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I have a dilema here. I need help on deciding between the two processors. Budget is $150 (Wife will be pissed if I spend more). I can get the i3-2100 or $99 and the i5-2400 for $149.00. The only thing I really do is play games like Dragon Age Series, The Witcher, Stalker and I'll occasionaly play some BF3. Is it worth it to spend $50 on the qaud, when I will upgrade next holiday or buy the i3 and take the $50 and get skyrim? I have a HD6950 for my system on a 23" monitor 1920x1080. Thoughts? Thanks

Same clock speed, add turbo and double the cores for 50% more? Seems like a winner to me. An i5 will last a very long time in terms of how viable it is to game. An i3 less so. At $150 I'd be all over an i5 - where are you shopping? Newegg has it at $190.

Microcenter

Curse you, living in the middle of nowhere-ness! Definitely the 2400.

If u really hv limited budget go for the 2-core,
nothing against the i5, its great, but if u r going to upgrade next year,
u might well get an i5 or better processor for cheap. dunno

I also live near a microcenter.I would get the quad for sure.........4 cores for a year or 1 game now,easy choice cores last forever games...well get played out:)
As for waiting for chipzilla aka intel to drop prices do not bet on it,and even if they do it wont be much at all,thanks intel its 5$ cheaper a year later.They dont cut prices like AMD.

Another factor is my case is small, so heat could be an issue. Its a Lian Li pc-v351, much like a thermaltake Lan Party case. I more leaning towards the 2 Core. Skyrim doesn't benefit from 4 cores anyway.

The i3 will outgame most quad core phenoms. The i5 will give you slightly better frame rates but you'll have to determine whether those gains are worth the extra $50 to you.
As far as cooling, I wouldnt worry about that too much, I've seen overclocked 2600K's with 69xx GPUs in similar SFF cases. You can always grab a low profile aftermarket cooler to help if your CPU temps are above your comfort zone. Low profile coolers arent as efficient as tower-style ones (you wouldnt be able to fit a tower cooler in your case anyways) but they're still better than stock. Your case has 2 120mm fans in the front...thats alot of air movement in a SFF case, my guess is you wouldnt need an aftermarket cooler. If you decide on an aftermarket cooler you'll want to make sure that the CPU fan isnt sitting up too high if your PSU has a bottom mounted fan. If that happens the two fans will be fighting eachother for air making them both louder and less efficient.

I'd get the Core i5-2400 for $150, though the $180 Core i5-2500K is even better.

You didn't even mention the $120 Core i3-2125 as an option.

duncan0705 wrote:

I have a dilema here. I need help on deciding between the two processors. Budget is $150 (Wife will be pissed if I spend more). I can get the i3-2100 or $99 and the i5-2400 for $149.00. The only thing I really do is play games like Dragon Age Series, The Witcher, Stalker and I'll occasionaly play some BF3. Is it worth it to spend $50 on the qaud, when I will upgrade next holiday or buy the i3 and take the $50 and get skyrim? I have a HD6950 for my system on a 23" monitor 1920x1080. Thoughts? Thanks

If you buy the i5 then there will be no point in upgrading that part next year. The i3 on the other hand might leave you wanting to do that. The i5 is a much better long term investment and given your uses won't need replacing for at least two years.

I'll occasionaly play some BF3

i5, i5, mother freaking i5. Frostbite 2 eats CPUs for breakfast.

What board are you on now? Even the "locked" i5s can be bumped up +400MHz on P67 or Z68 boards.

Then just play STEAM games (TF2?) and pray that you get Skyrim in a gift box drop.

I just bought the i5-2400. Thanks everybody!

Good boy. Enjoy it!

where was the i5-2400 at $150 when i built my HTPC back in Aug? lol. think i spent $135 for the i3-2100 then.