At simply £120 / $130, Intel’s Core i3-8100 is likely one of the most cost-effective gaming CPUs you should buy immediately. It’s a reasonably tempting package deal, too. Unlike earlier generations of Intel’s Core i3 chips, the i3-8100 comes with 4 cores clocked at a fairly nippy 3.6GHz, and its 1080p gaming efficiency impressed after I first noticed it inside Overclockers UK’s Kinetic Z1 gaming desktop.
However, now that I’ve had an opportunity to check it towards a few of its different Core i3 siblings, such because the top-end Intel Core i3-8350Okay, and its rival AMD Ryzen 5 2600 CPU, is it value spending a bit bit extra in your gaming CPU, or can the Core i3-8100 nonetheless maintain its personal because the go-to best gaming CPU for these on a price range? Here’s wot I believe.
In quick, the Core i3-8100 continues to be an honest gaming CPU, however now that costs for the Ryzen 5 2600 have come down so dramatically because it first launched, AMD’s entry-level processor is a way more attractive proposition for price range PC builders. Costing simply £5 more within the UK and $20 more within the US, the Ryzen 5 2600 gives vastly superior gaming efficiency just about throughout the board.
Admittedly, testing a CPU’s gaming efficiency continues to be a little bit of a troublesome train. As our buddies at Digital Foundry have explained in the past, quite a lot of benchmarks both don’t check your CPU correctly, or just aren’t very correct within the first place. Fortunately, a handful of gaming benchmarks have develop into rather a lot higher at this not too long ago, with the likes of Shadow of the Tomb Raider, Forza Horizon 4, Assassin’s Creed Odyssey and extra all offering an in-depth take a look at your CPU’s efficiency in addition to what your graphics card’s doing.
That stated, there are additionally a number of different elements that may affect gaming efficiency, reminiscent of your graphics card, the kind of RAM you’ve obtained, and even what kind of storage you’ve put in the game on. As a outcome, getting a very correct image of a CPU’s gaming efficiency is difficult, however I’ve achieved the very best I can with the tools obtainable to me.
I’ve additionally targeted much more on gaming efficiency than I’ve, say, on utility efficiency or media creation ins and outs on this assessment as a result of, nicely, it’s the previous I’m all in favour of, not the latter. I’ve included some cursory Cinebench scores as a fundamental indicator of what every CPU can be like for normal desktop duties, however actually, my predominant purpose right here is to work out what CPU is the very best for gaming and gaming alone.
With this in thoughts, then, let’s check out the figures. Straight off the bat, then, the Core i3-8100 places up a reasonably good combat towards the Ryzen 5 2600, providing just about an identical efficiency in Forza Horizon 4 (no less than at 1080p), and ever so barely higher speeds in Total War: Warhammer II. However, it falls behind fairly considerably in Shadow of the Tomb Raider and Assassin’s Creed Odyssey, each at 1080p and 1440p.
I ought to word, in fact, that Assassin’s Creed Odyssey was developed in partnership with AMD in an effort to benefit from a few of their particular {hardware} options (AMD’s Ryzen and Radeon logos seem alongside Ubisoft’s whenever you fireplace up the game, for instance), however even I used to be shocked that there was such a spot (a mean of 24fps!) between the i3-8100 and its Ryzen rival.
Of course, it’s arduous to say whether or not you’ll see the identical type of efficiency bounce on the lower-end GPUs you’d in all probability be pairing these explicit processors with, nevertheless it’s nonetheless a powerful leap for a CPU that solely prices one other £5 within the UK, and it’s nearly actually value the additional $20 you’ll must spend on it over within the US, too.
What’s extra, the Ryzen 5 2600 places up a reasonably good combat towards Intel’s top-end eighth Gen Core i3 as nicely, the Core i3-8350K, which is priced even larger at £170 / $195. While the i3-8350Okay has the sting in Total War and Forza Horizon, the Ryzen 5 2600 gives just about an identical efficiency in Shadow of the Tomb Raider, and sooner speeds in Assassin’s Creed Odyssey. Plus, the Ryzen’s two additional cores give it much more oomph for normal desktop duties, too (see its single and multicore Cinebench scores beneath), making it a greater all-round CPU than its Intel rival.
There might be an argument for spending that additional £50 / $50-odd on the Core i3-8350Okay if the Ryzen 5 2600 ever went up in worth, for instance, however it’s value noting that you simply’ll nonetheless must consider the price of a cooler for those who resolve to go for the Core i3-8350Okay, as annoyingly it doesn’t really include one within the field, in contrast to the Core i3-8100 and Ryzen 5 2600. That will naturally increase prices even additional – in all probability nearer the £200 / $200 mark relying on the mannequin – at which level you might as nicely simply go for one thing even higher such because the Intel Core i5-8400 and even AMD’s Ryzen 5 2600X.
It’s in all probability value ready to see what AMD’s new Ryzen 5 3600 CPU can do as nicely, which is because of launch on July seventh for $199 (UK pricing TBC), but when £150 / $150 is absolutely the restrict of what you wish to spend in your gaming CPU, then it actually doesn’t get significantly better than the Ryzen 5 2600.
