Intel Core i3-2100 Dual-Core Processor 3.1 GHz 3 MB Cache LGA 1155 - BX80623I32100

I recently had the pleasure of setting up a system based on this *wonderful* CPU for a client. Now, I'd been building cheap but powerful gaming boxes for a long time, and my CPU weapon of choice had always been an AMD Athlon II X4 640 (or in really budget cases, the Athlon II X3). However, after reading about this chip and looking at benchmarks, I figured I'd cut my profit margins a bit and give it a shot in my most recent client's build. Wow. Just...wow!This chip, despite being a 2C/4T chip (instead of 4C/4T like the Athlon II X4), was able to hold its own against the X4's (in low thread count applications, like most games, it beats the X4 by a healthy margin; in higher threaded apps, the picture becomes a little less clear-cut).Anyway, the machine this chip went into was paired with an AMD Radeon 6790 and an ASRock H61M-VS, and I'm just absolutely blown away. The stock cooler is TINY and nearly SILENT, yet since the chip only draws 65W (that's WITH the iGPU -- without it, I'm sure it's more like 50W), it works beautifully and there's no need to find an aftermarket cooler. WEI score is 7.3 for the CPU, and games run fantastically (you're not going to be CPU limited in anything I tried including: FEAR, CoD MW3, BF3, Mass Effect 2, Crysis)!Now, some things I don't like, but won't take points off of:- No way to overclock (SNB's clock generator is integrated, so BCLK is locked and I understand that, but the older i3's were known for their OC'ing wonder, so I still miss the feature)- Platform costs are slightly higher than comparable AMD solutions. The lowest price mATX board with one PCI-E slot is equivalent in price to a crossfire-capable, regular sized AM3 board.But yeah, GREAT chip if you're on a budget. For a general purpose PC, this is perfect (even overkill). For a gaming PC on a budget, this works fantastically. Also, if you pair this with a reasonably high end P67/Z68 board, you'll have an upgrade path to an i5 2500K/i7 2600K (and even Ivy Bridge), as well as multi-GPU goodness.Very pleased. Will use it again when I can!

It was the wrong CPU and did not work with what it said it would

I was trying to decide between a AMD Fx 4100 processor or this the Intel i3 2100 processor. After doing some research , I have to say the i3 2100 is superior to AMD's fx 4100 quad core processor in most games right now. Most games only use dual core. I installed this and tested it. The fan that came with it was faulty. Luckily I had a spare CPU cooler. This thing is fast and for the price you get great performance. I noticed since upgrading to this processor my computer responds faster.It reaches 45 degrees max. I would recommend an after market CPU cooler if you want lower temperature. I been waiting to buy a new CPU, but wanted to wait till I could afford to buy one and this one exceeds my expectations.

This is a dual core processor clocked at 3.1GHz, Bought this for a HTPC build, was combined with 4GB of DDR3, a Biostar H61MH motherboard, 1TB HDD and an IOGear wireless keyboard. The computer is really fast and works great as a HTPC, its plugged into our 42" LCD using the HDMI port at 1080p. The video looks great even though the motherboard doesn't have a dedicated video card/chip. I've even played movies on XBMC while ripping a video at the same time, without any problems. All our videos (mkv and avi) look great, so does Hulu desktop. I haven't run any benchmarks but I do know that it rips videos about 50% faster than my Core2Duo Macbook pro.The processor was well packaged and easy to install. With only a 65W power consumption, it seems to run cool all of the time, only heard the fan speed up while installing the OS. The fan that came with the processor seems more than enough and quiet, though I did use Artic Silver 5 thermal compound with my build. The other thing I really like is how you don't need an additional graphics card, keeps the cost lower and also reduces power consumption indirectly. Note: this can't be over-clocked.All in all, a great CPU, highly recommended. Will probably install Ubuntu 11.04 soon, will update the review then, especially if there are any problems.

After ending up somewhere in between the sweetspot of $99 I often see this advertised at and the mid 100s at the top, I figured that I'd snagged a good deal. For my purposes, I had--a Windows Home Server with enough cores and thread on the CPU and ample memory to handle transcoding and a multitask load.This is indeed a great light load computing bargain, but the stock cooler has left me with an unpleasant legacy: the standoffs that connect it to the motherboard are now permanently stuck two places. believe me, we've tried. If that fan ever dies, there is no way to get it out without flexing the mobo to the breaking point, and of course no way to get at or cool this processor. The fan is pretty quiet, really, and has run and cooled well enough, but it's easily the noisiest part on my build.Grab it at it's lowest price point and put the saved cashmo into a 3rd party cooling fan.