Hardware Intel Core i3-3220 review

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/2012/11/26/intel-core-i3-3220-review/1

 

so... at the end there.... just neglecting to mention that the a10s graphics can crossfire with a discrete gpu so if you can throw in a ati card with that a10 setup it will completely destroy the performance you get with a geforce gpu in the same pricerange... i can see why thats not important -_-

 

http://hexus.net/tech/reviews/cpu/46157-amd-a10-5800k-dual-graphics-evaluation/?page=2

doesn't exactly destroy the performance bro

 

Nice review. Just something that is not mentioned about the power consumption. Shile it's nice for you to mention that the AMD was tested on FULL ATX mobo (with increased consumption), it'd be nice to mention that the IGP itself consumes far more than the Intel HD, thus leading to a non-negligible gap.

This i3 is a great CPU, but really lacks a decent IGP. WIth openCL being more an more common in daily used software (winzip, etc...) the AMD A10 is even more appealing.

Now, as mentioned, for CPU intensive soft (cruching, image editing, etc.) Intel CPU are best suited .... for everything else, the APU's are the way to go (Internet, Office work, media pc, 720p gaming or GPU easy gaming like TF2 or Minecraft, etc.).

 

I think it's all about priorities and use. Mine are, from the most important to the not really important ...

- Planet friendly
- Size
- Do-It-All + small gaming (not really care about GFX is the gameplay is great)
- Price

Planet Friendly : Small wattage
Size : ITX
Do-It-All : Good IGP or entry GPU

So it leaves :

- i3 + HD7750
- A10

My use is Internet, Minecraft + Kerbal SPace Program + 16 bits consoles emulation, programming. If I need to compute something, I have a spare Q6600 that can do it

My choice is easily made : A10-5700 (do not really need the unlocked 5800). It's easy on the plug, cheap, fit a small case. It's more than enough for almost everyone on earth, expect "Gamers" and people liking image editing or 3D artists (which is niche market compared to office and home computer).

Now, an office user do not need an improved IGP, but I can creally see openCL coming in almost every single lil' app, so the IGP could take an important place (but that is only speculations )

 

The CPU engineering dept at AMD must weep when they see results like this, and curse the previous lots wasted efforts on the Bulldozer.

 

AMD should focus on improving their memory controller. It's clearly the weak point in their architecture. Their APU are nice, if they could design a CPU with Intel x86 perf and the APUs IGP ... then it's a pure win.

Bulldozers and Piledivers are not bad CPUs considering the price, but Intel is far ahead if you only consider the x86 single thread performance.

 

Just bought one of these this weekend to make a pair with my old HD5870, it's a great cpu I was surprised with it... really snappy...
And it handles better than comparable AMD cpu's...

 

Nice chip, but for me as an enthusiast I could never buy a chip with 0 Overclocking ability.

 

this reminds me when OC was really hardware driven (and not via bios values) .... move a jumper, shunt 2 tracks dirrectly on the mobo's pcb, etc ....

Now it more, when allowed by the bios :

- 1 : Make sure the cooling is enough
- 2 : Find the good values for stable operations

Cable sleeving is more fun than OC nowadays

 

It's way easier than that these days. I remember having to loosen ram timings, raise voltages, and make sure everything is at good ratio to be stable. I saw my buddy change one value in his bios the other day, Bam. 2.66 to 3.8ghrtz overclock stable.

 

This modern i3-3220 kicks the backside out of the old i7-920 in every meaningful measure - the i7-920 is not that old really.

For a budget chip around the £90 mark, that uses less than half the idle power of a 920 & pushing close to just a third of it at load, I think that's pretty impressive!

 

Face it - Trinity's not a dog, but it's not great. And, it can only be CrossFired with low, low end GPUs. For that money, you might as well buy something better.

Just yesterday, I priced out a partial rebuild for someone whose motherboard died. It's sad that Intel's afterthought processors (Sandy Bridge Pentiums) are price- and performance-competitive with Trinity - if GPU isn't a concern, you can do a decent Intel build for barely more than a decent AMD build. In the case of what I was pricing out, it's your average email/FB/interbutts box - $170 on AMD, $190 for Intel. It would be replacing an Athlon 64 X2 with onboard graphics, so either would be a leap ahead, performance-wise. But, I could also take that Pentium build a lot farther later, if they wanted to pay for it - not nearly as much the case for the Trinity build where all I'm going to get is slightly higher clocks and more cores. Which are a waste for this sort of build.

Mind, I say this as someone who's built only AMD since '07. AMD won't make sense for every build. The problem is that as time goes on, they make less sense for more types of builds. Let's hope they don't reach the point where they're never the right fit.

 

Solid cpu! Not very future proof though, but with most current gen games. If your on a mega budget. This cpu should do the job