So theres this laptop with anI3 350M and an MR 5650. Will the i3 slow down gamin performance?

A while back a saw something on the new second gen I processors and they found that there was almost no difference in gaming performance. And this was with a GF 560M. I couldnt find anything for 1st gen I's, so does anyone one know if the i3 350M will limit the power of an MR 5650. You may be wondering why im looking at an outdated laptop, but its a steal for 500 dollars, and my brother wants something that can play TF2, civ 5 and SC2.

 

Benchmark Results: CPU Scaling : Battlefield 3 Performance: 30+ Graphics Cards, Benchmarked

go for the better gpu!!!

 

Go for this one:
ASUS A53TA-XE2 Laptop Computer - AMD Quad-Core A6-3400M 1.4GHz, 4GB DDR3, 500GB HDD, DVDRW, 15.6 Display, Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit, Brown, 1-Year Warranty / 1-Year Accidental Damage at TigerDirect.com

But to answer your question, i3 will be fine with the 5650. And consider the A53TA A6-3400m a quad core i3. There is a nice thread in the Asus section of NBR called K53TA but same laptop.

 

I think the only game you would run into trouble with is Starcraft 2 or something similar. SC2 is more CPU dependent, I think an i3 might handicap you.

 

The 5650 is too weak for the CPU speed to matter. The graphics card will hit the wall way before the i3 does.

 

It sort of depends on the definition of "handicap". One place to see just how much the processor might cripple you from game to game is here - if you click on the FPS boxes below each game entry, you'll see the full specs of the system in question. The closest you'll find in the Notebookcheck tests is the i5 430m, which scores about 10% higher in 3DMark Vantage.

All the games you've mentioned will run, but you definitely won't get above medium detail in Starcraft 2. If you're ok with that, there shouldn't be too much of an issue.

 

By Handicap I mean if you run Starcraft 2 with a 5650 + i7 you can run it on high. I run it on mostly ultra at 900p with an i7 + 6750 which is only moderately more powerful (GPU wise) and get 35-45 FPS. You can't do that with an i3.

Which means your processor is handicapping you in that.

With an i3 I think you will see more lag in a 4 v 4 200 game with certain settings then an i7 + 5650 with those same settings, which means your processor is bottlenecking you in this case. I think you might even see lag otherwise as well with some settings.

Obviously it will run, I'm just saying for SC2 CPU is more dependent especially in larger battles. Like I've seen people with an i3 + good GPU get high FPS in the beginning and then go down a lot. With an i7 + 6750 I get pretty constant FPS.

 

No, no, I'm in full agreement - was asking rhetorically, really! SC2 is definitely one of the more cpu-bound games out there, but I don't think it's below an i3. Just requires some pretty serious detail disabling.

 

You can definitely run SC2 on an i3, I fully agree. I ran it on an AMD Turion 2ghz + 8200gs. 1 v 1 and campaign were "semi-playable".

Its just you might have to go low-medium in some larger 4 v 4 battles I think. Which is annoying because anything low in SC2 is like looking at a 3-4 year older game. Yeah I agree for sure them. All I was saying is in regards to the OP you will get handicapped in SC2 with the i3 + 5650.

 

I dont think he'll mind. Running it on medium 720p is great for him. Right now he can barely play the source engine. He just wants to run games, the full graphics experience doesnt mean much to him, hence the 500 dollars. Thanks for the input though.

 

Specs in the sig ... and I can "from personal experience" tell you that the i3-370 never handicapped my OCed 5650 in all the scenarios the GPU hits 100% load and processor is well below full load ... as for SCII back when i used to play it ... it worked just fine on a 1366*768 with high/medium settings

 

For the games you mentioned, an i3/5650 should be fine. I don't know about SC2, never played it. If he wants to play BF3, he'll probably need a quad. Remember, you can lower settings/resolution to make just about any game playable on almost any modern graphics card, but if the CPU isn't strong enough, there's usually not much you can do short of replacing it or getting a new laptop.

 

Thanks for the input, and that asus on tigerdirect looks amazing!