Hey all ..need help understand why....

[scoot70]

Wondering why the i3 ..2 cores are better than the amd 4 cores. are they really that much differences between the two ?

[BicycleMafioso]

Architecture. Personally, I don't see how people get so hung up on amount of cores. The amount of cores, while important, is second to how well they operate.

The Phenom IIs are several years old by now, meant to combat C2Quads. The Sandy bridge i3s are very good, and also feature hyperthreading, simulating four virtual cores.

[gherkin]

I3's are cheaper and perform equally or better than AMD's 4 core equivalents. They are also easily overclocked because they are basically the better I5's and I7's that did not pass certain quality control checks. High end cpu's are built to a certain specification and if for whatever reason they don't pass the tests, they continue testing them until they pass one and then just mark it as a lower model. This means that you could OC them back up with better cooling and have better performance out of a cheaper cpu.

This is how it was explained to me.

[Sephiracle]

Architecture. Personally, I don't see how people get so hung up on amount of cores. The amount of cores, while important, is second to how well they operate.

People like big numbers.

[BicycleMafioso]

I3's are cheaper and perform equally or better than AMD's 4 core equivalents. They are also easily overclocked because they are basically the better I5's and I7's that did not pass certain quality control checks. High end cpu's are built to a certain specification and if for whatever reason they don't pass the tests, they continue testing them until they pass one and then just mark it as a lower model. This means that you could OC them back up with better cooling and have better performance out of a cheaper cpu.

This is how it was explained to me.

Generation 1 of i3's, yes. Sandy Bridges can't be overclocked at all.

[scoot70]

so are the i3 -2100 OC-able?

[Sephiracle]

so are the i3 -2100 OC-able?

No. Only the processors with a k behind them are OC-able, 2500k and 2600k.

[scoot70]

Ok ..now i have a better understanding thank to all that have replied

[haxartus]

The i3's aren't "better", the games like a certain type of CPUs with fast single threading.
And the Phenom II architecture is old, yes. The Bulldozer will fix that.
Personally, I think that recommending i3 for gaming over the Phenom II X4 955 is ridiculous. The Phenom is quite close and in the few games that are actually multithreaded it's ahead. And it can be overclocked. And it crushes the i3 in every multithreaded application. The only reason to get an i3 over a Phenom II is if you plan to upgrade it in the future to i5.