help me which hardware to go for

[kamran]

its time for me to upgrade to intel 4th gen so now going to change my processor n motherboard but unable to decide which one to go for
my main use is gaming and top of the list is trainz
so currently i have two options one is
Intel Core i3 4130 + GIGABYTE G1.SNIPER B5 1.0 http://www.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=4594#sp

or Intel Core i5 4440 + asus B85M-G https://www.asus.com/Motherboards/B85MG/#overview

so tell me which on i should choose bcz budget is very tight so i need best possible hardware

 

[whitepass]

Go for the i5.

 

[boc61]

Definitely go i5.

 

[pdkoester]

I think either will work, to be honest. Go for the cheaper, more updated one.

 

[kamran]

will it gave any performence improvement as i read that trainz only utilized 2 cores?

 

[LNERlover5]

Just a point. The i3 with that motherboard is a poor pair. The Sniper series is GIGABYTE's top end kit. It doesn't make much sense to use an i3.

Overall the i5 is simply better since one needs to consider the fact that your application will access cores, along with the OS and other system tasks. You need more than two cores as a result to be honest.

 

[kamran]

Just a point. The i3 with that motherboard is a poor pair. The Sniper series is GIGABYTE's top end kit. It doesn't make much sense to use an i3.

Overall the i5 is simply better since one needs to consider the fact that your application will access cores, along with the OS and other system tasks. You need more than two cores as a result to be honest.

this gigabyte sniper board is mid range motherboard not that high end one that cost 450$+ ths is b85 based sniper mb with price around 130$

 

[ccowan2126]

I just read on the Trainz/Kickstarter website that the new T2 may be set up to take advantage of multiple cores. I wonder of 2 will be enough. I have an i3 3220 and may end up looking to upgrade to an i5 myself. Just FYI.

 

[shaneturner12]

Based on the Trainz:A New Era Kickstarter FAQ, N3V are saying a quad-core (4 cores), but 2 may work depending on what optimisations they make.

Shane

 

[malikrthr]

Kamran, when you get your new computer hardware, make sure that a majority of the components are future proof for not only games and simulators for this generation, but also next generation too. I wonder what will be the graphics card requirement for the Trainz era. I hope a GTX 550ti will be enough to run it.

 

[drchoi21]

I think it looks like next-gen graphics, so you might want a powerful beast of graphics - dunno about SLI though

 

[JCitron]

Kamran,

The other guys bring up an important point here. You should plan on future-proofing your hardware. Whenever I build a machine, I plan around what I can afford at the top-end rather than the bottom-most or cheapest route. I may not save as much as I could, but I know that my PC will still work good enough in 3 or 4 years instead of only 2 years. I'm not saying to go out and by the most expensive, newest, biggest, equipment either. A good example is my current machine. The now 1 year-old system has served quite well. I can use dual monitors and run Trainz TS12 full bars to the right, windowed, at the same time. It's not unusual for me to have a browser with Google Earth and Bing maps running while I'm in Surveyor, or I'm running Excel, Word, and Outlook at the same time as browsing and running Trainz. A few years ago, this wasn't possible, but with my i7 3.7Ghz processor, 16GB of RAM, and my NVidia (EVGA) 680GTx this is all possible.

Will I be able to do this in a year or two? Who knows. Given that operating system development has accelerated and newer software is getting heavier, I may not be able to run everything at once, but at least Trainz will still operate will even as a single application. My feelings are the TAIN, or whatever it's going to be called, will probably have the same or similar hardware requirements as most graphic intensive programs have today.

John

 

[SuperFudd]

By the way, the I7 has no advantage over the I5 for gaming.

 

[JCitron]

By the way, the I7 has no advantage over the I5 for gaming.

Perhaps that's true, but having the i7 also is helpful for other things such as 3d-modeling. Given the relatively slight difference in cost between an i5 versus an i7, I'd opt for the bigger CPU which has a larger cache and other internals which make it a better processor.

John