You are always better equipped with a faster CPU no matter the circumstances. For budget gaming PCs, or general computing needs, the Core i3-10100 works well enough. i had an 8th gen i3 8350k and played all the possible games at ultra and 4k. re: is intel i3 'good enough'? Software development IDE's would definitely see benefit from an i5, but it is not the most important thing to optimize for. It's the latest gen chip, good single core performance and hyper threaded so it's really not as underpowered as many seem to be suggesting. core i3 is a great processor and would be sufficient but if you are looking to buy a new computer a new intel processor will be coming out with in the next couple of weeks. For not a great deal more though, we do feel the … https://www.pcguide.com/tips/intel-core-i3-vs-i5-vs-i7-vs-i9 It would be good to buy the new one but if not the older models will have a significant price drop. So why nickle-and-dime on the price difference between i5 and i3? Core i3 is the best budget option and if you are a student it is pretty decent to give you enough power that could suffice basic requirements as a student. I would recommend the fx 6300 or even just go a lil higher and get the i5 4440. Mostly you're going to need a lot of memory (for multi-tasking a lot of applications at once) and screen real estate (if you're doing web dev especially). We did notice that 4GB Ram is really not enough at times. Users have always multiple spreadsheets, emails , browser tabs and MAS windows open. But still, depending on your use-cases i3 may be enough or not, for students that don’t require heavy tasks then i3 is enough even if you study programming i3 is good to go. I was sure I3 was going to be enough for right now, thanks for helping me see that it will be ok for longer term as well. of course, i got bottlenecked a little bit but i got 35+ fps in everything like assassins creed odyssey, resident evil 3, cs go ( 350 fps ), red dead redemption etc. the only one that actually put me in trouble was cyberpunk 2077. all the rest worked like a charm. You may not need it. Yeah i3's are good for gaming (you really don't need a complete beast pc to play decent games) CPU : i7 3770k@ 4.6Ghz@ 1.23v - GPU : Palit GTX 660ti - MOBO : Asrock Extreme 4 - RAM : Corsair vengeance 8GB 1600Mhz - PSU : OCZ 650watt - STORAGE : 128Gb corsair force GT SSD/ 1TB seagate barracuda 7200rpm Core i3 will be sufficient for people who want a PC that's faster than an Atom-powered tablet or laptop, but don't want to spend any more than they have to. I think a core i3 is enough if your doing gaming and dont plan on actually doing a whole bunch of compute stufff. But the price differential seems so minute, so why bother? If we pair with 8GB RAM we should be good for a while then. 2 weeks ago I purchased an I-5 processor (Passmark score over 6000) and motherboard combo for only $210 with rebates. Posted by LSULaw2009 on 1/4/19 at 9:44 am to jcole4lsu Pretty easy to drop in a m2 nvme drive and clone it over (hell Samsung even has software for that). An Intel Core i3 has enough power to run Windows 10 well, but you need an SSD rather than a hard drive for slick performance. Depending on your graphics card the i3 will probably be okay, but keep in mind that as more cpu intensive games come out the i3 will start to drag behind. yes. It's easy to overestimate how much power you will actually need/ use and the i3 offers plenty for the usage you've described. Thanks