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for $129 the 3570k is best choice if your building a new HTPC...

post #1 of 26
10/12/12 at 8:53am
Thread Starter 



179-50=$129


What a tremendous amount of processor power for that price. In my mind an i3 would have to be $80 or less for it to be considered.

For the typical $100-130 for the i3's it's a no brainer at all.
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post #2 of 26
10/12/12 at 9:11am
I would agree, but only if you live near a Microcenter or have a friend who can buy it for you.

I live about an hour away from one and for the cost of gas, time, and tax, I don't think it's really worth it to me.
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post #3 of 26
10/12/12 at 9:19am
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Quote:
Originally Posted by omerome View Post

I would agree, but only if you live near a Microcenter or have a friend who can buy it for you.
I live about an hour away from one and for the cost of gas, time, and tax, I don't think it's really worth it to me.

This is true.

but at that point it means your cost on the 3570k is not $129 and is higher... perhaps in the $150-$210 range.

So at that point it might not be your best value if you could buy online an $80 i3.

But given the abillity to obtain a 3570k for $129 it will be very hard to find a better solution IMO.
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post #4 of 26
10/12/12 at 9:20am
I like the i3 3225 for $80 better than the i5 for HTPC with this deal.
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post #5 of 26
10/12/12 at 9:23am
Quote:
Originally Posted by jaboki View Post

Um, it says the 3570k is $179.

He's talking about using the $50 off a motherboard as the "savings".
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post #6 of 26
10/12/12 at 10:59am
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Quote:
Originally Posted by assassin View Post

He's talking about using the $50 off a motherboard as the "savings".

Right.

If your building a HTPC and need a motherboard too.

An Asrock Z77 for instance ends up being only $39 (normally $89) making the combo price pretty attractive since the i5 is only $179. 179+39= $220

In contrast most i3's online run $99-$120 and most motherboards are $80-$100 and the total net cost is about the same if your just going on Newegg and buying a motherboard and i3 CPU.




As assassin pointed out- for $80 special the i3 begins to show a nice value for someone who does not need the power of the i5, saving $50.

That is my mental spot too.

For $50 saved- sure the i3 makes perfect sense.

It's more than enough and you save $50.

But saving less than $50 you might as well get the beasty i5 IMO.

It's certainly worth $10 or $20....
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post #7 of 26
10/12/12 at 1:11pm
I went with the i3-3225 with a ASRock Z77 Extreme4 motherboard. So basically a higher end board with a lower end CPU. I used a cheap OCZ agility3 SSD that I had from another project. I love it. I went with the i3 for a couple of reasons. First the extra $50 kind of made the difference between a cheap build and a more expensive build. Of course I probably could have just gone with a cheaper board, but I like the one I got. Probably the main reason though was to save me from myself. The i3 with HD4000 graphics does everything I need. Every system I've got that can be overclocked is. If I've got got the i5 I'm not going to just leave it alone. I've going to have to play with it. So of course I'm going to have to get a better cooler to try to get more out of it. Then I'm sure it would snowball from there. Basically my kids wouldn't be able to use it anymore and it would become my toy. So anyway thats my justification. I can see where your coming from though.
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post #8 of 26
10/12/12 at 1:58pm
I went through this process when I built four i5-3570K systems last month. I immediately thought the MC deal would be the best for one of the four and it turned out at the time is was not. Since I needed all the parts, I put together the build at Newegg which had two combos, one with the i5 and something else and one with the Z77 motherboard and something else plus I got a Newegg gift card and a $20 rebate. Figuring in the taxes (yes that is real money and on a $220 purchase that's $13.75 of the $50 eaten up) , the Newegg deal turned out much better.

So, not saying the MC deal is bad but don't just jump on it until you've shopped the combos at Newegg too. I was surprised.
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post #9 of 26
10/13/12 at 7:14am
Is this deal dead already? I don't see it anywhere on the site, and the i3 is 149
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post #10 of 26
10/13/12 at 11:38am
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Brad Horstkotte View Post

Is this deal dead already? I don't see it anywhere on the site, and the i3 is 149

I think it is always running ... yes.

IN STORE ONLY
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post #11 of 26
10/13/12 at 11:39am
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Quote:
Originally Posted by duff99 View Post

I went with the i3-3225 with a ASRock Z77 Extreme4 motherboard. So basically a higher end board with a lower end CPU. I used a cheap OCZ agility3 SSD that I had from another project. I love it. I went with the i3 for a couple of reasons. First the extra $50 kind of made the difference between a cheap build and a more expensive build. Of course I probably could have just gone with a cheaper board, but I like the one I got. Probably the main reason though was to save me from myself. The i3 with HD4000 graphics does everything I need. Every system I've got that can be overclocked is. If I've got got the i5 I'm not going to just leave it alone. I've going to have to play with it. So of course I'm going to have to get a better cooler to try to get more out of it. Then I'm sure it would snowball from there. Basically my kids wouldn't be able to use it anymore and it would become my toy. So anyway thats my justification. I can see where your coming from though.

I did the i5 and the Asrock Z77 ... but I went cheaper on the board with the PRO 3 for $89.


I honestly did not find any difference in the extreme 4. It offered no advantage what so ever for me and cost the difference in the two CPU's.

Unless your going with multi graphics cards and need the PCI lanes/slots the Extreme 4 really offers nothing over the PRO 3.
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post #12 of 26
10/13/12 at 12:06pm
Hello all. Long time since my last post. Thought I'd chime in with my purchase. I got the I3 3225 and Gigabyte b75m d3h for 160.00 after taxes. I have noticed they have only done the deal on the I3 3225/w motherboard the last 2 weekends. A small difference in the ads has been any compatible board(1155) vs z77 boards.
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post #13 of 26
10/13/12 at 4:05pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mfusick View Post

I did the i5 and the Asrock Z77 ... but I went cheaper on the board with the PRO 3 for $89.
I honestly did not find any difference in the extreme 4. It offered no advantage what so ever for me and cost the difference in the two CPU's.
Unless your going with multi graphics cards and need the PCI lanes/slots the Extreme 4 really offers nothing over the PRO 3.

I still ended up $20 cheaper, and I really do love that system. Would it have made any difference with the cheaper board, probably not. I'm still happy with my choice since it came in under that magical, completely unquantifiable number that made it a cheap build for me. That means I could justify it to my wife and not get in a fight. It also means that it gets to stay a HTPC and my desire to tinker with it is seriously reduced. Of course thanks to you I'm thinking of picking up a i5-3570k and board just to play with. Is there any way I can justify another computer, no. I just want to though thanks to you.
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post #14 of 26
10/15/12 at 12:48pm
Thread Starter 
Yeah.. pick it up. You can justify it!

lol.
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post #15 of 26
10/15/12 at 12:55pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mfusick View Post

Yeah.. pick it up. You can justify it!
lol.

There is no real point though. Even with those discounts you are paying for something you'll never use fully. I didn't even put a 3570K in my gaming box, went with a 3470 instead. I'd rather look for i3 combo's.
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post #16 of 26
10/15/12 at 3:59pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tiddles88 View Post

There is no real point though. Even with those discounts you are paying for something you'll never use fully. I didn't even put a 3570K in my gaming box, went with a 3470 instead. I'd rather look for i3 combo's.

Don't you ever just like to play. I enjoy building systems. I like tweaking them to get the best performance out of them. I also enjoy trying to get the physical layout and wiring as nice as possible. It's a little OCD I know, but I enjoy it. The one thing I've missed with the new generation chips is the over clocking. I know with a HTPC you don't need to over clock. I'd probably put it back at stock when I was done. I just like the challenge. My main system runs a over clocked 3570K. I can't really play around with it to much though. I actually need to use it occasionally. It's my DVR, and the computer my wife uses. So this new system would let me really thrash it without worrying about anything else. I just read about delidding so I've got another thing to try out. When I'm done I could just pass it along to one of my kids, or my parents. So it would get used. Truly necessary no. It would be a lot of fun though.
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post #17 of 26
10/15/12 at 4:12pm
I ended up getting the i3-3225 + Gigabyte GA-Z77M-D3H-MVP

$129 + $99 for the MB.. $50 off.. so ended up being $180 for both.

The ASROCK was $10 more. I didn't need additional functionality. Although I'm wondering if the ASRock might be a better MB.

I needed mATX and those were the only 2 they had in the store at a decent price.
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post #18 of 26
10/15/12 at 5:26pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tiddles88 View Post

There is no real point though. Even with those discounts you are paying for something you'll never use fully. I didn't even put a 3570K in my gaming box, went with a 3470 instead. I'd rather look for i3 combo's.

That really depends on what you're doing. If you ever try to dabble in video transcoding, etc, the extra cores on the 3570K would be quite useful (versus a Core i3, at least). Between i5-3470 and i5-3570K, yes, I agree the differences would be quite a bit less pronounced so between the two, I'd just choose one based on price point/sales. I was planning on just getting an i5-3450 for one of my builds but at the time of purchase, there was just like a $5 difference between it and the 3570K so I figured why not?
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post #19 of 26
10/15/12 at 5:37pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by duff99 View Post

Don't you ever just like to play. I enjoy building systems. I like tweaking them to get the best performance out of them. I also enjoy trying to get the physical layout and wiring as nice as possible. It's a little OCD I know, but I enjoy it. The one thing I've missed with the new generation chips is the over clocking. I know with a HTPC you don't need to over clock. I'd probably put it back at stock when I was done. I just like the challenge. My main system runs a over clocked 3570K. I can't really play around with it to much though. I actually need to use it occasionally. It's my DVR, and the computer my wife uses. So this new system would let me really thrash it without worrying about anything else. I just read about delidding so I've got another thing to try out. When I'm done I could just pass it along to one of my kids, or my parents. So it would get used. Truly necessary no. It would be a lot of fun though.

Different people like playing with different things... for you it is fiddling with hardware, others they like twiddling with software, others would rather spend the time building speakers or amps instead. I've built more PCs than I care to remember, my wiring is neat and my builds are functional... I don't bother with things like overclocking because it yields nothing for me - if it did, then I would... but I have limited time as it is to devote to my hobbies so things that don't interest me (especially ones that have no material impact) get ignored.
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post #20 of 26
10/15/12 at 5:45pm
So last Jan, I purchased a sandybridge 2500K when it first came out. It seems bizarre having a high powered cpu in a htpc. But I got a similar deal from microcenter and it has been worth it, in retrospect. For typical htpc you'll seldom need all that horsepower, but it does come handy.
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post #21 of 26
10/15/12 at 8:52pm
hdkhang your point is that you don't enjoy the same things as I do. Okay to each their own. This doesn't make my personal statement any less valid to me. I'm not advocating everyone go out and buy this hardware and do what I would do with it. I just said I enjoy it. This is a hobby that I can do at home, and my family usually reaps the benefits with nice computers when I'm done playing.
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post #22 of 26
10/16/12 at 6:40am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tiddles88 View Post

There is no real point though. Even with those discounts you are paying for something you'll never use fully. I didn't even put a 3570K in my gaming box, went with a 3470 instead. I'd rather look for i3 combo's.

Well to just play a movie your right.

But if your transcoding a movie for playback on an ipad or phone... you certainly would.

Depends how you use the machine.
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post #23 of 26
10/19/12 at 7:18am
Thread Starter 

Wonderful deal


$50 for that motherboard is a nice deal and would build a nice machine.

$129+49=$179


That's easily a better deal than a $99 i3 and $80 crappier motherboard.

Much rather the better Z77 motherboard and i5 CPU.
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post #24 of 26
10/19/12 at 7:59am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mfusick View Post


Wonderful deal
$50 for that motherboard is a nice deal and would build a nice machine.
$129+49=$179
That's easily a better deal than a $99 i3 and $80 crappier motherboard.
Much rather the better Z77 motherboard and i5 CPU.

Unless you are encoding video the extra cpu cores of the core i5 don't do anything for you for HTPC. There is a purpose for upgrading to the HD4000 graphics but not for more cpu power.
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post #25 of 26
10/19/12 at 8:11am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mfusick View Post


Wonderful deal
$50 for that motherboard is a nice deal and would build a nice machine.
$129+49=$179
That's easily a better deal than a $99 i3 and $80 crappier motherboard.
Much rather the better Z77 motherboard and i5 CPU.

So they'll give you the $50 off the mobo and another $50 off the CPU?? I think you need to re-read the terms of the deal.
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post #26 of 26
10/19/12 at 12:10pm
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ljo000 View Post

So they'll give you the $50 off the mobo and another $50 off the CPU?? I think you need to re-read the terms of the deal.

Yup. It's $49 plus $179 (not $129). Your right.
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