Contemplating switching from SB i5 to IB i3

[MaverickWill]

Hi all,

My current setup revolves around an i5-2500K (stock) with a Radeon 7850. I've got the option to swap to an i3-3220.

I'm genuinely considering it on the basis of lower power consumption (read: less noise). I'm in a Gigabyte Z77N-WIFI mobo, which means there's no issues with compatibility, but also it means no voltage control to undervolt the i5 (I know, it's mental, but no amount of pestering Gigabyte for BIOS updates to add it back in will change their minds). If I could undervolt the i5, I'd probably not have much of an issue.

I'm aware there'll probably be a loss of performance in terms of gaming grunt, but I'm not playing anything that's making all cores sweat at the moment (I'm not a BF4 player, for example). Given that, and the fact that the 7850 isn't exactly the most powerful GPU on the planet, am I going to lose enough performance that I'll need to tweak the quality settings?

Thanks in advance for any help/advice/anecdotes.

[herulach]

You'll loose enough performance to be noticeable, for the sake of 15 quid for a quieter cooler of keep what you have.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Honestly,for the sake of a few pounds a year it is not worth it. You are more likely to waste more electricity by overfilling your kettle each year(this is said in jest but could be true).

[watercooled]

Also bear in mind that, games that run with moderate utilisation on an i3 likely wouldn't load an i5 much more, so the difference in power consumption in those games is likely to be negligible. However, where games will start to tank on an i3, you'll have headroom with the i5.

The power consumption argument only starts to make any sense at all if you're comparing a maxed i3 to a maxed i5, where yes the i5 will draw more, but you'll also get near-proportionally higher performance i.e. overall efficiency is fairly similar.

I'd also say just spend a few quid on a quieter cooler and don't downgrade needlessly.

Oh and, just make sure power saving options are enabled in BIOS, and Windows' power profile is set to balanced. The i3/i5 (like pretty much any modern CPU) will draw a near identical (and minuscule) amount of power when sitting idle with power saving options enabled.

[Butuz]

To be honest, the difference in power consumption will only be a few pence a day. It it totally not even worth removing the side off your case to do this - let alone actually changing the CPU and reducing the performance you have.

I7's are really good at saving energy as long as you have auto voltage and the power saving options enabled in the BIOS. It underclocks and undervolts itself automatically and proably is barely any different to an I3 @ idle.

Butuz

[MaverickWill]

Thanks for the replies, all. For the record, I'm not talking about this from the perspective of saving money - it's about being able to reduce fan/pump noise (cooler is an H60). As it stands, my rig is more noisy than I'd like, and as it's ITX (read: sitting on my desk 3 feet away from me) it's a pain.

If I could undervolt the i5, I would. If I could get away with switching to a quieter fan on the H60 and not risk overly high temps, I would. If I could switch to a comparable ITX motherboard that had CPU voltage control without spending any cash, I would. As it stands, I can get an IB i3 for £35, and sell my old SB i5 for £90~. I'm not having to spend money on this one.

I know the drop from 4C to 4T will impact a top-end card to the tune of a few percent, but I'm wondering if I'll more often than not be GPU-bound with the 7850. That's what I was getting at here. This hasn't been directly addressed so far. If it makes any difference, I'm very much Mr Singleplayer - I've just finished Saints Row 4, and my top-played Steam games are Borderlands, the Batman games, Football Manager, the DIRTs, etc, to give you an idea of the sort of games I'm playing.

I'll see if the chap will let me run some gaming benches with the i3 in my rig and report back.

[malfunction]

What temps are you getting at the moment, and what case are you using?

[Agent]

An i3 still isn't terrible in games. I have one in one of my lower end systems and it always surprises me at how much grunt it actually has.

It's a i3 3200T, so a 35Watt TDP IIRC. Many people on the web even have them running passively with larger coolers and decent case cooling. For me it is just about power use, although I should look at getting a Pico PSU or something for it as it's currently got a stupidly oversized 550W thing I had kicking about.

[watercooled]

Whether it's power consumption or noise due to heat, my point about the i5 not necessarily drawing significantly more than the i3 still applies. TBH I'm not sure if undervolting would make such a difference as to allow a noticeably quieter setup in and of itself. The same may even apply to switching to an i3 TBH.

If there's room in the case, why not just get a decent air cooler, you'd eliminate pump noise then. Or play about with various fan speeds etc to see how you can reduce noise in the system as-is. Vibration transmitted to whatever the case is standing on can amplify noise - try standing the case on a few mouse mats for example, to see if that changes anything - you can get soft silicone feet as a more permanent solution. It's hard to say how to reduce noise without knowing where it's coming from, unless you know for sure it's the CPU cooler, in which case just changing the fan profile might help.

TBH it's not really possible to give a single answer to 'will it affect performance', as it depends entirely on what you're doing, what games you're playing etc - some will cope fine on a dual core i3 but others which want more cores can *really* tank, hence except in very specific scenarios I'd never really recommend an i3 for a gaming system when you can get something like a 6300 for cheaper from AMD which is roughly equal in lightly threaded games but copes with heavily threaded games far better than the dual i3 (not relevant here I know, just rambling on).

Also bear in mind future games you buy may really benefit from 4 cores, and you'd end up kicking yourself if you swapped for an i3 and ended up with a worse gaming experience, IMO. As I've said the i3 really might not make a huge difference, cooling-wise; I'd personally look into reducing noise in other ways. If you go into detail on your system e.g. case/exact GPU model/HDDs/PSU/etc, we might be able to offer some noise advice - I know where you're coming from with reducing noise and it's something I put effort into myself.

[aidanjt]

If reducing the noise of your H60 loop is your primary concern, swapping out the stock fan the H60 came with, with a Noctua NF-F12 will almost certainly make a dramatic difference.

[mikeo01]

As above

In fact you'd probably save more power by exchanging the water cooling kit to a simple high end air solution. No more pump and allows for very low RPM fans. Problem solved

In fact the power consumption difference between an i3 and an i5 is minimal. E.g. changing out fans, hard drives, PSU efficiency would probably equal that.


But as mentioned some games or even simple day to day tasks won't get the i5 in a sweat. So it's more likely to stay at those lower P-states consuming sod all energy they're good little things. The amount you'd save is like running up and down the stairs a couple of times (only kidding).

[DanceswithUnix]

Just a thought, is the water loop trying to cool using hot air because of the 7850?

ITX cases can be so hard to get good cooling in

[MaverickWill]

Right, added my system specs on the left (I should have done this before, but c'est la vie).

Under load in a cold room (<15°C) with the stock fan set to PWM gives temps in the low-mid 60s across the board. Add a bit of heating in the room, and this goes up to 70s, along with a corresponding increase in noise. Voltage of the CPU goes above 1.2V under full load, and rarely drops under 1V at idle (hovers between 0.9V and 1.05V for the most part). I'm certain the H60 is mounted correctly, with a small amount of AS5 applied.

I wouldn't have thought my GPU was adding much to the equation - it's very quiet and has a supply of fresh air. I can stop the fans with my finger on the middle (don't try this at home, etc) and there's no change in the sound profile whatsoever at idle, and only a little change under load. Definitely the H60 (and moreso the fan than the pump).

I've got tons of fans kicking about, and a few matching ones that I've experimented with, to not much avail. The Gentle Typhoon or Swiftech Helix I've got in my spares box would seem to be ideal, but at full pelt, they're just too loud to be that close to my ears. A fan controller would assist here, but it's not the season for spending extra money (Christmas, Valentine's, and 3 family birthdays so far this year... yay...)

I've been able to speak to the bloke, and I can get hold of the i3 for a run of testing. In my Steam library, I've got Tomb Raider, DIRT 3, Batman, Street Fighter 4, and Hard Reset, all with built-in benchmarks (I know, built-in isn't always great, but it's fast and repeatable for my purposes). Any of that lot sticking out like a sore thumb as games where I should see a big difference? Anything else I should be looking at testing with?

[herulach]

TBH, you've more than likely got something more fundamental wrong there. Temperature deltas in H60 reviews run from 25-30 degrees pretty consistently even when tested with i7s. 45+ degrees with an i5 indicates something wrong, possibly a bad mount? Have you tried just removing the cooler and reapplying the paste?

[MaverickWill]

TBH, you've more than likely got something more fundamental wrong there. Temperature deltas in H60 reviews run from 25-30 degrees pretty consistently even when tested with i7s. 45+ degrees with an i5 indicates something wrong, possibly a bad mount? Have you tried just removing the cooler and reapplying the paste?

Didn't think of that, truth be told. I've had the cooler off and on again (trying to find the best position for it, etc) so many times, that it didn't occur to me that it might not be on right - it almost became second nature to me, so familiarity may have bred contempt. I'll take a look-see at that later - I'll have to take out the GPU to get to the mount.

I put down the difference between my delta and reviews to bigger cases and/or lower-volted processors (AT's H60 review had their 2600K maxed out at 1.16V). I'm convinced that this motherboard provides more juice than necessary, but with no voltage controls at all (not even controls for LLC), I can't turn it down to check.

[watercooled]

It could also be, perhaps partially, due to the intake air being warmed by the GPU depending on where the radiator is mounted. But as above, that delta does look high for that cooler+CPU combo.

The fans shouldn't need to be run at full speed; provided it's setup in BIOS the system should automatically control the CPU fan speed with PWM, and I can't see full speed being used even under heavy load.

Out of those games, off the top of my head you might see a drop with Tomb Raider depending on settings used. Batman isn't very well threaded so there might not be much difference there, and I'm not too sure about the others. However as I said, also consider future games - the trend is towards games making use of more cores, especially for the more performance-demanding titles, and in no way is it just a multiplayer thing.