice the cores moving from i3 to i5, pay $100 more moving from i5 to i7 for ht. Would you pay $100 more for ht over the g3258? An i3 is a perfectly fine budget solution, especially for offices and things where the graphics aren't pushed very hard. Paired with a gpu it's fine for most games, but even when ht is taken advantage of ht is no match for actual cores. It allows the existing cores to remain busy (usually). At the heart of it, the i3 is still a dual core.

If anything, the 4790k is the odd price/performance point. Looking at the cpus based on cores/price you have:

i3 4170 - 2c/4t - $114 - can't be oc'd and only half the cache of the i5.
i5 4690(k) - 4c/4t - $230 - twice the physical cores and twice the cache, can be oc'd - $100 difference.
i7 4790(k) - 4c/8t - $328 - $100 more than the i5 with the addition of 2mb cache and ht, can also be oc'd.
i7 5820k - 6c/12t - $379 - only $50 more than the 4790k but with 2 extra cores and 4 extra threads along with 15mb cache (almost twice what the 4790k offers), can also be oc'd.

Granted the 5820k is on a different chipset/platform, however it doesn't change the lineup. While the 4790k may be the 'flagship' for desktop/mainstream, it's not the highest end i7 out there and it's really at an awkward price point for what it has to offer. Half the price increase moving to the 5820k from the 4790k vs 4790k from 4690k and offering twice the cache rather than 33% more along with 2 physical ht enabled cores. By all rights the 4790k should be the cpu $50 more expensive than the i5 and the 5820k should be the cpu $100 more than the 4790k.

 

[Speedstang]

Whenever ANYONE is talking about building a gaming rig, everyone jumps straight to the i5's and i7's. Nobody every even considers i3's. And when people want a budget build, everyone directly jumps to the Pentium anniversary and AMD FX processors. Why are they so overlooked? My system has an i3, and I have NEVER been able to lag it, I can do anything you can imagine and it keeps going strong. The integrated graphics, of course, can lose a lot of framerate on more intensive games, but for integrated graphics they really pack a lot of power. So why are i3's so overlooked? They cost about the same as budget FX CPU's, they beat out the Pentium anniversary (NOTE: Any i3 with a U, T or any other letter at the end doesn't count, I'm talking about REAL i3's not laptop power saving ones) so why aren't they ever considered?

Pure marketing , i3 performs better than amd processors , but amd gives boasting rights of 3.5gz quad core and hexacore.
as for the i5 choice , 2013 and later games use 4 cores around , the ones over 10gb and significantly benefit over the i3 due to dual core limit like 20% fps with a 20% cost increase. whereas for the i5 to i7 , its just a 5% FPS jump. while cost rises 40%.

It's an 80% increase in price, i5's are around $200, i3's are just over $100.