Intel Core i3-550 Processor 3.2GHz LGA 1156 73W Dual-Core Desktop

Comment:
Dual CoreIntel none Great CPU for my new HTPC, far quicker than my prior Core two Duo.

Comment:
Built my 1st pc and wanted intel but looking for a good price. This laptop or computer is significantly faster than the old 1. The HD graphics are terrific. Saved me from getting an additional graphics card. Working with a 42" Television as a screen and can stream netflix HD with no issues. none but Paired with Intel H55 HDMI Micro ATX Intel Motherboard w/ Kingston 4GB ƒ x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM

Comment:
Awesome processing energy! Straightforward Installation, minimal pressure applied for heat sink mounting (no flat head screw drivers required). Runs cool under normal use even with out thermal paste (since none was supplied). Would be perfect for overclocking, however I have not had a will need to do this however. For not much additional income I could have gotten an i5 with Turbo capabilities.

Comment:
I use the onboard graphics (Intel i3) and am impressed with the results on World of Warcraft. If you wanna waste years of your life spec'n everything out then there are plenty of forums and people to argue with you. Running Windows 7 without a hitch. Watch, the new i7's will be good for writing the odd email and word processing on the forums in two years.

Comment:
Great value for htpc! Fast enough for full hd (1080p) divx and other formats. The fan is a little bit noisy but you can slow it down using some software and make it almost unnoticeable.

Comment:
in a few days, sandy bridge and a new socket 1155 will be officially announced, and this i3 along with 1156 socket will obsolete, but this does not bother me, it provides good value on my build of vmware home lab, paid $160 AR with a bundle of MSI motherboard.installation was easy, tool less for heatsink and fan.

Comment:
This is my first i-series CPU. I have an E7500 in another system. This i3 is outperforming the E7500 by a whopping 75%. This is a great multitasker. Hyperthreading makes it appear like a quad-core processor to the OS. The on-chip graphics processor is adequate for HTPC but forget about gaming.

Comment:
I bought this as a part of bundle deal for my budget upgrade.So far it's very good. I don't do much gaming. But i do run dual monitors.My P4 3.0GHz with 2G of ram I had before was twitchy when running a HD movie on one monitor and web browser on the other. Limitation of a single core i guess. So far with this new setup I did not run into that problem.It does come with a tiny heatsink. It works because this cpu is very efficient and produces very little heat. However, doesn't give you much room for overclocking at stock setup. I plan to put in a beefier Heatsink and OC it later if I need to. For the price this packs a huge punch. This review was modfied by poster @ 11-15-10 03:20 PM