Going to get my little brother a CPU for xmas as his is pretty rubbish, he's got a i3-3220 with 8gb Ram and a RX470. Surely the i3 would bottleneck the RX470? Been looking at various CPU's on CEX but not sure what to go for. Don't want to spend a lot because he will be having a new PC towards next summer. So been looking at the following i5-3550 for £35 i5-2500K for £45 i5-3570 for £52 There is an i7-2600 for £75 but don't really want to spend that much so I can grab him a cheap SSD as well. Is there much difference between 2nd and 3rd generation i5's when it comes to gaming? the 2nd generation is overclockable (is that a word) but any overclock would have to be mild as I won't be around to tweak it as needed so would it be worth just going for a faster non-OC chip? thanks guys
2500K if you can/want to overclock, 3550 if not [imo the extra 100mhz of the 3570 isn't worth paying the extra £17 for]
Not 100% sure on the board I'll take a look next time Im up there, are these GPU's still decent for modern games?
They may struggle on the newest, shiniest stuff... But chances are you'll run out of GPU grunt before CPU grunt becomes an issue.
So 3550 if I can't OC and 2500k if I can. Sweet! I'll take a look to see what board it is tomorrow, I'll check the marketplace to see if there's anything about, if not I'll pick one of those two up on Friday and that's another Xmas pressie sorted!
Personally I never OC so I’m not looking at it from that angle. I suggested the 3550 on the basis that it’s the cheapest but will give a good lift versus the i3 you got and you shouldn’t regret getting it in the medium term when it’s time for a bigger upgrade. Good luck either way
Well I checked the board out and it's asrock h61 board. The 3550 has gone out of stock now, I'll have to see what's available on Friday. Going to chuck a post up on the marketplace and see if anyone got anything.
