Model name: CORE i3 530
Manufactured by: Intel
Specifications: 2.93GHZ
4MB Cache
LGA1156
Usual price about $140
Intel Core i3 530 $101 + Shipping (Varies)
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You've got the wrong model in the title. Its the 530 not the 550.
Wow thats a good price, pity that these i series sockets are reportedly going to die soon being replaced by socket 1155 (!!!). Will be staying on my s775 system for a while
AMD! We want AMD! Long live the AM3 socket for hex core support!
Perfect for an ITX HTPC box.
Good price.great… i just bought this on friday for my HTPC setup, since i couldn't wait for pricesengine any longer. thank god it's not the i3 550, but rather the i3 530, otherwise i would be kicking myself right now.
Sorry to break your heart but I think this Price Engine deal is actually for i3 530 and not i3 550. I think there's been a typo in the title. Please don't kick yourself too hard mate…LOL
I don't think you checked your post very thoroughly cyberhk :D
still a bargain,but the title got the wrong model,that has $20 difference?
Nice bargain, thanks!
sorry…it is the 530. my bad
still 40 bux cheaper than msy….
with the shipping fees on top, it's a little cheaper, not a huge bargain
These are great CPU's, I have one powering my HTPC, and it runs nice and only chews about 50w running with an ASUS H55 motherboard.
My Phenom X6 idles at around 70w (at the wall socket) with a discrete video card. Modern CPUs are surprisingly quite efficient at idling these days. Makes it hardly worthwhile spending extra cash on specialized low power gear.
I think the main point of getting a low power dual core CPU for a HTPC is the low heat emission and consequently less fan noise, which is important for any HTPC build.
Your Phenom x6 CPU would idle at temps higher than a Core i3.
The stock Core i3 cooler is pretty crap so with either solution you'd still have to get a third party fan anyway for super quiet operation.
My point is more that the additional power required idling for a top-notch CPU is fairly small so it doesn't necessarily completely rule them out for HTPC use. They do use like 150w under maximum load vs 70w on a Core i3 but that really only occurs when encoding (which would take half the time to complete anyway).
For my personal HTPC which does a lot of encode conversions for iPad use, an X6 is a practical option and the cost of additional power is quite minimal still.
ION platforms especially looks like a waste of money. Its pretty expensive for something that is overall very slow/inflexible and all you save is about 30w of idle power.
@Thrawn: ION machines run at 20w, and can run 1080P Blu-rays no issue. X6 is overkill for HTPC. Even if you encoding alot, just schedule it for night time when power is cheap and your asleep. X6 would make more sense putting into a WHS maybe.
idling and running is different.
Minnie, if you're looking, could you pop back over to the Acer monitor thread and just have a quick look at my question. Thanks ;)
You guys should do an upgrade bundle.
cpu/mobo/ram for instance.This is silly putting a pc together piece by piece, without knowing whats coming next.
hard drive / monitor / gfx card people might spring for.
But core components, need to match/paired.
They are useless on their own.edit: also avoids 3 separate shipping fees
That would be a good idea if it was implemented. Say an upgrade bundle released every Friday fortnight. At least that way the deal would last over the entire weekend, until everything is gone.
Would be better if you choose the parts individual as well (say only cpu, mobo or ram, or a combination of them). Would help with packaging and reduce overall cost in shipping, since at present they are packaged in a box that can easily fit a few more items.The idea wasn't a bad idea, I can pass this to our product manager see what we can do.
Thanks for your comment.
The only problem with weekend promo, is people get impatient, and go out and buy stuff so they build pc over weekend.
But if the price is killer =)
True, as I pretty much built my PC over the weekend but with parts sourced over the place, including pricesengine. At least you will be able to get a combination of stuff that work well together and if you're lucky also available in stock and ordered online, unlike some places where things are constantly out of stock, while waiting in line in the first place.
That's an awesome idea. Good for next year since my brother might be buying a new computer
jeez you're a crank
these things go on sale at noon every weekday. they are usually a decent to fabulous deal as they almost always make the main page.
so there's none left when you come online - boo hoo - if you want the sweet deals like this to have to get them when they're available
Awww how sad 10 hours after this deal was posted it sells out and u whinge cause u miss out and neg it
U toolBTW just checked and it hasn't sold out
here is the same whinger on every priceengines post haha
How about a special on 4GB DDR2 RAM sticks? I'm not jumping on the iSeries yet, till my Q6600 @ 3.33GHz PC is feeling slow. So a Ram upgrade and SSD HD disk are my next upgrades. 2TB Western Digital HDs for $130 would be nice as well.
haha thats exactly part of their problem, says sold out one minute, yet others get them randomly…(apparently)
so which is it?
I'm voting from my experience…not everyone else's
I wish ram and mobo came with it. :(
awesome price.