Intel Core i3 2100

INTRODUCTION

Intel had a major setback with their Sandy Bridge launch due to the Cougar Town chipset defect. However, the issue of defective SATA III ports on Cougar Town chipset boards should not cause too many problems. Nonetheless, because of the chipset problem, the retail sales of the Sandy Bridge board were delayed and retailers halted sales of the processor. About a few weeks ago, replacement B3 stepping boards appeared on e-tail sites such as Newegg, and sales of the second-generation Core series processor have resumed. Those who have been waiting for an upgrade to the Sandy Bridge architecture can began buying the components once again.  

Sandy Bridge is probably one of the best processors that money can buy at the moment. It performs well, has low power consumption, and is well within acceptable pricing. We all know that the fastest Sandy Bridge, the Core i7 2600K, is lightning-fast and is almost able to compete against the powerhouse Core i7 980X in all but highly-threaded and extremely memory-intensive applications. But at a third the pricing of the Core i7 980X, it is hard to say no to such a powerful chip. However, not everyone needs the fastest processor, or willing to spend tons of money just to have the bragging rights. Even a budget dual-core can handle most basic tasks such as browsing the web, word processing, and maybe light gaming. The question then becomes how to stay on-budget while still picking the right processor and hardware components to suit the user's needs.

Intel designed the Sandy Bridge to replace the mainstream processors, so it is natural that the company has unleashed processors that range from the $100 all the way to $300. We have already reviewed the Core i7-2600K and the Core i5-2500K for the enthusiast and mainstream markets. Today, we are going to look at the other side of the spectrum--the $124 Core i3-2100, which is the cheapest Sandy Bridge processor available at the moment.