Best Intel Processor for $100?

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FM 3370

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I've been out of the loop for a while since I don't game anymore. I want to put together a SFF PC(Mini ATX) to play music, Blu-Ray movies and surf the net on my TV. I don't game anymore so the urge to have latest and greatest doesn't agree with my wallet anymore. What's a good processor for around $100? I was looking at all of the i7's and they're all above $200. An i5 looks alright just not sure what to get. So for $100 now, what will be the best bang for my buck? Hopefully this isn't too broad of a question.

Right now I use my old Lenovo X120e laptop in my entertainment center to watch movies through HDMI but would like to have a more powerful box that doesn't overheat(currently have the bottom open with a fan on top). A more durable box for entertainment will be nice.
 
Are you going to rip the blurays then stream them? Or just play discs?

If you're just playing discs I'd get a Bluray player and a Chromecast.
 
What socket? I don't think you're going to get an 1150 i5 for $100, but you may find an 1155 socket i5 for $100.
 
$100 is damn near i3 territory, but for those uses a latest gen Haswell Celeron on Pentium dual core will be more than adequate, imo.

G3258 is fully unlocked and is $75.
 
Very nice 1366 xeon hexacore cpus for under 100 bucks on ebay...but the boards are likely 150 or higher, but performance beats even the newest amd 8 cores and matches newest intel core i7 quads with ease...they will easily beat newest core i5's by about 30%. So if you happen to find a deal on on an asus 1366 board you can have a powerful system for cheap. The only drawback is the 1366 boards have actually increased in price over the last year
 
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i found my i5 3570 on local craigslist bnib for $90 about 7 months ago. i play watch dogs with the pc in my sig and it handles it easily with around 70% usage so im sure it'll suffice what you'll be doing
 
i picked up a used i3-4360 for 90 bucks...i see some i5 2300 for like 120. here and also check out ocn.
 
Thanks for all the replies so far. I will be ripping my blu-rays to watch them over a NAS. My ego wants an i7 but from what I see the i3 and i5 is more powerful than any CPU I've ever had. The laptop plays ripped MKV movies flawlessly. I'll look into the i3's. Is there a big difference between 3rd and 4th generation? I have no preference on socket as long as I find a good reliable motherboard that fits into a SFF case.
 
FM 3370 said:
Thanks for all the replies so far. I will be ripping my blu-rays to watch them over a NAS. My ego wants an i7 but from what I see the i3 and i5 is more powerful than any CPU I've ever had. The laptop plays ripped MKV movies flawlessly. I'll look into the i3's. Is there a big difference between 3rd and 4th generation? I have no preference on socket as long as I find a good reliable motherboard that fits into a SFF case.
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Unless time is not a factor...you want as many cores/threads as possible for blueray rips...just saying..bd_rebuilder takes abount 2-21/2 hours per movie on mine as is....if i had to guess a core i3 would take 3 times that at least or possibly more since no hyper threading
 
melk said:
i3's are HyperThreaded. Pentiums aren't.
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ok still 4 threads vs. 12 threads were talking huge differences in time here....NOT a good idea to buy a dual core for ripping bluerays unless time is not a factor at all
 
Get a job at Walmart then sub to Intel Retail Edge =) Then become a Rockstar Legend which I'm not even close to being.
 
primetime said:
ok still 4 threads vs. 12 threads were talking huge differences in time here....NOT a good idea to buy a dual core for ripping bluerays unless time is not a factor at all
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Dual core is perfectly fine for ripping blu-rays. Re-encoding blu-rays on the other hand; is a different story.
 
What is the attraction of re-encoding blu-rays ahead of time when something like plex can do it on the fly as needed?
 
Robstar said:
What is the attraction of re-encoding blu-rays ahead of time when something like plex can do it on the fly as needed?
Click to expand...

ok let me restate what i meant....Some people use anydvd to back up there blur rays they have purchased(or rented) and then use programs like bd-rebuilder to shrink the files from a 50GB size to a dvd5 size and store them on media hard drives to be watched at any time.(with no visual loss that i can detect)

A hexa core with hyper threading will do the job in about 2 hours versus a dual core which would probably take all night...it could still be done but would take all night....When the op was talking about ripping bluerays i assumed he would be doing something similar...Honestly I thought everyone has been doing this for years since its much more convenient then putting a blueray in the player...but i guess i was wrong.
 
primetime said:
ok let me restate what i meant....Some people use anydvd to back up there blur rays they have purchased(or rented) and then use programs like bd-rebuilder to shrink the files from a 50GB size to a dvd5 size and store them on media hard drives to be watched at any time.(with no visual loss that i can detect)

A hexa core with hyper threading will do the job in about 2 hours versus a dual core which would probably take all night...it could still be done but would take all night....When the op was talking about ripping bluerays i assumed he would be doing something similar...Honestly I thought everyone has been doing this for years since its much more convenient then putting a blueray in the player...but i guess i was wrong.
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Re-encoding has been a debate for the past couple of years. When I hear 'ripping' in regards to video, to me, that means making a lossless copy via AnyDVD, MakeMKV, etc which requies very little CPU. Shrinking a rip to fit physical media or reduce size for storage, is re-encoding as you mentioned.

I personally do not see reasons to re-encode unless you're placing the video on a device with limited storage (mobile); or just want to reduce your storage footprint.

Even if the difference isn't noticable to most between a 25GB rip and 4GB re-encoded rip; storage is dirt cheap, and I want the best I can get. Plex is also a happy median as Robstar mentioned since it transcodes lossless rips on the fly if needed. Even with a hexacore i7, re-encoding 300+ blu ray rips (what I have) would take days/weeks on top of the already lengthy ripping time. I'd rather just spend $180 on an extra 4TB drive and let Plex manipulate the bitrate on the fly for my mobile devices; all while keeping 'lossless' quality for my home theater.
 
The biggest reason to re-encode is storage footprint. You can find yourself in a situation where you have 10+TB of data without any redundancy, which is kind of a waste just for media storage (that you already own on shiny disks).
 
primetime said:
Very nice 1366 xeon hexacore cpus for under 100 bucks on ebay...but the boards are likely 150 or higher, but performance beats even the newest amd 8 cores and matches newest intel core i7 quads with ease...they will easily beat newest core i5's by about 30%. So if you happen to find a deal on on an asus 1366 board you can have a powerful system for cheap. The only drawback is the 1366 boards have actually increased in price over the last year
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And 1366 boards are missing many features even the cheapest newer chipsets offer. And performance does match newer quads, that's very misleading. It may match in certain situations, but new i7 Intel quads will smash 1366 cpu's
 
primetime said:
ok let me restate what i meant....Some people use anydvd to back up there blur rays they have purchased(or rented) and then use programs like bd-rebuilder to shrink the files from a 50GB size to a dvd5 size and store them on media hard drives to be watched at any time.(with no visual loss that i can detect)

A hexa core with hyper threading will do the job in about 2 hours versus a dual core which would probably take all night...it could still be done but would take all night....When the op was talking about ripping bluerays i assumed he would be doing something similar...Honestly I thought everyone has been doing this for years since its much more convenient then putting a blueray in the player...but i guess i was wrong.
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I don't generally watch movies more than once. I also enjoy DTS-MA audio on my high end home audio 7.1 setup.

Many people do not store media anymore. If I want true 7.1 HD sound I rent the blu ray. Pretty much everything else gets streamed.

Streaming is the way to go for most people. OP- the G3258 would be probably spot on if you are not ripping anything.
 
brentsg said:
The biggest reason to re-encode is storage footprint. You can find yourself in a situation where you have 10+TB of data without any redundancy, which is kind of a waste just for media storage (that you already own on shiny disks).
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You can build or buy a NAS with RAID5/6 or SHR1/2 and have some redundancy with large storage pools. But yes, backing up large amounts of media is very pricey, but not always necessary in my opinion (it's something that can be replaced and is not mission critical).

My compromise is a NAS with 1 disk fault tolerance, and I have all of the physical disks to re-rip if I ever have a complete failure. Anything that I don't have a physical copy of, I back up separately.
 
Reducing storage footprint is my primary reason, not to mention when transferring these files form one device to another, its a huge time saver. I have at least 500 bluerays backed up on a 2tb drive with still space for more. I personally cant see or hear any difference compared to non shrunk videos, so to me me it makes good sense. Of course if i own a movie and want to watch it at a friends house, i can throw it on my phone pretty quick and watch it on there tv with a hdmi cord, or thru wifi and a 4.7 gig file is just quicker to work with, not to mention fits on the phone easier.
 
kirbyrj said:
What socket? I don't think you're going to get an 1150 i5 for $100, but you may find an 1155 socket i5 for $100.
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When you first asked this I didn't know but it will be a Socket 1150. I'd like to get an MSI Z97M-G43 motherboard.


Also doing some of my own research it looks like the latest Haswell cannot be had for $100. Cheapest i3 is $124 on NewEgg. When I started this thread I honestly had very little idea what was on the market.

Compare
Intel Core i3-4130 Haswell Dual-Core 3.4GHz LGA 1150 54W Desktop Processor Intel HD Graphics 4400 BX80646I34130

Series: Core i3
L3 Cache: 3MB
Manufacturing Tech: 22nm
64-Bit Support: Yes
Model #: BX80646I34130
Item #: N82E16819116946
Return Policy: CPU Replacement Only Return Policy

$124.99
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FM 3370 said:
When you first asked this I didn't know but it will be a Socket 1150. I'd like to get an MSI Z97M-G43 motherboard.


Also doing some of my own research it looks like the latest Haswell cannot be had for $100. Cheapest i3 is $124 on NewEgg. When I started this thread I honestly had very little idea what was on the market.
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If you have a Microcenter near you, you can get the new i3-4150 for a flat $100. For a pure media PC, I think the G3258 would suffice just fine. You'd only need an i5/i7 if you plan on re-encoding.

primetime said:
Reducing storage footprint is my primary reason, not to mention when transferring these files form one device to another, its a huge time saver. I have at least 500 bluerays backed up on a 2tb drive with still space for more. I personally cant see or hear any difference compared to non shrunk videos, so to me me it makes good sense. Of course if i own a movie and want to watch it at a friends house, i can throw it on my phone pretty quick and watch it on there tv with a hdmi cord, or thru wifi and a 4.7 gig file is just quicker to work with, not to mention fits on the phone easier.
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Yeah it all comes down to preferences and needs. I can do the same with my phone/tablet & plex, and stream full BD bitrate from my home Plex server if I'm at a connection that can handle it - or run it at 3Mbps or less if I'm using crappy hotel wifi (having 65Mbps upload helps). I streamed a BD rip to my parents house the other day transcoded at 12Mbps (that was natively ~30Mbps) and didn't have one bit of pixelation or buffering lag.

If you do re-encode, I'd recommend at least leaving the audio intact. The HD audio on blu rays is typically more impressive than the video (if you have a home theater setup).
 
Are you looking to build this right away? If you can hold out to the Holiday season there are sure to be good deals.

I got my i3-4330 for $120 from Newegg last christmas. I liked it because it had the highest clock (at the time, 3.5 GHz) and has more cache that the others (4MB vs 3MB)
 
sKiDmArK said:
If you have a Microcenter near you, you can get the new i3-4150 for a flat $100. For a pure media PC, I think the G3258 would suffice just fine. You'd only need an i5/i7 if you plan on re-encoding.

<snip>
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No Microcenter near me sadly. I do have a Fry's so I can see what deals they have coming up.


melk said:
Are you looking to build this right away? If you can hold out to the Holiday season there are sure to be good deals.

I got my i3-4330 for $120 from Newegg last christmas. I liked it because it had the highest clock (at the time, 3.5 GHz) and has more cache that the others (4MB vs 3MB)
Click to expand...

Not planning to build right away. Just in research mode right now. I'm just now figuring out what's on the market, reading reviews and asking questions. The i3 looks like a pretty powerful processor.
 
I think you'd be fine to go with a G3258, I've thought about picking one up just to see how it overclocks.
The i3-4150 wouldn't be a bad choice either, if you wanna dish out the few extra bucks for it.

I have an i3-4130 in my htpc and it seems pretty sufficient for me. I have it paired with a GTX 750Ti, because I do game a little on my big screen, and it won't max out most games, but they are more then playable at decent settings.
 
jmilcher said:
And 1366 boards are missing many features even the cheapest newer chipsets offer. And performance does match newer quads, that's very misleading. It may match in certain situations, but new i7 Intel quads will smash 1366 cpu's
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lets see how much you really know....these are recent benchmarks posted in our forum
Your brand spanking new i7 Haswell quads score here: 3Min 47Sec (lower is better)
4790k47ghzDDR318669-9-9-24-1T_zps7abbc0fd.png
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My 6 year old system here: And don't give me this is a "1500 dollar chip bs" since its under 200 dollars anytime everywhere or even cheaper 3Min 17Sec
Capture_zps61622191.jpg
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Oh yea...those newer quads are smashing my 1366 6 year old system.......for gods sake which cpu scored better?
 
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Well, I don't care one way or the other, but you are talking about some random "Fryrender" program that could test for anything, but which certainly places an emphasis on the two additional physical cores that the LGA1366 system has. A Haswell quad will certainly be faster other tasks than "Fryrender."
 
kirbyrj said:
Well, I don't care one way or the other, but you are talking about some random "Fryrender" program that could test for anything, but which certainly places an emphasis on the two additional physical cores that the LGA1366 system has. A Haswell quad will certainly be faster other tasks than "Fryrender."
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Well then tell us all what these task are? I can't seem to find any, and I'm betting you won't either......if you do then post it here here so i can test and see, thats all;)
 
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/product/444?vs=836

x264 video encoding for one. That's pretty "real world" compared to Cinebench and things like that. Plus, that's what the OP is trying to do anyway.

Don't get me wrong, it's great that a 6 year old platform is still relevant, but if you're buying new stuff now, it makes little sense to get an LGA1366 system as the "good" boards are still ~$150 and not all of them can hit 4.4Ghz like yours does without some extra effort/cost.
 
kirbyrj said:
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/product/444?vs=836

x264 video encoding for one. That's pretty "real world" compared to Cinebench and things like that. Plus, that's what the OP is trying to do anyway.

Don't get me wrong, it's great that a 6 year old platform is still relevant, but if you're buying new stuff now, it makes little sense to get an LGA1366 system as the "good" boards are still ~$150 and not all of them can hit 4.4Ghz like yours does without some extra effort/cost.
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It would be very helpful if you could provide a test i can download and compare to the graph you pointed out, otherwise how can i or anyone really know for sure. Also if you notice the second pass is dead even and im not exactly sure what that means, other than they score the same? Im not trying to persuade anyone into building a new 1366 box, but if you already own one you very well could be Downgrading if your not careful picking out the right cpu/board while trying to upgrade:)
 
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primetime said:
lets see how much you really know....these are recent benchmarks posted in our forum
Your brand spanking new i7 Haswell quads score here: 3Min 47Sec (lower is better)
4790k47ghzDDR318669-9-9-24-1T_zps7abbc0fd.png
[/URL][/IMG]
My 6 year old system here: And don't give me this is a "1500 dollar chip bs" since its under 200 dollars anytime everywhere or even cheaper 3Min 17Sec
Capture_zps61622191.jpg
[/URL][/IMG]
Oh yea...those newer quads are smashing my 1366 6 year old system.......for gods sake which cpu scored better?
Click to expand...

In certain situations I would expect the 1366 to be adequate. In most situations, for my use and most other peoples use,the newer tech is a better fit.

And as I said the x58 chip set is missing many features that most people use, that are standard even on the lowest end current chipsets.

Some people cling to 1366 the same way some people cling to XP.

To each their own.
 
primetime, how well does it run BF4? And, how's the cooling requirement for CPU, memory, north/southbridge, VRM, etc. and resulting fan noise?
 
jmilcher said:
In certain situations I would expect the 1366 to be adequate. In most situations, for my use and most other peoples use,the newer tech is a better fit.

And as I said the x58 chip set is missing many features that most people use, that are standard even on the lowest end current chipsets.

Some people cling to 1366 the same way some people cling to XP.

To each their own.
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hey if we all think alike it be a boring world no doubt
I can on only guess this is at time this is some of the things your were talking bout
i say each everyone be there own judge

USB3 no problem
usb3test_zpsa237d965.jpg
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physcics score
physicsscore_zps8c179a0a.jpg
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ssd score
ssdspeed_zpsf96f2b1e.jpg
[/URL][/IMG]


so what exactly was it the features 1366 was missing cause truthfully i just wanted to know for my own knowdege of course:D
 
mi7chy said:
primetime, how well does it run BF4? And, how's the cooling requirement for CPU, memory, north/southbridge, VRM, etc. and resulting fan noise?
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in my case i runs so cool, you would not believe, remember thou it only uses like 30%( so 40 degrese tops) cpu on a 60 man server......but the vido card rises to about 78....the cpu is the only thing with a fan the rest have fancy heavy duty heat sinks
And please not misunderstand my feeling on this, intil makes the best cpus in almost every case.......they just love to keep making low powered cpus and keeping there beter ones sky high in price
 
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FM 3370 said:
I was just thinking, what if I just go for an older processor like the Core i7 i960? $100 for a used processor on Amazon, just not sure how it benchmarks with the latest. Is going for older top of the line better than newest budget?

http://www.amazon.com/Intel-i7-960-Processor-Socket-LGA1366/dp/B0036Z6GH2
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You can probably get a better deal on a i7 920 instead of those higher number models. Especially if you're just going to OC it anyway. Good boards for LGA1366 are expensive now though with the cheap 6 core server processors coming into the market.
 
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kirbyrj said:
You can probably get a better deal on a i7 920 instead of those higher number models. Especially if you're just going to OC it anyway. Good boards for LGA1366 are expensive now though with the cheap 6 core server processors coming into the market.
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I see i7 920s for about $30-50 on ebay... but the cheap hexcores are only little bit more than that at $75-90 and OC up and beyond 4ghz very easily. The board prices are above $100 in most cases; maybe there are some cheaper X58s on craigslist in your area? I'm running a X5650 on a lower end P6T SE and it's done far better than my c0 920 lol
 
kirbyrj said:
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/product/444?vs=836

x264 video encoding for one. That's pretty "real world" compared to Cinebench and things like that. Plus, that's what the OP is trying to do anyway.

Don't get me wrong, it's great that a 6 year old platform is still relevant, but if you're buying new stuff now, it makes little sense to get an LGA1366 system as the "good" boards are still ~$150 and not all of them can hit 4.4Ghz like yours does without some extra effort/cost.
Click to expand...

I found the closest thing to "real world" as you were referring to in a thread located here:
http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2327881

Old 06-28-2013, 04:49 PM #1
Magic Carpet
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Arrow Benchmark your computer with Handbrake
Quote:
Originally Posted by BallaTheFeared View Post
Based on what workload?
How about we stick to Handbrake 0.9.9.1? That way, we all have comparable results:

HandBrake-0.9.9-1_i686-Win_GUI.exe Windows 32-bit version GUI
HandBrake-0.9.9-1_x86_64-Win_GUI.exe Windows 64-bit version GUI

HandBrake-0.9.9-1_i686-Win_GUI.exe Windows 32-bit version CLI
HandBrake-0.9.9-1_x86_64-Win_GUI.exe Windows 64-bit version CLI

HandBrake-0.9.9-MacOSX.6_GUI_x86_64.dmg Mac OS X 10.6 / 10.7 / 10.8 GUI
HandBrake-0.9.9-MacOSX.6_CLI_x86_64.dmg Mac OS X 10.6 / 10.7 / 10.8 CLI

If you want to bench it with a nightly version, feel free, but only 0.9.9.1 stable release ^ will be added to the official Edgemeal's scoresheet.

You can re-code this (click Download) to mp4 using Android Preset and note the times, to make it comparable to other systems. Go to Options > Advanced, tick "Put a copy of individual encode logs in the same location as the encoded video". Upon finishing, check the log file. And post the results like this:

Code:
HandBrake 0.9.9.5530 - 64bit Version
OS: Microsoft Windows NT 6.2.9200.0
CPU: Intel(R) Pentium(R) CPU G2020 @ 2.90GHz
RAM: 2x4GB 966Mhz 9-9-9-27 2T

x264 [info]: using cpu capabilities: MMX2 SSE2Fast SSSE3 SSE4.2
x264 [info]: profile Main, level 3.0
[12:56:19] reader: done. 1 scr changes
[12:56:20] work: average encoding speed for job is 75.403000 fps
This is how long it took a G2020 @ 3.0 Ghz to encode Big Buck Bunny to an Android-friendly format. Use CPU-Z to get the RAM settings.

NB: HB uses some SSE 4.2/AVX instructions, so the speed will vary. Keep that in mind.

So, what's your average fps?

EDIT: Balla, re-download the video file. I put up a smaller version on Skydrive.
Last edited by Magic Carpet; 09-18-2013 at 01:32 PM.
Magic Carpet is offline
Click to expand...

My results on my 24/7 use settings with all power savings, c states, core parking, speed step enabled for a real honest result....not just a benchmark at above higher than usual settings for trying to score a higher score but a real honest score.

HandBrake 0.9.9.5530 - 64bit Version
OS: Microsoft Windows NT 6.2.9200.0
CPU: Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU X5670 @ 2.93GHz
Ram: 12279 MB, Screen: 1920x1080

x264 [info]: using cpu capabilities: MMX2 SSE2Fast SSSE3 SSE4.2
x264 [info]: profile Main, level 3.0
[20:10:00] reader: done. 1 scr changes
[20:10:00] work: average encoding speed for job is 291.156342 fps
 
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