Will the Intel Core i5-2400 with 8gig ram play games

[spudderick]

Hi, I have been trying so hard not to buy Intel, but it looks like that is the way I am going to go, so for my budget built, I am going for this system,

Intel Core i5-2400 Sandy Bridge 3.10GHz
H61 Chipset B3 Stepping Mobo powered ASRock H61M-VS B3 Motherboard
8GB DDR3

My question are, will this allow me to play games until I can afford a graphics card next month, ??

Also the board states on the suppiers website, ASRock H61M-VS B3

1 x PCI Express 2.0 x16 slot (at x16 mode)
1 x PCI Express 2.0 x1 slots (2.5GT/s)

But I can only see what slot in the pics, so there is no option to crossfire (not sure what this is called with Intel, ?)

Is it still possible to overclock the CPU, even thoughh it is not a K series, ??

Any advise would be very much appreciated, i do not want to get this wrong, so thanks in advance, ??

 

[rolli59]

The integrated HD will not play any modern games.
Budget boards usually only support 1 GPU which is the case here.
It has to be a "K" series CPU and a P67 or Z68 board for overclock.
I5 2400 K with a good discrete GPU is still going to be a good gaming machine.

 

[spudderick]

Many thanks for your reply, so just to confirm,

it is impossible to overclock the i5-2400, ??
the CPU and board combo will not allow me to play modern games even on low settings, ??
there is only one PCI Express 2.0 slot on this board, ??

I though the i5 was capable of playing dx 10.1 games, oh no, I must be wrong, ??

 

[diellur]

The CPU you've chosen has onboard graphics, which will not be ideal for games. The motherboard has VGA output, so make sure your monitor supports that. It also has limited overclocking options (you need a 'K' series CPU for that, really, and a P67 or Z68 motherboard).

That motherboard won't support Crossfire or SLI, as it only has one full-size PCIe slot.

If you want an overclockable rig, get the i5-2500K (not that much more than the i5-2400).

As for your question in the thread title...yes, the i5-2400 with 8GB of RAM will play games. Just make sure you get a decent GPU as well.

 

[rolli59]

Many thanks for your reply, so just to confirm,

it is impossible to overclock the i5-2400, ??
the CPU and board combo will not allow me to play modern games even on low settings, ??
there is only one PCI Express 2.0 slot on this board, ??

I though the i5 was capable of playing dx 10.1 games, oh no, I must be wrong, ??

There is possibility to increase by 1-2% on the fsb so little that it is not worth the hassle.
The HD2000 graphics are not capable of modern gaming some older ones OK.
Yes it only has one PCIe X16 ver 2.0 slot.

 

[jaguarskx]

The Intel HD 2000 is not a very powerful graphics core. I would say it probably has at best 75% of the Intel HD 3000 performance. The Intel HD 3000 is more or less equal to Radeon HD 5450 w/o DX11 support.

See following link for Radeon HD 5450 performance.

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/HIS/HD_5450_1_GB/6.html

 

[ttg_Avenged]

The Intel HD 2000 is not a very powerful graphics core. I would say it probably has at best 75% of the Intel HD 3000 performance. The Intel HD 3000 is more or less equal to Radeon HD 5450 w/o DX11 support.

See following link for Radeon HD 5450 performance.

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/HIS/HD_5450_1_GB/6.html

Sorry to OP but I loled @ the 5450's FPS on Crysis. 2.9fps. LOL. That nly on 768p, but IMO I would upgrade the mobo to a P8Z68 board, it can be a lower end one that's fine, then a i5 2500k, which to my knowledge is only 20-30$ more. Plus this card is EASILY overclockable. Simple as pressing DEL, CLICK, CLICK, TYPE done.

As far as gaming, the whole HD graphics is solely for 2D such as office. It truely was not designed for gaming. Do you know integrated vs dedicated graphics? Here's a great video tutorial. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Do4wiHU5CnY

If you do go with a dedicated, I would do your i5 2500k some justice, and grab a GTX 560, or 550 Ti. (Maybe a Radeon 6770...)

 

[loneninja]

It'll run older games on the integrated graphics like those based on the Unreal 2004 Engine, possibly source games like L4D on low, but it'll choke on anything modern.

 

[spudderick]

Best answer selected by spudderick.