Intel I3-4130T vs I5 4590T worth extra $120?

[dave_the_nerd]

Well bud,

You were right, the i5 comes with a 2x2 WiFi and the i3 has a 1x1 WiFi.

Everything else is identical. Do you think an extra $120 bucks is worth it for an i5 and 2x2 WiFi? To be honest I've never really paid attention to this 1x1 or 2x2 WiFi stuff. But I learned today that it has to do with the Antennas inbound and outbound. So thank you for that.

IMO it's worth it, but I'm also a quad-core snob.

 

[CriticalOne]

Hello,


Will I see a difference in performance while doing Office and Gaming use such as web browsing with over 20+ Tabs open, streaming sports, or watching youtube videos while gaming on dual screen etc.? I typically play Heroes of the storm, Starcraft 2, Diablo and such.

Thanks,

You won't. The number of cores are pretty much irrelevant when it comes to web browsing when you are using such a fast architecture like Haswell. Browsing performance really comes down to more how much RAM your computer has, how much RAM your browser can use, and whether you have Flash enabled or not.

Leaving Flash enabled/ads unblocked when on Firefox for me slows it down to a crawl with me being at best being able to have around 10 of those tabs open before a serious slowdown. With my adblock enabled and Flash needing permission to run, I can really open up as many tabs as I want, given that I don't hit the 3.2GB limit for Firefox because its still only 32-bit.

However, if you have a habit of leaving things open when opening a game or you are planning to run CPU demanding games and video streaming at the same time, you should pass on the i3. My i3-4370 is great, but if I left Youtube or a bunch of tabs open while going to play Skyrim, performance is going to degrade noticeably.

 

[coercitiv]

Everything else is identical. Do you think an extra $120 bucks is worth it for an i5 and 2x2 WiFi? To be honest I've never really paid attention to this 1x1 or 2x2 WiFi stuff. But I learned today that it has to do with the Antennas inbound and outbound. So thank you for that.

The WiFi alone is not enough to change the balance if you are already leaning towards the i3 build. You may not even feel the need for a faster card. (but just like going from i3 to i5, this is a matter of personal preference and experience)

All things being equal I would go for the i3 myself and use the savings for RAM and/or SSD upgrades. To give you a heads up, Windows 10 makes excellent use of extra RAM for caching, so even if games only need 8GB, upgrading RAM will help the system overall. Also DDR3 prices are falling, likely for the last time.

If the WiFi module is on a mini-PCIe card, you can replace it yourself (if you feel the need). You can get a nice Intel 7260 2x2 card for ~$25. I've replaced about half of the WiFi modules in the desktops/laptops in my house.

I believe it is indeed a mini-PCIe card.

 

[Morcilla]

You won't. The number of cores are pretty much irrelevant when it comes to web browsing when you are using such a fast architecture like Haswell. Browsing performance really comes down to more how much RAM your computer has, how much RAM your browser can use, and whether you have Flash enabled or not.

Leaving Flash enabled/ads unblocked when on Firefox for me slows it down to a crawl with me being at best being able to have around 10 of those tabs open before a serious slowdown. With my adblock enabled and Flash needing permission to run, I can really open up as many tabs as I want, given that I don't hit the 3.2GB limit for Firefox because its still only 32-bit.

However, if you have a habit of leaving things open when opening a game or you are planning to run CPU demanding games and video streaming at the same time, you should pass on the i3. My i3-4370 is great, but if I left Youtube or a bunch of tabs open while going to play Skyrim, performance is going to degrade noticeably.

Wow, awesome. This was exactly the information I was looking for!!

Maybe I am exaggerating with the amount of tabs up WHILE gaming. Basically I do watch a lot of ESPN streaming and Youtube while I game.

Do you think Youtube or ESPN and a couple of TABS open would hog the i3's power and slow down the game such as Heroes of the Storm or Starcraft II while playing?

You mentioned "bunch", so I wanted to make sure it could handle at least several on separate monitor while gaming.

Thanks,
___________________________


@coercitiv I'll definitely upgrade the HD. That's the first thing I am going to do. I'll add a nice SSD and depending on which version I get, the RAM also.

Thanks,

 

[Yuriman]

Those games? No. My wife uses a Haswell i3 and plays those same games, and the performance is unnoticeably different from my overclocked i5.

 

[CriticalOne]

It depends on the game. I can multitask a bunch when I am running something light like PCSX2 (usually only around 10% usage) but if I left YouTube running while hopping in BF4 or Skyrim i'm going to have around half the performance.

Watching streams while playing games is definitely going to hurt performance on an i3.

 

[Ranulf]

SC2 is going to be cranky no matter the processor.