quad core q8300 vs I3-530

[on.alex]

Hello everybody!

I am planning to buy a new PC and I wonder which CPU is better - quad core q8300 or I3-530?

Please help me. Any answer is appreciated!

[D.8080]

Tom's hardware guide.
Cpu charts section and I3 articles.

[gshv]

It all depends on what you want to do with the computer and whether you plan to upgrade it in the future or not.
Q8300 should ok if you:
1. Don't plan to upgrade it
2. Run many cpu-intensive applications at once, or one multi-threaded application that uses more than two cores, and you need maximum performance.
3. It is much cheaper than i3-530 and either (1) or (2) is valid.

In all other cases get i3-530.

Gennadiy

[on.alex]

10x very much for the answer!

I have a single core P4 at 2.4 Gh with 2 GB RAM and when it comes to web browsing, watching movies and design work it works pretty well. However I would like to have a PC which is suitable for gaming too and which have a future upgrade path.

Is Core I3-530 the right cpu? (I know this cpu is a dual core but with the Hyper Threading technology the cores become 4 - 2 physical and 2 logical. Isn't that close to the 4 physical cores of q8300?)

P.S.
I have a limited budget so the dilemma is between q8300 and i3.

[gshv]

Q8300 have much better performance when encoding audio/video, but about the same (maybe a bit better) performance in all other applications. Upgrading it would be expensive - Q9550 and Q9650 are top socket 775 models and would still be expensive in a year or two, and they will give you less than 50% boost. Core i3-530, on the other hand, has a much greater upgrade potential. In my opinion, it will be cheaper in the long run to get i3-530, and then save money upgrading to quad-core, than getting Q8300 now, and then either getting expensive Q9550/Q9650 upgrade, or replacing the board with the CPU. As for the HyperThreading - it gives up to 20% boost, so it's not a replacement to a core.

Gennadiy

[on.alex]

What do you mean by "encoding audio/video" (I am sorry if this is a silly question)? Could you specify? Does it reffer to games (because gaming is my top issue here)?

10x in advance!

[gshv]

[on.alex]

Thank you Gennadiy!

I've made my mind already. I am up to Core i3-530 then upgrading with one of the quad-core i7 cpu series.