Intel Core i5 2500K Linux Performance

[mendieta]

You are using figures rather selectively there. I recently reused an old case, PSU and hard disk and put in an Intel socket 1155 H57 based motherboard and integrated graphics card, an i5 2500 (not K), a SATA DVD writer and 4GB RAM and it cost me almost exactly the same as it would have done to put in an AMD 1090T 6 core chip in an Asus motherboard (the cheapest one I could find with SATA 6Gbps) and the same RAM and DVD writer. According to google, the 2500 scores about 10% higher than the 1090T. The AMD system has a price tag of UK?310 and my Intel was ?303.

Yeah, my point is that at the AMD high end (Intel mid-range), Intel seems to kick ass with this upgrade. A build like yours with the "K" version would overclock like crazy, according to this article. It seems like the difference after overclocking would be a lot higher than a marginal 10%

I think BlackStar's point is still valid at the very low end, particularly for people coming from an older AMD build, and just dropping something like an Athlon II X3 435 for about 70 USD (apparently it can OC easily to 3.5Ghz).

For any of you following the best gaming processors in the monthly analysis from Tom's hardware, I think Intel will take over everything but the very low end.

It's funny though. We are calling a triple core @3.5Ghz "low end" these days. Just 10 years ago that was pretty much a mainframe

[misiu_mp]

Technically triple core was actually never high-end.
Triple core were crippled or second-quality quad-cores. They did qualify for a mid-enthusiast branch though.

[thorgt]

Erm... guys, why would you need THAT much power anyway, eh? And you say sometimes in your posts, "the best gaming processor". You need a decent GPU, not CPU to game. And actually, you don't need more than a 450 or 460 to game. Because when you game, you turn off all the graphics bling and concentrate on the gameplay, else you don't game, but simply waste your time and achieve nothing, actually. It distracts, believe me. The graphical bling does distract. Really.

But what *is* so good about those new Sandy Bridge processors and the platform in general, is that it *is* cool. As in, really cool. No Northbridge. No overheat. And decent performance. What else do we need, eh?

Of course if your build your kernel every day, then you might an i7 or an i5. Otherwise, i3 is your best bet. That and a mATX board, actually. Just have a look at the brilliant ASUS P8P67-M PRO. Or Rampage III Gene, if you're an "enthusiast" and want your mobo to look nice. But everything else is an overkill, really.

[misiu_mp]

concentrate on the gameplay, else you don't game, but simply waste your time and achieve nothing,

Funny.
FYI, there are people that actually do work with their CPU's.

[thorgt]

This - "do work with their CPUs" - is covered later in my post. Please read carefully.

[misiu_mp]

Building kernel every day is not working, unless you are a kernel developer.

[thorgt]

Well yes, but won't you admit that "doing work" is implied in that part of the post?
Second, I was primarily referring to the "gaming" statements above. Productivity is obvious. And then, people rarely do content creation on Linux, it seems to me. But I'm not sure with this at all.

[misiu_mp]

Well yes, but won't you admit that "doing work" is implied in that part of the post?

What is implied is that you play around with kernel settings and newest drivers for the fun of it or for the gaming and that its not important anyway, because there is the gaming. That was my impression...

Second, I was primarily referring to the "gaming" statements above. Productivity is obvious. And then, people rarely do content creation on Linux, it seems to me. But I'm not sure with this at all.

I wasn't referring to content creation, but to hacking and number crunching. Besides on linux, generally gaming is just as (un)popular as content creation. I will defer from inquiring how popular they both actually are.

[thorgt]

What is implied is that you play around with kernel settings and newest drivers for the fun of it or for the gaming and that its not important anyway, because there is the gaming. That was my impression...

No. What I said was that when you game, you don't need a powerful GPU because all the stuff that a more powerful GPU is used for, like coronas, bloom, and motion blur, distracts the gamer from fragging effectively. That's all I said. I can't seem to quite get it how you came to such a conclusion.

I wasn't referring to content creation, but to hacking and number crunching. Besides on linux, generally gaming is just as (un)popular as content creation. I will defer from inquiring how popular they both actually are.

Number crunching maybe. Science you mean? Have to agree with this, probably, because I don't know anything about that. GSL is all I know about(GNU Scientific Library, that is.)

[mendieta]

Erm... guys, why would you need THAT much power anyway, eh? And you say sometimes in your posts, "the best gaming processor". You need a decent GPU, not CPU to game.

I was referring to the Tom's Hardware "best gaming CPUs" (wonderful) monthly guide. Which is admittedly a misnomer: they always point out that a good triple core is more than you need for gaming. But they pick best CPU's at different price ranges, which is very informative.

Me? I never game. But I need the power for other things, mostly encoding/transcoding media, and having lots of applications running at the same time. So, yes, lots of fast cores is nice.