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i3-2100 vs ????

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bigddybn

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Looking to build a SFF sandy bridge system as soon as Z68 mini itx boards are available here.

This machine will mostly be for websurfing and such. Possibly some gaming in the future. It will be asked to transcode video but plan on utilizing quick sync for this. Yes I know there is a slight quality hit but these are mostly bargain bin kid DVDs that my wife always buys for 3 bucks from wally world. Not concerned with 100% quality as much as I am conversion speed. Been using CUDA which is a much bigger hit and nobody is complaining about picture quality.

First instinct was to go ahead and add the 2500K to my cart but I'm now wondering if the extra 100 bucks is worth it for anything. I know the 2500k will slaughter the i3 in CPU intensive tasks but with quick sync being used for the video recodes does this even matter? I'd also be gaming on a single monitor with a single card so I don't think the minor FPS gain I'd see with the 2500k will make any difference. Especially if I spent the difference on say a GPU upgrade which would have a much larger impact on gaming.

Any good reason to not just get the i3-2100 and keep my 100 bucks? I can't possibly imagine I'd see any difference in day to day tasks.
 
Well since the 2100 is more powerful than my processor, It will do everything you need.

The 2100 is very powerful and is perfectly fine for nearly everything.
 
Built an i3-2100 rig last week for my friend who pretty much only encodes or converts videos in his spare time. The speed boost over the 2600k isn't worth the extra 100 bucks, it's better spent elsewhere. Seriously, we've thrown everything at the little 2100 and it did nothing but surprise us.
 
Astronomica said:
Built an i3-2100 rig last week for my friend who pretty much only encodes or converts videos in his spare time. The speed boost over the 2600k isn't worth the extra 100 bucks, it's better spent elsewhere. Seriously, we've thrown everything at the little 2100 and it did nothing but surprise us.
Click to expand...

He using quick sync?
 
Hrmm well after using a 2500k and 2600k the 2100 felt like molasses. But its still a fast chip compared to anything else even close in its price range.

Astronomica said:
Built an i3-2100 rig last week for my friend who pretty much only encodes or converts videos in his spare time. The speed boost over the 2600k isn't worth the extra 100 bucks, it's better spent elsewhere. Seriously, we've thrown everything at the little 2100 and it did nothing but surprise us.
Click to expand...

Oh and I beg to differ. Try quicksyncing with a 2500K - Rediculous speed. However I find that I still get better performance now that I encode with my 6990 over my 2500K but my 2600K beats them both hands down because of the extra 4 threads. That was some testing I did on my H67 Asrock H67 board a few months ago.
 
Does anyone have any numbers showing a quicksync encode being massively faster using an i5 vs the i3?
 
bigddybn said:
Does anyone have any numbers showing a quicksync encode being massively faster using an i5 vs the i3?
Click to expand...

Here --- the 2500 and 2600 are significantly faster in performance while video encoding.
http://www.anandtech.com/show/4083/...core-i7-2600k-i5-2500k-core-i3-2100-tested/16

I can tell you that I seen a big gain using the 2600K over the 2500K due to the extra 4 threads.

The 2500K is going to be genuinely faster due to the fact it has 2 more real cores. HT is about the speed of 1/3 to 1/2 of a true core and it cant perform the same algorithms as a true core. It is simply an extra extension that helps when a certain core is backed up or waiting on something to happen. It keeps the project moving forward so to say until the real muscle ( a core) is ready to move forward once again with the heavy lifting.

Anyways Quicksync is fast already so regardless of the chip you select the process is going to happen fast. Its just a matter of how fast vs. how much money you want to spend. The 2100 is probably more than fast enough for the occasional person that wants to add a video to their cell phone or something.

And if he wants to game and really push some high end GPU the 2100 will probably not deliver quite enough unless you took it 4.6+ghz. Heck you have to overclock 2500 and 2600's just to feed enough fuel to the Top End GTX580/90's and 6970's/90's as proven on these very forums and website.

Im just another opinion and no way specialized in this topic.
 
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I build a HTPC last month with a 2100. A little over kill maybe, but I wanted it to be able to handle decoding a high bitrate movie, doing raid 5, unziping/verifying, etc all at the same time if necessary. I think it fits your bill nicely if the gaming isn't too intense.
 
tangoseal said:
Here --- the 2500 and 2600 are significantly faster in performance while video encoding.
http://www.anandtech.com/show/4083/...core-i7-2600k-i5-2500k-core-i3-2100-tested/16

I can tell you that I seen a big gain using the 2600K over the 2500K due to the extra 4 threads.

The 2500K is going to be genuinely faster due to the fact it has 2 more real cores. HT is about the speed of 1/3 to 1/2 of a true core and it cant perform the same algorithms as a true core. It is simply an extra extension that helps when a certain core is backed up or waiting on something to happen. It keeps the project moving forward so to say until the real muscle ( a core) is ready to move forward once again with the heavy lifting.

Anyways Quicksync is fast already so regardless of the chip you select the process is going to happen fast. Its just a matter of how fast vs. how much money you want to spend. The 2100 is probably more than fast enough for the occasional person that wants to add a video to their cell phone or something.

And if he wants to game and really push some high end GPU the 2100 will probably not deliver quite enough unless you took it 4.6+ghz. Heck you have to overclock 2500 and 2600's just to feed enough fuel to the Top End GTX580/90's and 6970's/90's as proven on these very forums and website.

Im just another opinion and no way specialized in this topic.
Click to expand...

I don't want to sound rude but the benchmarks you linked are software encode, not quick sync. The i3 for that matter can't be overclocked period much less to 4.6. You don't seem to understand the subject matter and are muddying the waters here.

The entire point of quick sync is to keep the encode/decode process off the CPU which should make the CPU clock speed and thread count largely irrelevant. Does anyone know of any numbers that counter this?
 
Love my 2100, only wish it could OC better >< Can squeeze a few mhz on bclk but that's it. I have been tempted to get a aftermarket cooler for it too but the stock one seems to be OK. Cost me something like $80 +tax on sale at Fry's.
 
I just built an I3 2100 for a secondary rig and I've gamed on it a few times. The I3 and MSI H67 board I bought for $150 through microcenter. I coupled that with a MSI GTX 560 TI and it can play bad company 2 at 1920 x 1200 resolution on medium settings and I'll never see less than 60 FPS. Normally I'm seeing around 75-95 FPS at these graphic settings. I was blown away how well the I3 performed with my GTX 560 TI. The graphics card is a bit too powerful for the I3 2100 as it is hardly ever running at 100% which tells me the CPU in this game is the bottleneck. A 460 gtx video card coupled with the I3 would be a good budget gaming system.
 
JJ91284 said:
I just built an I3 2100 for a secondary rig and I've gamed on it a few times. The I3 and MSI H67 board I bought for $150 through microcenter. I coupled that with a MSI GTX 560 TI and it can play bad company 2 at 1920 x 1200 resolution on medium settings and I'll never see less than 60 FPS. Normally I'm seeing around 75-95 FPS at these graphic settings. I was blown away how well the I3 performed with my GTX 560 TI. The graphics card is a bit too powerful for the I3 2100 as it is hardly ever running at 100% which tells me the CPU in this game is the bottleneck. A 460 gtx video card coupled with the I3 would be a good budget gaming system.
Click to expand...

i3 2100, p67a-gd43, gtx460 1gb. That's exactly my setup! It's more a HTPC though, I need more friends to leet game with >< Terraria isn't exactly the most demanding of games whether it is leet or not.
 
Found a 2500k for sale locally for 175. That I just couldn't say no too.

Thanks.
 
tangoseal said:
Here --- the 2500 and 2600 are significantly faster in performance while video encoding.
http://www.anandtech.com/show/4083/...core-i7-2600k-i5-2500k-core-i3-2100-tested/16

I can tell you that I seen a big gain using the 2600K over the 2500K due to the extra 4 threads.

The 2500K is going to be genuinely faster due to the fact it has 2 more real cores. HT is about the speed of 1/3 to 1/2 of a true core and it cant perform the same algorithms as a true core. It is simply an extra extension that helps when a certain core is backed up or waiting on something to happen. It keeps the project moving forward so to say until the real muscle ( a core) is ready to move forward once again with the heavy lifting.

Anyways Quicksync is fast already so regardless of the chip you select the process is going to happen fast. Its just a matter of how fast vs. how much money you want to spend. The 2100 is probably more than fast enough for the occasional person that wants to add a video to their cell phone or something.

And if he wants to game and really push some high end GPU the 2100 will probably not deliver quite enough unless you took it 4.6+ghz. Heck you have to overclock 2500 and 2600's just to feed enough fuel to the Top End GTX580/90's and 6970's/90's as proven on these very forums and website.

Im just another opinion and no way specialized in this topic.
Click to expand...

The premium of the i5-2500K over the i3-2100 is typically between $40-$50USD, depending on re/e-tailer (with the I5-2500 non-K about $10 less than its unlocked counterpart, and the i5-2400 another $10 under that); because the i3-2100 has no unlocked counterpart, any semi-fair apples-to-apples comparo with any i5 should be to a locked-down i5 (such as the aforementioned i5-2400 or 2500 non-K). However, because of that aforementioned performance differential (2+2 in the case of i3 vs. true quad-core in the case of any of the three i5s), i5-2400 is within i3's wheelhouse in terms of bang-for-buck (at worst, the price delta is $30USD) and with a price delta that small, of what worth is i3?
 
MrSneis said:
i3 2100, p67a-gd43, gtx460 1gb. That's exactly my setup! It's more a HTPC though, I need more friends to leet game with >< Terraria isn't exactly the most demanding of games whether it is leet or not.
Click to expand...

Terraria is a 1337 game.
 
BTW guys for these small form factor mini-ITX systems you might want to check out the Intel® Core&#8482; i3-2105. It is the same performance as the Intel Core i3-2100 but it does come with the Intel HD 3000 Graphics. So if you are building a system where you are planning to use the IGP (Intergraded Graphics on Processor) you can get the improved HD 3000 Graphics for only about $10 more.
 
IntelEnthusiast said:
BTW guys for these small form factor mini-ITX systems you might want to check out the Intel® Core™ i3-2105. It is the same performance as the Intel Core i3-2100 but it does come with the Intel HD 3000 Graphics. So if you are building a system where you are planning to use the IGP (Intergraded Graphics on Processor) you can get the improved HD 3000 Graphics for only about $10 more.
Click to expand...

Dunno if HD 3000 is really much of a NOTICEABLE upgrade over HD 2000.
 
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