Intel Core i3-10100, 4 Cores & 8 Threads Desktop Processor with Intel UHD Graphics 630

DISCLAIMER: This review covers 3 main items (CPU, MOBO, RAM). Links to the other parts are included (all available at Amazon for good prices). You'll read this review on each of the other parts as well.WHY DID I BUY IT? I recently built and absolute beast of a computer and kept my older one as a backup. Unfortunately, it decided to take a dive this past week with the motherboard failing catastropically. Given that it was 10 years old, I decided to replace the "brains" with something a little more modern, but not overkill. Because I had spent a LOT of money on a computer recently, I was trying to keep the repair under about $400 and here's what I did...The BRAINS...Intel i3-10100 Processor ($100): www.amazon.com/gp/product/B086MMRW87MSI Mag B460 Motherboard ($110): www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08GXVP1DMTeamGroup 16GB DDR4 ($60): www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07WNQVBZ6*** These are the main parts that MUST be compatible.. and they are ***I was worried about my hard drive, so I went ahead and splurged on a TeamGroup 1TB SSD ($75 -- www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07PX2KKHM) bringing my total to just under $400. I could have kept my old Seagate 500gb 5400 RPM drive but I had a little extra to spend and that greatly sped up boot and wait times.For what it's worth, I also kept my existing Antec Power Supply (550W) that was replaced about a year ago, my case, and my now very old graphics card (R9 380 - 4gb). I already had a good monitor, mouse, and keyboard so those carried over as well.So how did it go together? Pretty seamlessly with just 2 little hiccups.HICCUP #1RAM: I did not realize the motherboard I purchased has a standard RAM speed of 2666. It can get up to a max of 2933. So the RAM I purchased (3200 speed, CL 16) is overkill and I could have saved another $20 or so. But, I didn't... and it's my first build with TeamGroup RAM and I'm happy with it.HICCUP #2LAN/AUDIO: Once I got everything installed, the LAN would not connect to my network (wired, ethernet connection). A little troubleshooting found out YOU MUST TO UPGRADE THE LAN DRIVER for it to work. This means having another computer with internet and a flash drive. Likewise, I went ahead and updated the Audio driver and the sound was much crisper. So... take a moment and download all of the drivers in advance from the MSI website.FIRST POWER ON: The computer started up, then turned off immediately. It then restarted on it's own and said the motherboard had detected changes so I needed to configure the BIOS. Entering BIOS found that everything was recognized. So I changed the first boot device to USB flash drive and plugged in my Windows 10 install flash drive and restarted.Bottom Line: The Intel i3-10100 is a great little chip (not overclockable). The MSI 460 Torpedo is a decent motherboard (just update the LAN and Audio drivers) that boots quickly. In fact, it boots so quickly, I don't even see the POST screen. From cold to Windows is easily under 30 seconds.The RAM is stable at 2666 and fast enough that I probably won't even push the 2933 setting. The SSD is very fast (functionally almost as fast as the M2 drive I have in my beast at a savings of $20-25). Even with the aging R9 graphics card, I'm easily hitting 60 FPS on modern titles at 1080 in medium to high settings. Sometime next year when graphics card prices drop to a reasonable level, I'll update that and have a second gaming rig ready.Overall, I'm very happy with this setup.

Built a computer for the relative as a very early Christmas gift or a reverse birthday gift (my birthday, but I give you gifts), who honestly would probably be doing very little with it to justify a 4 core/8 thread current generation processor if it's web browsing, video conferencing, YouTube for music and the general emailing stuff. I put an RX 580 in it as well as 2x8GB 2666 DDR4 RAM and 2 500GB HDDs.I would definitely say the thing itself is quite the "sleeper"! It's gonna run your games at console and above performance with a simpler GPU at lower settings, and it'll destroy on a much more advanced GPU. It's a good email/web/very light gaming/YouTube browser alone thanks to this particular CPU's integrated GPU, turning it into an APU (Accelerated Processing Unit). It's not a workstation processor due to its four core and eight thread composition. It can take in eight tasks and work on them, but it can only digest four at a time.If you're looking for a desktop PC and know how to or someone who does know how to build it, This is all you need and more.If you're into gaming on a console but want to try it on a computer and have a sub $1000 budget, get this and do some research before building, spend a few weeks on PC building knowledge. I recommend if buying this a B460 Motherboard, 2x8GB RAM sticks, a new HDD/SSD/M.2 PCIe SSD of at least 1TB/500GB/500GB, HDD is slow but cheap, lasts a good few years without fail and large in storage, SSD is fast and usually lasts long with less storage space (do not buy DRAM-less SSDs, lack of SSD RAM will damage the drive much faster), M.2 PCIe SSD is very fast but most expensive, no SATA cables needed but does disable one SATA port on most motherboards due to it sharing the same data lane.If you want a workstation, try either Intel's Core i7 or i9 Series, or AMD's Ryzen 7 or Ryzen 9 Series processors.

I bought this to go into a desktop as a gift to my parents. The processor has 4 cores and 8 threads, and is very fast. It should be enough processor for them for many years.The main reasons I decided to buy this over an AMD processor:* This processor comes with an iGPU and since it won't be used for gaming it is cheaper than a comparable 3300x + GPU combo.* I wanted to port their existing hard disk over to the new machine, and using this processor allowed me to buy a 16GB intel optane chip for $20. The intel optane chip was excellent for their needs. AMD's current caching product that does something similar is less user friendly. I'm glad I went with intel on this one.* I was able to buy this for $122 which is the MSRP, while I wasn't able to find any Ryzen 3100 or 3300x anywhere near their MSRPs as the supply has been low for quite some time.

So, this is basically an i7-7700, the specs are nearly identical. That's the beauty of Intel, this year's i3 is an i7 from a few years back. This has a couple tricks that the i7 doesn't, like UHD graphics instead of just HD and being able to overclock to a slightly higher frequency, but otherwise it's the same chip for a fraction of the price. I put this in a computer that I use mainly for surfing the web and watching videos, and it doesn't let me down. It's super responsive and the included graphics are a nice option if you don't want to mess with a graphics card. (great for keeping the system low power) I even tried some light gaming on this chip and it works nicely, though that's not the intended purpose of this system.Install was a breeze, I even found the stock cooler to be less of a pain to get into place than older Intel coolers that mounted the same way. So, I've had no complaints with this chip so far.