Pentium Vs i3?

[Mohenjo]

So my friend is looking to build his mom a PC. She will be using it for every day tasks. He doesn't really have a budget but he told me to keep the price low while still getting quality parts. My main question is that is the Skylake i3 worth it over the skylake Pentium for everyday tasks? (tasks such as skype, email, and netflix?) 

[H4X3R]

2 minutes ago, Mohenjo said:

My main question is that is the Skylake i3 worth it over the skylake i3 for everyday tasks? (tasks such as skype, email, and netflix?) 

Wut?

 

Yes, an i3 is a significant improvement for basic tasks (vouched for by my mother and her i3 PC).

[evilarceus]

3 minutes ago, Mohenjo said:

So my friend is looking to build his mom a PC. She will be using it for every day tasks. He doesn't really have a budget but he told me to keep the price low while still getting quality parts. My main question is that is the Skylake i3 worth it over the skylake i3 for everyday tasks? (tasks such as skype, email, and netflix?) 

The Skylake is definitely better for multitasking because it has 4 threads while the Pentium has 2.

[Mohenjo]

Just now, H4X3R said:

Wut?

 

Yes, an i3 is a significant improvement for basic tasks (vouched for by my mother and her i3 PC).

yea i meant Pentium. and i know that its better but is it worth it being double the price? 

[VTF5252]

2 minutes ago, Mohenjo said:

So my friend is looking to build his mom a PC. She will be using it for every day tasks. He doesn't really have a budget but he told me to keep the price low while still getting quality parts. My main question is that is the Skylake i3 worth it over the skylake i3 for everyday tasks? (tasks such as skype, email, and netflix?) 

i3 has hyperthreading witch is very good if you plan on having more than one program open at a time.

[Matty2hatty]

The i3 is definitely better but for simple web browsing, Skype and Netflix i dont think its worth the money.

[SeanBond]

6 minutes ago, Mohenjo said:

So my friend is looking to build his mom a PC. She will be using it for every day tasks. He doesn't really have a budget but he told me to keep the price low while still getting quality parts. My main question is that is the Skylake i3 worth it over the skylake Pentium for everyday tasks? (tasks such as skype, email, and netflix?) 

Not really, not unless you are multitasking quite a lot. And even then you will be limited by your hard drive. Built a pentium computer last year for the grandparents. Doing every day tasks on it never really pushed the cpu past 50%. Even the low end cpu's are more than fast enough for windows on the desktop now. i3 is something that would be better for gaming and maybe watching multiple streams of video?

[Mohenjo]

Just now, SeanBond said:

Not really, not unless you are multitasking quite a lot. And even then you will be limited by your hard drive. Built a pentium computer last year for the grandparents. Doing every day tasks on it never really pushed the cpu past 50%. Even the low end cpu's are more than fast enough for windows on the desktop now. i3 is something that would be better for gaming and maybe watching multiple streams of video?

Hmm thanks for the info! also plan to put an SSD in there since he has Hard drives laying around and an SSD will be way better 

[Marziman]

5 minutes ago, Mohenjo said:

yea i meant Pentium. and i know that its better but is it worth it being double the price? 

i3 is significantly better for multi tasking, multi threaded workloads.  To an extent though, this isn't a god CPU you know  

[SeanBond]

4 minutes ago, Mohenjo said:

Hmm thanks for the info! also plan to put an SSD in there since he has Hard drives laying around and an SSD will be way better 

If there is going to be an ssd maybe the i3 could be worth it? I doubt it will make a huge difference for the things it sounds like it will be used for though. I've not built an i3 system, but for nearly twice the price you are not getting much, just a little better multi tasking. If it's just a computer for ma, pentium should do fine. Especially if you can find a good deal on a motheboard that overclocks. That's what I did, 60 bucks for a z87 pc mate and a g3258, 4.4ghz and didn't go over 74c during a stress test with stock cooler lol. But that's more work. 

[NumLock21]

i3 will be more responsive over the Pentium in overall everyday task, so get the Core i3.

[SeanBond]

6 minutes ago, Marziman said:

i3 is significantly better for multi tasking, multi threaded workloads.  To an extent though, this isn't a god CPU you know  

 

2 minutes ago, NumLock21 said:

i3 will be more responsive over the Pentium in overall everyday task, so get the Core i3.

You guys missing it's a computer for a friends mom? Email skype netflix? Have you used a recent pentium? The most simple way I can put it is it's half the power of the i5. The i5 is probably 5x what the average user needs for things like that if not more. It may not have the extra threads but just the 2 it does have should be more than enough. 

 

Just now, Strike105X said:

Although i use an overclocked pentium (G3258 at 4.1 Ghz) and i'm used to multitasking since i used to have an FX4300 (OC to 4.6 ghz), i can say that for those tasks the pentium is more then enough, i multitask on mine with no issues at all, and i'm pretty certain my tasks are heavier then what your friends mom will be. My vote goes to the Pentium and invest the rest of the money in a decent SSD for a stable performance.

Definitely agree here, if getting the pentium means you can afford an ssd than it's a no brainier.  Pentium.

[NumLock21]

19 minutes ago, SeanBond said:

 

You guys missing it's a computer for a friends mom? Email skype netflix? Have you used a recent pentium? The most simple way I can put it is it's half the power of the i5. The i5 is probably 5x what the average user needs for things like that if not more. It may not have the extra threads but just the 2 it does have should be more than enough. 

 

Definitely agree here, if getting the pentium means you can afford an ssd than it's a no brainier.  Pentium.

I've built 2 PC with the same exact specs, one with a Pentium and the other a Core i3. Install windows and some programs both at the same time. And the Core i3 was a lot more responsive of the Pentium. Who says, we've haven't used a Pentium? A lot of us here probably started out with Pentiums or basically dual cores and then upgraded to a quad and saw a improvement in overall responsiveness. So a friend's mom cannot have something better, might as well just use a Celeron. Still a dual core like a Pentium, just with less cache.

[SeanBond]

Just now, NumLock21 said:

I've built 2 PC with the same exact specs, one with a Pentium and the other a Core i3. Install windows and some programs both at the same time. And the Core i3 was a lot more responsive of the Pentium. Who says, we've haven't used a Pentium? A lot of us here probably started out with Pentiums or basically dual cores and then upgraded to a quad and saw a improvement in overall responsiveness. So a friend's mom cannot have something better, might as well just let her us a Celeron. Still a dual core like a Pentium, just with less cache.

The gen matters. I had an i5 4670k and a g3258 in the same computer, it had a hard drive. Both cpus felt pretty much identical with the exception of testing light gaming like TF2. Both were held back by the hard drive. But that being said it wasn't sluggish and being that im used to an 850evo and a Oc'd 4790k I feel like that is high praise. I guess a celeron would work too but the clock speeds are even lower and the cache is tiny just to save 10-15 bucks. Is the graphics on a celeron worse than pentium? 

[H4X3R]

48 minutes ago, Mohenjo said:

yea i meant Pentium. and i know that its better but is it worth it being double the price? 

not double. its like 40 euros more. A used i3-4XXX goes for under 90 euros

[NumLock21]

10 minutes ago, SeanBond said:

The gen matters. I had an i5 4670k and a g3258 in the same computer, it had a hard drive. Both cpus felt pretty much identical with the exception of testing light gaming like TF2. Both were held back by the hard drive. But that being said it wasn't sluggish and being that im used to an 850evo and a Oc'd 4790k I feel like that is high praise. I guess a celeron would work too but the clock speeds are even lower and the cache is tiny just to save 10-15 bucks. Is the graphics on a celeron worse than pentium? 

They're getting a new pc, so it's most likely current gen.

HD 510 for both Celeron and Pentium, with higher clock Pentium having HD520 which is the same that's found on Core i5 and Core i7.

[Qwerty2323]

As far as usage go i3 will be 2x good as pentium most of time under decent load.

I3 is also damn future proof. You can save cash on better something like ram if you get motherbaord with 4 slots and use something like 4gbs now. Because ram is upgrade cpu would mean replace.

Also if it s just baisc computer use ssd that will be real deal for speed.

[SeanBond]

 

32 minutes ago, H4X3R said:

not double. its like 40 euros more. A used i3-4XXX goes for under 90 euros

Sounds a lot like double, 90-40=50. Pretty close. 

15 minutes ago, NumLock21 said:

They're getting a new pc, so it's most likely current gen.

HD 510 for both Celeron and Pentium, with higher clock Pentium having HD520 which is the same that's found on Core i5 and Core i7.

Last I checked the pentium's onboard graphics were always miles behind the core series. Interesting change for the current gen I suppose. Also for a not so apples to apples comparison I was checking my cpu usage in windows 10. Had 12 tabs open, 4 video streams going and the cpu sat there idle, 1 core in use bouncing around from 1-3.6ghz. Utilization bounced as high as 20% on the one core for a second or two at the most. Windows 10 isn't hard to run on any modern cpu. 

 

9 minutes ago, Qwerty2323 said:

As far as usage go i3 will be 2x good as pentium most of time under decent load.

I3 is also damn future proof. You can save cash on better something like ram if you get motherbaord with 4 slots and use something like 4gbs now. Because ram is upgrade cpu would mean replace.

Who told you that? The only real thing you get with an i3 is hyper threading. Which as it's very best is maybe a 30% bump in performance. But I think we are getting a little off topic here. @Mohenjo If this is for someone who is really just going to be doing one thing at a time, not gaming and such... The pentium will do fine, if they want the computer to be able to do more, obviously the more powerful cpu will be better. I just don't see why people are trying to recommend an i3 when it sounds like overkill for the use case. 

 

If multi tasking is so important why not get an athlon 860k? It's a quad core. 

[H4X3R]

15 minutes ago, SeanBond said:

 

Sounds a lot like double, 90-40=50. Pretty close. 

85 bucks for mid range skylake pentium: https://geizhals.at/intel-pentium-g4500-bx80662g4500-a1329947.html?hloc=at

dunno where to find 50 for a pentium

[SeanBond]

Just now, H4X3R said:

85 bucks for mid range skylake pentium: https://geizhals.at/intel-pentium-g4500-bx80662g4500-a1329947.html?hloc=at

dunno where to find 50 for a pentium

He lives in america. Pentiums are 50-65, i3s are about 110-150 according to most of the numbers pc part picker currently has listed. Although I don't see 6th gen pentiums listed. 

[DragonTamer1]

In my experience, for everyday tasks the additional money that you spend on an i3 (4th gen for me) is not worth the pretty negligible and nearly non observable performance increase. Even if we are talking 30 chrome tabs open at one time with skype while streaming a movie I doubt that you will see much. That difference will be more noticeable based on the amount of RAM.

 

That being said, you mentioned that there is no budget so I would still recommend the i3 in this case.

[PlayStation 2]

Trust me when I say that four cores will be a fucking godsend for web browsing. Get your mom an APU based system unless you already own a LGA115x motherboard.

[SteveGrabowski0]

I gotta agree with @SeanBond, a Pentium and an SSD are nice for a web browsing netflix and youtube watching machine. I couldn't tell the difference between my $60 G3258 at 3.2 GHz stock and my $250 Xeon E3-1231v3 for web browsing and such, and I love to have many tabs open at once. Make sure to setup overprovisioning for the SSD though, since teaching parents why they need free space on their SSD sounds like a real exercise in frustration. Make sure to get 8GB of RAM though, for one it's dirt cheap right now and for two, web browsing on 4GB sucks.

[SteveGrabowski0]

5 hours ago, Strike105X said:

Just to give a small example... like 50+ tabs in firefox, 15 tabs in chrome among which at least 5 of them are youtube, i have photoshop and another photo viewer opened all while running XnConvert, as another example at one point i even had waifu2x opened going full strength and i could still go 40+tabs in firefox with about 15+ in chrome among which some being videos. So while your friend's mom CPU wont be overclocked i'm pretty sure she wont have such heavy scenarios.

Yeah, the Pentiums are still pretty nice for non gaming systems. I can't remember if my Pentium stepped down in clockspeed the way my Xeon does when not at load, and if not, that's the worst thing I can say about it for this kind of system. The Pentium is pretty lousy for AAA gaming on though, so it's going to have a bad reputation here on a gaming oriented forum.

[Aditya_V]

7 hours ago, Mohenjo said:

So my friend is looking to build his mom a PC. She will be using it for every day tasks. He doesn't really have a budget but he told me to keep the price low while still getting quality parts. My main question is that is the Skylake i3 worth it over the skylake Pentium for everyday tasks? (tasks such as skype, email, and netflix?) 

Trust me,  I had some pentium processor(I guess E540) and I was rendering a video in After Effects(15 seconds video took 40 minutes), doing some web designing in Dreamweaver and had Chrome open with a number of tabs all at the freaking same time and the CPU usage was about 88% that is it!!

 

The Pentilum processor will be just great for web browsing. I torchered my processor like hell and it still works fine. Also, if you're not adding more than 4Gb RAM then install a Windows 32 bit OS, things will be much smoother.