i3-2120 vs i5-2400

[hoorah]

Hey all,

I currently have an i3-2120 self built system that is adequate for my needs. I don't game a ton, but I do play L4D2 and some DayZ and its been more than fine for that. Bioshock inf was probably the hardest thing its had to do.

My uncle came by the other day and gave me this HP prebuilt system a neighbor had thrown in the trash (turns out the hard drive was bad). Its got an I5-2400 (2.5 or 2.53 ghz I think?). EDIT: not 2400, its an I5 - 2300

I'm considering using the prebuilt motherboard to upgrade my HTPC and swapping CPUs with my desktop. I will obviously have to check CPU compatibility between the boards, but assuming it works, would the I5 be an upgrade to the I3 at the slower clock speed?

I understand the I5 has 4 real cores, but it also has (I think) an older process tech and slower clock speed. I can't say I've kept up on the games tech enough to know how well games scale from 2 to 4 cores, or if a fast dual core is better. Since I don't play the latest and greatest it may not even matter much either way.

I'd prefer the more power efficient I3 to go into the HTPC, as it doesn't have to work as hard with an HTPC load and is on more hours of the day than my desktop is on.

Is there anything else on the I5 that I'm not factoring in that I wouldn't want to use it over my I3? Or is it a decent upgrade?

 

[crashtech]

I'd definitely make that swap. The MHz difference is a non-issue, since the i5-2400 has Turbo @ 3.4GHz for one core, and 3.3 for 2 and 3 cores, only falling below the i3s speed when all 4 cores are maxed out. You may even be able to do a bit of Turbo bin overclocking depending on the board. It's an all-over win.

 

[toughtrasher]

Turbo on the i5 is a good feature that you're missing out. Have you tried running on both of them??

 

[Arkaign]

I'd definitely make that swap. The MHz difference is a non-issue, since the i5-2400 has Turbo @ 3.4GHz for one core, and 3.3 for 2 and 3 cores, only falling below the i3s speed when all 4 cores are maxed out. You may even be able to do a bit of Turbo bin overclocking depending on the board. It's an all-over win.

Yes. 100% do the swap. Much better processor.

 

[Sheep221]

swap it asap

 

[hoorah]

Turbo on the i5 is a good feature that you're missing out. Have you tried running on both of them??

I powered up the HP system (with some temporary RAM as whomever put the system in the trash took the ram out) to make sure it booted, but I haven't tested anything.

I don't have the box in front of me, but for some reason I have in my head that the I5 might be a previous generation.

Edit - okay, I don't have the box but I went into my search history and found this from when I looked it up. Its not an i5-2400, its an i5-2300.

http://ark.intel.com/products/52206/Intel-Core-i5-2300-Processor-6M-Cache-up-to-3_10-GHz

Both are 32nm parts, I'm not sure why I thought one was a better process than the other.

So the i5 is straight up better? In it goes....

Hopefully I can fit this stupid pegatron HP board into my silverstone HTPC case and run the i3 as the media center.

Thanks for the help guys.

 

[crashtech]

The i5-2300 is significantly slower, 2.9-3-3-3.1. I still think for the minor difference in core speed, you are still far better off with 4 cores, and there is still the possibility you could crank it up a bit if your mobo will allow it.

 

[Arkaign]

Yep, even the 2300 is a better bet than the i3. 6MB shared cache vs. 3MB to boot.

 

[hoorah]

Yep, even the 2300 is a better bet than the i3. 6MB shared cache vs. 3MB to boot.

Yes, I just noticed that looking back at the Intel ARK specs.

I remember swapping similar clock Core2Duos with double the cache was a significant speed improvement.

Good then. Looking forward to making the swap.

 

[sm625]

You are sacrificing 7% single thread performance to gain 2 real cores. (i5 has turbo so you cant just compare the base clocks.) Do it. Hopefully you will be able to set the turbo bins manually, which will erase any single thread disadvantage.

 

[LagunaX]

Definitely swap it out.
You can Anandtech bench the cpu's to seen the overall differences.

 

[gmaster456]

What a find to see laying in the trash. Kudos to your uncle.

I would also recommend doing the swap

 

[SPBHM]

the lowest clock the i5 2300 is going to run (under load) with turbo enabled is 2.9GHz, highest 3.1GHz, which is lower than the 3.3GHz from the 2120, but even for single thread the i5 should do fine (very little difference) because it also always have the advantage of the larger l3 cache, and for software using 4 cores it will open a big advantage over the i3, so there is no reason to keep the i3 if you can use the i5.

 

[SlickR12345]

The I5 is much faster all across the board over any I3. Even in games the I5 is generally faster.

 

[Denithor]

Okay, first, the higher cache of the i5 makes absolutely zero difference, it maintains the same ratio of cache/core (3MB/2 cores, 6MB/4 cores).

Single thread performance will take a slight hit due to lower clocks.

But will be more than made up for in most applications from double the number of cores.

So, yeah, go for it, you'll be happy with the upgrade.

 

[evident]

holy crap, nice trash find

 

[Arkaign]

Yep. Hit ctrl-alt-del and look at your processes. You'll probably see 70-100+ processes in use at any given time. 4 real cores, thanks to windows scheduling, will balance much nicer on an i5 than an i3 anyway. So if you have more things running, even AV/etc in the background, you'll be less bogged for sure.

 

[Hacp]

Its a good upgrade. Even better would be if you found a non OEM MB so you could OC that sucker to 3.5ghz.

 

[skipsneeky2]

Good swap for sure, had a i3 2100 at one point and dropped in this i5 2500 non k.Been excellent.

 

[hoorah]

I finally got a chance to swap over the chips, a bit late I know but things got pretty busy and I wanted to make sure I had things backed up before I potentially took my computer down.

Got the new chip in. Went to work 2 days later and found a cyberpowerpc being thrown out. Z77 Mobo, Corsair case, I7 3770K cpu. Whole thing works fine. Absolutely incredible. No hard drive and the case is missing some pieces but I'll take it.

I don't know why people throw these things out.

 

[Denithor]

Holy crap man! I'm thinking I need to take up dumpster diving where you work!

 

[hoorah]

Holy crap man! I'm thinking I need to take up dumpster diving where you work!

I know right? This truly was a rare find. Most of the time I see pentium 4 or pentium D systems which aren't worth the trouble, although every once in awhile I get a core2duo that can be patched up and given to a family member.

Most of time I think people get the systems mucked up with spyware, take it to best buy, get told it will be $200 to clean it up and they just chuck it and buy something new.

This box though....who knows what they were thinking?

 

[Kristijonas]

Went to work 2 days later and found a cyberpowerpc being thrown out. Z77 Mobo, Corsair case, I7 3770K cpu. Whole thing works fine. Absolutely incredible. No hard drive and the case is missing some pieces but I'll take it.

I don't know why people throw these things out.

*sheds a tear* How could they? :|

 

[hoorah]

*sheds a tear* How could they? :|

No tears here, it found a good home.