Intel Pentium G620 and the Asus P8H61-M LE/CSM - Overkill?

[jgcooler]

Hi all...

I was wondering if anyone could tell me about this MOBO/CPU combination

Intel Pentium G620 and the Asus P8H61-M LE/CSM

I'm building a Micro ATX PC with a Silverstone Temjin Series TJ08B-E case. I won't me gaming (Photoshop, music, web browsing etc.) and don't plan on a separate GPU.

I'm looking at the Intel CPU because I've read this model does not consume lots of power. Correct me if I'm wrong.

I really would like something economical and power efficient. I'm looking for alternatives and reasons why this combo would work (or not).

Thanks for your advice ahead of time!

[faugusztin]

You can save few dollars by buying G530 instead (less chache, but still dualcore), but if performance is fine for you, then your choice is good. I use G530+asrock board as my htpc.

[CA_Steve]

That particular mobo has a 20% return/fail rate at Newegg.

Pentium G620: Good for what you want to do, if Photoshop is a casual app for you. If you use it a lot on a daily basis, then consider moving up to an i3 or an i5. i3-2100 is ~ 35% faster, i5-2400 is about 2x fast for this app. They'll all use about the same power when idling, web browsing, playing music.

[kuzzia]

I always prefer ASUS motherboards which have ASUS FanXpert. It's a great windows-based app to control both case fans and PWM fans. So if you plan on using the fan control of the main board, then by all means, go for the ASUS.

Just check if it has FanXpert. Otherwise the combo looks quite good.

[jgcooler]

Thanks for the replies! I'm kind of new to all of this....

Yes, I've read on Newegg that this board has has some trouble. Any suggestions for another make?

And yeah, I've read their Bios configuration / Fan control is very good. I'm not sure why this model has gotten so many bad reviews?

I guess I could splurge on the i3 2100. I was trying to keep the costs down as much as possible and not be disappointed in performance.

Appreciate the help everyone!

[CA_Steve]

Yes, I've read on Newegg that this board has has some trouble. Any suggestions for another make?

And yeah, I've read their Bios configuration / Fan control is very good. I'm not sure why this model has gotten so many bad reviews?

I like Asus...it just looks like they didn't do a great job on this one particular model...wander newegg, take a look at the other models. I'm sure there's one that has the features you want/price you like/better feedback.

I guess I could splurge on the i3 2100. I was trying to keep the costs down as much as possible and not be disappointed in performance.

Here's another way to look at it - how much faster is the G620, i3-2100, etc than your current solution when running Photoshop? How much faster does it need to be so it meets your needs?
Take a look at the Anandtech Bench and compare your current setup vs what you'd like to build. See if the $70 cpu makes the grade or if you need to spend $100 or $120 or whatever.