[SOLVED] Intel i3 or AMD 880G (HD 4250) for new machine?

[fschaap]

I need to replace a broken machine on a budget and I prefer to go with integrated graphics.

So I've narrowed down my search to an Intel i3 2120 or AMD Phenom X4 + AMD 880G (Radeon HD 4250).

Which one to pick with regard to driver support? I've had my share of Intel GMA pain and I'm reading recent reports about the Radeon HD 4250 support being broken.

Main requirements for the machine are: decent desktop performance with Linux Mint, smooth Flash and HD video playback for the kids.

Care to advise me? Much appreciated

[xenopeek]

I'm sure there are lots of conflicting opinions on this one I still have nightmares from having to install AMD's driver for somebody else, though that was on Ubuntu 10.10 IIRC. Anyway, the i3 you mention has the HD2000 IGP. I have an i5 with the HD3000 IGP and it has worked fine for me on Linux Mint 11, 12 and LMDE XFCE. Both for flash, HD video playback and even some 3D games. I think the difference between HD2000 and HD3000 is the amount of execution units, mostly for 3D performance.

[davtom.net]

If you can stretch a bit more, the i3-2125 is like the i3-2120 but has the same Intel HD 3000 integrated graphics as the i5-2500K. I think it's about £20 more. From the benchmarks, HD 3000 is significantly better than HD 2000.

I have an i3-2120. I ran integrated graphics for a while. The only 3D stuff I did was to run X-Plane 9 at 1024x768 with most stuff turned down low, and that's a bit sluggish with it, though it is playable. The Phoronix X-plane benchmark gives 7 fps for the x-plane benchmark (but that's using benchmark high quality settings, of course; these are otherwise tweaked).

I can't answer your question, though. I'm in the process of trying to upgrade to an AMD Radeon HD6770 graphics card.

[fschaap]

I guess the answer is: Intel i3 integrated graphics is working well enough.

I'm kinda biased towards the AMD Phenom X4, especially since you get 4 cores, but benchmarks say desktop performance is pretty much a tie with i3. Decisions, decisions...

[aja pathi]

I am having similar hardware configuration and I was not satisfied with video playback performance and hence had to go for NVidia gt520 to improve it.
Now no issues.
You will be better to buy a cheap NVidia card if you want to be happy using Linux and go for proprietary drivers for satisfaction.
I am following same practice buy cheap amd processor with amd chipset and a cheap NVidia card.
My config below
AMD Athlon X2 260 (3.2GHZ)
ASUS M5A88-M(AMD 880G/SB850)-(SATA 6Gb/s support)
G.skill Ripjaws X 2GB (1 x 2GB) DDR3 1600MHz Desktop RAM (F3-12800CL9S-2GBXL)
Seagate Model ST1000DM0031 TB64MB(SATA 6Gb/s)
Benq (VW2420H)
Asus GT520

[fschaap]

Well, I eventually decided on going with an Intel i3 and I followed davtom's advice of getting the i3 2125 with HD3000 graphics. Apart from the Phenom X4 965 + 880G combo, I also looked at the AMD A8 3870 with an A75 motherboard, since that's in pretty much the same price range.

Three main reasons for choosing i3:
- Intel i3 tops or ties both AMD cpus in Anandtech CPU performance bench
- according to this Phoronix article, AMD will drop HD2000/3000/4000 support from official Catalyst drivers later this year
- i3 TDP is 65 Watt, whereas A8 is 100 Watt and Phenom X4 965 is 125 Watt

So, the build looks like this:

cpu: Intel i3 2125
mobo: Asus P8B75-M LE
mem: Corsair 2x4GB DDR3, 1600Mhz, 240pin DIMM CMZ8GX3M2A1600C9 (only 2 dimm slots on the mobo and memory is cheap)
HD: Crucial 128GB m4 CT128M4SSD2

Waiting for the parts to arrive, so we'll see if it can make Linux Mint fly

[xenopeek]

Looks sweet That motherboard is not yet in the Community hardware review database. So if you're willing, consider writing up what works/what doesn't/workarounds once you have built the machine

[fschaap]

I'll give the review db a go when I'm done installing and testing.

I chose the Asus P8B75-M LE because the Intel B75 chipset natively supports SATA-III (6 Gb/s) and USB3. It's only 10 euro more than the cheapest comparable H61/H67 mobo and cheaper than a lot of H61/H67 motherboards.

Only drawback is that there is only 1 SATA-III connector and only 2 dimm slots, but that's enough for the intended use.

[fschaap]

Marking this thread as solved.

Installed LM Debian edition 201204 and everything just works fine. I haven't tried any 3D gaming yet, but flash games and HD video runs just fine on the Intel i3-2125 with HD3000 graphics. I've stressed the system a bit with several Virtualbox virtual machines and it holds up nicely.

Overall the system is Very Fast, but that's also thanks to the SSD (compared with my old dual core AMD Athlon 3000+ and Nvidia 7050 igp and rotational media harddisk).

I've added the motherboard to the hardware database.

Thanks for the feedback all

[xenopeek]

Cool