Help me understand, please - CPU differences in time

[Blerpa]

It is less than a month that I've a finally stable job and I'm looking forward in the future - after I pay taxes, insurances and minor debts - to get new hardware.
With that said I've been met a strange situation.

Let me explain: I'm for now stuck on a very old single core Barton 2800XP+ desktop with 1.75GB of DDR1 ram and a useless Geforce FX5200 AGP gpu.
So I barely surf with this thing, talk over Hangouts and download some stuff. Even Youtube videos over 480p do stutter.
My main PC died (mobo which before dying burned 3 different PSUs) permanently one year ago about, and it was already old anyway.

Since I want to get a big gaming-like desktop (1000-1200 $ range) my idea has been to hold off buying to save money for it.
Since I've also a truly ancient heavy laptop (Toshiba Satelite with Pentium 4 HT and Lubuntu installed) the idea was to get a cheap laptop to get by meanwhile (but not before the end of the fall) and also to replace the Toshiba too.

Now: the idea has been to get on a cheap i3 CPU (how do I check for sure what generation is Haswell? I want the battery durability) with at least 4GB of RAM (thought 8 should be better) and if possible GTX820 M (but I can fall back to 740 or 760 M too if I've to save money).
Something I can easily hook up to my 27" Full HD monitor and my wireless Logitech kb+mouse.

Doing mild decent gaming would be nice. Like Skyrim, Fallout 3, and so on.

So we get to the point: all my friends keep telling me, to the point of being obnoxious, that i3 CPUs are shit. That I should *at least* get an i5 and all of that.
The matter is my main PC was an AMD Athlon 64 X2 4200+ with dual channel 4GB DDR2 and Radeon HD4850 512.
It was already old but I did play Skyrim and Fallout 3 (among the others) with high settings at stable 30fps with no troubles.

NOW... are they exaggerating with the flak about i3?
Shouldn't a medium entry level modern CPU like the i3 be anyway better than an old AMD dual core from 2007 or before?

What I'm getting at... shouldn't I at least expect the same performance by a laptop like the one I listed compared to the A64 X2 I had? I mean, really is it possible than a decent 2013-2014 CPU (and machine) like the one *I listed* should perform worse than a not top tier desktop CPU from 2007, especially if with a GTX820 M and 8GB of ram?

I'm a bit suspicious and I think my friends are full of crap and playing the "if you don't have top spec PC your gaming sucks no matter what!" trump card.
So, what do you think?

[drew]

I've got a rock-solid i7-920 clocked to 3.6G with 12GB ram that needs a new home :)

[Blerpa]

Aside from the fact I'm looking at buying the cheap laptop not before September or October and the gaming PC next year... do you have any idea about the freight costs from US to Italy? LOL
It would be great, but I'm not able to pay in the immediate present :D (Damn, it would rock, tho! hahaha)

[drew]

Just a shot in the dark mate. :)

[thesameguy]

Your friends are snobs and or ill-informed Unless you are using very specific types of apps (math-intensive) or tend to actively run (and I mean active - not just stuff sitting in the background) a pile of apps, you don't need what higher end CPUs have - more cores. Most apps don't make use of more cores, so the only thing you're winning is running more apps at once. With the exception of a handful of them, games rely more on the GPU than the CPU anyway - you'll get better results with a slow CPU and a fast GPU than the opposite.

I spent several years on an i3 and had no problem playing what I wanted to play on a variety of AMD hardware.

As for CPU generation, the clue is in the three or four digit model number - i3-530 is Westmere (1st gen), i3-2100 is Sandy Bridge (2nd gen), i3-3210 is Ivy Bridge (3rd gen), and i3-4130 is Haswell (4th gen).

[thesameguy]

That said, if money is tight and the end goal is a gaming PC, why not start building one instead of diverting funds into a laptop? I don't know what prices look like there, but I gotta believe you can get yourself off to a solid start for far less than a laptop with discrete graphics is going to cost.

[Blerpa]

@drew: I'd gladly pay you to get that seemingly awesome package if I could, even right away.

@tsg: I suppose they are also bullshitting me for fun.
My *main question* is: is an i3 (3rd or 4th gen) with 4GB RAM (DDR3 I suppose) and GTX 710 M or better 820 M *A LOT BETTER THAN* an AMD A64 X2 4200+ (or better) with 4GB RAM (DDR2) and HD4850? At 1920 x 1080 res, obviously. As simple as this.

Also thanks for the clarification on the model generations. Easy to follow. I thought it could be that way but wasn't sure.
And oh, about the last thing:

1) I'm in bad need of an interim solution on the very cheap side (like 399-429$ cheap) that I will also be able to use on the move, in the kitchen or at bed. So fix first the laptop lack to slowly manage also the desktop problem in the following future.
2) No bloody Chromebooks, no tablets, no idiotic (for me) Surfaces, no Transformer T100s (albeit it sounds like a great device).
3) The gaming desktop has to be an expensive machine, at least i7, 8GB, R270 card. At the very least. Possibly also hybrid hard disk. It may take even an year time to save the money to get that, I can wait if I've a lappy that can work on interim.
4) I can't be bothered anymore building up my stuff. I may look into Dell, Alienware or similar Asus expensive OEM desktops. (Unless something happens in the way, like drew offering to sell his CPU and RAM).

[drew]

Hmm, looks like it can be shipped for under $75.

But I forget where you're at now. You still in .it??

[Alan P]

The issue with the i3 is it's dual core mainly and because of that it's seen as a crippled/not good enough to be an i5 chip. For light to medium gaming it should be fine. As TSG said just about every game (with crappy PC ports like GTA 4 being the exception) requires GPU grunt over CPU grunt, but it would obviously be foolish to pair a GTX 780ti with an i3.

The other issue is that even if you spend double the price of a desktop on a laptop you're often still lagging behind in speed and power compared to the Desktop. So I ask this, do you NEED a laptop to game on? Gaming on a laptop usually ends up full of compromises. Smaller screen, slower graphics, heat (and usually a lot of it) and integrated M&K.

Regarding the 820M compared to the 4850, the 820M should by rights be a much faster card.

[thesameguy]

Like Alan said, the anti-i3 sentiment is largely perception. Until you get into genuine needs to multicore capability, there isn't much difference in performance between i3 and i5 and i7. While there is some, core capability is largely dictated by clock speed. For most applications, you will be better off with a faster clocked i3 than a slower clocked i5. Going from an i3-2130 to an i7-2600 to an i5-4670k has yielded almost no single-app performance difference for me. It's not something I would personally stress about at all.

I don't know what the market is like there, but over here you can't touch a laptop with discrete graphics for under $800, and many of them will cross over a grand quickly. The cheapest Dell is $999 with a GT750M. That's well into Very Nice Gaming Desktop territory. $400 laptops - here - will be Celeron or i3 or maybe AMD CPUs with onboard graphics.

[Yw-slayer]

I'm not sure that an 820M would be much faster than a 4850. Faster, yes, but still probably unable to run "recent" (last year or so) big titles at 1920 I'd think.

Also, a 4th gen i3 should be ok: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gaming-cpu-review-overclock,3106-6.html

[Blerpa]

The i3 may be ok, but actually, looking at big franchising offers, the reality is such that: most i3 in cheap laptops are i3-3110M or similar (so 3rd gen, no Haswell) and often they are either paired by damn Intel HD4000 and HD4400 or some GT 710 or 720M.
I only found one of them with a 820M (389 euro).
Around 500-599 euro there can be had i5s (4th gen) with R5 M230 or GT 820M (Asus F550 with i5-4200U - 8GB - GT 820M 2GB is the best one at 599) or otherwise from 599-699 euro and up there are i7s (4th gen, always i7-4500U) with variable RAM (from 4 to 12) and wildly various GPUs (HD8670M 1GB, GT 740M 2GB).

What it means is: if you don't really want to play anything major (especially at 1920) you can find a laptop under 400 euro easily.
Otherwise it's going to cost you about 200 euro more for an i5. 300-350 if you want an i7.

At that point I suppose we get close to the costs of self built cheap AMD or old i7 desktops.

I'm miffed about this. I mean...

1) do I wait like next summer to spend 1000+ euro on a gaming desktop and suffer right now making do with my 7" android tablet (I really hate the lack of a proper OS in it, lack of display, lack of proper keyboard - my old wired keyboard attached by USB OTG does not cut it) and my ancient desktop where I can't even play HD videos on Youtube, local HD videos and not even vanilla System Shock 2 runs at more that 10fps on 1920? It has been PAINFUL.

2) Or I splash some cash on a cheap 400 euro i3 laptop that at least will make my life more bearable in the time being although I won't be playing much games on it?

3) Or... I do save a bit to get a 500-600 euro i5-i7 laptop so I will have a slightly more durable laptop which will complement the future gaming desktop?

Option number 1 is getting really tiring and frustrating (and fuck using Android - or iOS too - tablets as laptop replacements, they really can't stand a chance).
I suppose come October or around I will see what and if I can spend anything. But already waiting till then it is going to feel atrocious - it would feel worse knowing I'd have to go along like this till another summer.

Point is, I'd really like to have a laptop to use around house in the few hours I get for myself when I'm not working my ass, especially at bed in front of tv, as I have to go to bed early (I wake up every day at 4am to go to work) and it is annoying to stay up late sit in the PC room. Groan :/

[Yw-slayer]

Secondhand i3/i5 laptop for now which is a second-gen (Sandy Bridge) chip?

[Blerpa]

Secondhand i3/i5 laptop for now which is a second-gen (Sandy Bridge) chip?

That would be a good suggestion, but PC second hand sales in Italy pretty much suck... things are usually overpriced.
Like you can find a complete (no monitor though) ancient P4 HT desktop sold at 150-180 euro. While it may very well be worth 50 euro tops.
(I'll look into that, but unless a friend is getting rid of something, I think it will be rare to find some decent pricing).

[Blerpa]

Meanwhile, I realized one thing: desktop-wise, I still have my functional HD4850 512mb PCI-E. Food for thoughts in case I need to skim to get a minimal desktop system OR binge on a big gaming desktop but save for a month or two before buying a monster GPU for it.

[Yw-slayer]

Yeah, secondhand is usually overpriced, but see what you can get. or older-get clearance stuff?