worth it to buy an i3-3220 right now?

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wowsza

Limp Gawd
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Aug 16, 2013
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with the new haswell chips out and holiday shopping season a few months away, is it worth it to buy an i3-3220 right now? they go for ~$95 used on ebay, and i can get one from fry's for $110 using a gc.

it'd be a minor upgrade from an amd 965 for me. i was given a new intel motherboard with usb 3.0 and have been looking to upgrade my gear for a while.

any thoughts?
 
It depends upon your usage patterns. The i3 has much better single thread performance than the Phenom II it would be replacing, but if you manage to fully load the cores, the advantage disappears due to the i3 being a 4 thread capable dual core. For most light to medium tasks the i3 will be faster, though, and it will run cooler and use less electricity. They're ideal for mini-ITX and HTPC builds.
 
I would hold out for a used quad core if possible. The i3 would be a "side-grade," especially if you've overclocked your Phenom at all:

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/product/102?vs=677

It only beats the Phenom in a handful of cases, and games are starting to get more multithreaded as well!

You would only get a true upgrade from a 2500k or 3570k , as already suggested.

ALSO, of DIRE IMPORTANCE: were you given an OVERCLOCKING-CAPABLE mmotherboard? If not, don't even bother.
 
defaultluser said:
I would hold out for a used quad core if possible. The i3 would be a "side-grade," especially if you've overclocked your Phenom at all:

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/product/102?vs=677

It only beats the Phenom in a handful of cases, and games are starting to get more multithreaded as well!

You would only get a true upgrade from a 2500k or 3570k , as already suggested.

ALSO, of DIRE IMPORTANCE: were you given an OVERCLOCKING-CAPABLE mmotherboard? If not, don't even bother.
Click to expand...

i was given an msi z77ma-g45: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813130647

anyways, just bought a 2500k from the for sale forum:)

thanks for all the input, guys!
 
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