Conclusion

Considered as a base unit, using it alongside a value-conscious motherboard, £100 graphics card and decent PSU will return change from £500...with an SSD thrown in for good measure.

Though the GPU in any system is gaining more credibility and exposure as applications begin to draw on its general-purpose compute ability, it can be successfully argued that the CPU remains a more important consideration. Why? The choice of processor dictates the motherboard, form factor and, to some extent, the choice of chassis.

Intel and AMD both offer decent processors at the sub-$200 (£130) price point. AMD's best Kaveri-based APU, the A10-7850K, is stronger with respect to integrated graphics and OpenCL performance, and throws in Battlefield 4 for free, while Intel's potent cores make it a much better bet for CPU-centric tasks.

We've also established that, as much as integrated graphics have progressed in recent years, discrete cards haven't stood still. Place a £110 GeForce GTX 750 Ti (or AMD equivalent) into a system and gaming performance skyrockets. Proper gaming requires a discrete card, period.

The Intel Core i5-4440 remains a good choice for a budget system. Considered as a base unit, using it alongside a value-conscious motherboard, £100 graphics card and decent PSU will return change from £500...with an SSD thrown in for good measure.

The Good

Excellent all-round performance
Low power consumption
Very good for CPU-centric tasks

The Bad

IGP weaker than AMD's

HEXUS.awards

Intel Core i5-4440

HEXUS.where2buy

The Intel Core i5-4440 processor is available to purchase from Scan Computers*

HEXUS.right2reply

At HEXUS, we invite the companies whose products we test to comment on our articles. If any company representatives for the products reviewed choose to respond, we'll publish their commentary here verbatim.

*UK-based HEXUS community members are eligible for free delivery and priority customer service through the SCAN.care@HEXUS forum.

Login with Forum Account

Don't have an account? Register today!

Doesn't matter how much better the IGP is, until they make getting a discrete card a choice rather than a necessity I will be going with the better CPU performance, and that means Intel, every time.

The main “problem” I see is that although IGPs are getting better, GPUs are killing them in the horsepower race, so much so that pairing a mid level CPU with a low to mid level GPU will give you more than satisfactory gaming capabilities for about the price of a decent CPU 5-7 years ago.

I remember paying about £300 for my core2duo back in the day, then another £300-500 (can't remember exactly) for an 8800, and after less than a year I couldn't run max settings.

Now I have a sub-200 quid quad core CPU that I got 3 years ago, and a pair of GTX 670s that are nearly 2 years old (admittedly nearly £700 for the pair…but SO worth it) and I still max out all settings at 1200p, and no doubt I will get at least another 2 years out of em - hell I reckon I'll need to up the resolution before needing more gruntmasters..

That's a plucky little i3 in there!

A friend is wanting a £500 gaming PC, is there much to beat that chip for around £100?

It seems even an intel Dual-Core coupled with a discrete GPU is better than sticking with the Kaveri part. Of course it's always ideal for a gamer to have a discrete GPU rather than sticking with integrated graphics.

I'm not bashing on AMD, in fact, I'd like to own a Kaveri system right now. The iGPU is already sufficient to play games on low@1080p. Well it's better than what I have now since I sold my GTX 660 a week ago.

I'm currently using intel HD 2000 graphics from my Core i3-2100 part right now and the only games I can play on it are Source(Valve) games at various settings and some more intensive games on a window @800x600 resolution (wth right?). On Dota 2 I currently have it all on the lowest graphics settings @720p. However, on older games like TF2 and Half-Life 2, I can max it out a bit but without AA and AF @1600x900.

Don't underestimate this rig, I finished Crysis in this with less than 15FPS haha.

Rob_B
That's a plucky little i3 in there!

A friend is wanting a £500 gaming PC, is there much to beat that chip for around £100?

Actually that's not really a bad choice, since it's better than the AMD quad core part in compute performance. But if he can, he should push it a bit to the i5 level. There's a ~5 frame discrepancy with dual cores and quad cores, depending on the game of course.

As for the GPU, you might be better of with a R9 270X, gives a better overall performance than the 7870 and GTX 660 Ti. Don't forget that Mantle goes with that, but at a later date probably.

*pats i3 on the back, pick of the bunch*

Butuz