Is a I3 okay for gaming

[Elardoven]

title

This would be with an R9 380

[babadoctor]

bottlenecks galore

system specs?

[Kobathor]

Not the best.

 

If you have the money, just get an i5. The i3 will be "okay" for gaming, but it's really just worth it to spend that much more for a decent i5.

[Fate]

Yea it should do great with an R9 380 in most games. Of course an i5 is better, but it's not needed.

[Egad]

It's okay, but you want to get an i5 if you can afford it, or upgrade to one when you can.

[shazaam]

According to Anadtech, it is. They paired it with GTX 770 and has good results against his bigger brother, the i5.

 

Scroll down to the gaming benchmarks: http://anandtech.com/bench/product/1197?vs=1198

[Glenwing]

Yes, it would be ok for gaming

[Guest]

Depending on the game you might experience some frame dips or general low fps but it should be fine in the newer shooters.

[Nena Trinity]

Some games the Radeon cards wont work well with dual-cores but mostly its fine just avoid Call of Duty!

[theereal]

Should be ok, not optimal, but ok.

[TheSLSAMG]

It would do more than fine, yeah.

[themaniac]

it will be great

[SteveGrabowski0]

According to Anadtech, it is. They paired it with GTX 770 and has good results against his bigger brother, the i5.

 

Scroll down to the gaming benchmarks: http://anandtech.com/bench/product/1197?vs=1198

 

Nvidia GPUs work well in DX11 with an i3. AMD GPUs don't. It's about the only decent reason one would have for buying a GTX 960.

[App4that]

Depends on the game, for Fallout 4 it doesn't even meet the minimum requirements.

[Biggerboot]

I'd say that card and CPU are pretty balanced.

 

Nvidia GPUs work well in DX11 with an i3. AMD GPUs don't. It's about the only decent reason one would have for buying a GTX 960.

 

You have a source for that?  As far as I've been aware, it doesn't matter if you pair an AMD GPU with an intel or AMD cpu, the bottleneck falls on the seperate performance of the two.

 

In the case of the r9 380, unless it's a very CPU heavy game, I think bottleneck will mostly fall on the GPU side of things.

[Biggerboot]

Depends on the game, for Fallout 4 it doesn't even meet the minimum requirements.

 

The minimum for Fallout 4 is a sandy bridge i5 (a low end one) or a Phenom x4.  A haswell i3 will probably be on par if not better than those.

[App4that]

The minimum for Fallout 4 is a sandy bridge i5 (a low end one) or a Phenom x4.  A haswell i3 will probably be on par if not better than those.

Maybe, or it requires 4 core, not threads. we'll find out in a month.

[Biggerboot]

Maybe, or it requires 4 core, not threads. we'll find out in a month.

 

We will, but I've yet to hear of a AAA game looking for 4 threads refusing to run on an i3.

[App4that]

We will, but I've yet to hear of a AAA game looking for 4 threads refusing to run on an i3.

And when I bought my i5 a little over a month ago I didn't expect to have it fail to meet system requirements, for the game I built my PC to run. And yet here I am. Not meeting the system requirements. If I had gone with an i7 when everyone told me I wouldn't need it, I'd have it.

[SteveGrabowski0]

I'd say that card and CPU are pretty balanced.

 

 

You have a source for that?  As far as I've been aware, it doesn't matter if you pair an AMD GPU with an intel or AMD cpu, the bottleneck falls on the seperate performance of the two.

 

In the case of the r9 380, unless it's a very CPU heavy game, I think bottleneck will mostly fall on the GPU side of things.

 

Digital Foundry has shown this for months. It first came out on the COD AW review from last November. The AMD DX11 drivers struggle on low end CPUs. People still argue with me about this all the time, but I trust these results where they show their FCAT analysis. I wouldn't buy an AMD GPU to use with an i3 until DX12 becomes the norm.

 

 

They have been showing this for a while in other games too. They also talked about how it was still happening in their video from their Ashes of Singularity benchmark from last month.

 

[Biggerboot]

And when I bought my i5 a little over a month ago I didn't expect to have it fail to meet system requirements, for the game I built my PC to run. And yet here I am. Not meeting the system requirements. If I had gone with an i7 when everyone told me I wouldn't need it, I'd have it.

 

Which game are we talking about?  Developers constantly overestimate system requirements on Steam, or sometimes use generic system requirements from another game running on the same engine.

 

Unless the game in quesiton is a Cities Skylines or some other game that uses a lot of pysics simulation and CPU intensive tech, OR the worst optimized thing in the world, a brand new i5 is the best thing for gaming.

 

I think you're letting what everyone else was telling you get in your head.

[Biggerboot]

Digital Foundry has shown this for months. It first came out on the COD AW review from last November. The AMD DX11 drivers struggle on low end CPUs. People still argue with me about this all the time, but I trust these results where they show their FCAT analysis. I wouldn't buy an AMD GPU to use with an i3 until DX12 becomes the norm.

 

Fair enough, I'll look more into this.

[App4that]

Which game are we talking about?  Developers constantly overestimate system requirements on Steam, or sometimes use generic system requirements from another game running on the same engine.

 

Unless the game in quesiton is a Cities Skylines or some other game that uses a lot of pysics simulation and CPU intensive tech, OR the worst optimized thing in the world, a brand new i5 is the best thing for gaming.

 

I think you're letting what everyone else was telling you get in your head.

http://help.bethesda.net/app/answers/detail/a_id/31148

 

The system requirements for Fallout 4 on PC are as follows:

Minimum:

• Operating system: Windows 7/8/10 (64-bit OS required)
• Processor: Intel Core i5-2300 2.8GHz / AMD Phenom II X4 945 3.0GHz or equivalent
• Memory: 8 GB RAM
• Hard disk space: 30 GB free HDD space
• Video: NVIDIA GTX 550 Ti 2GB / AMD Radeon HD 7870 2GB or equivalent

Recommended:

• Operating system: Windows 7/8/10 (64-bit OS required)
• Processor: Intel Core i7 4790 3.6GHz / AMD FX-9590 4.7GHz or equivalent
• Memory: 8 GB RAM
• Hard disk space: 30 GB free HDD space
• Video: NVIDIA GTX 780 3GB / AMD Radeon R9 290X 4GB or equivalent

Oh, and I bought Cities Skylines before I knew my CPU wouldn't handle it. My luck, not so good.

 

[DimasRMDO]

It depends, it performs great, but for some games prefer quad cores CPUs.

But i3 performs good as well, almost as good as i5.

Some games perform worse with dual cores CPUs, some even won't run. But most games can be run nicely.

[LiquidGoo]

title

This would be with an R9 380

Bottlenecks the GPU. I had a low-end AMD card and a i3 and the CPU bottlenecked the GPU. Go get a cheap i5-4590.