Switch to Intel?

[4evrplan]

I've heard Intel machines tend to run Dolphin much better than AMD. I may have an opportunity to do an even trade of my Athlon II x3 450 and motherboard for an i3-540 CPU and a GA-H55M-S2V motherboard. How much of a difference would this make - would it be worth it? Also, I've heard Win 7 is good at changing hardware without problems, is this true, or should I still reinstall?

[ExtremeDude2]

It will probably be faster, but not much :/, and you'd probably want to re-install windows anyway to be safe

[admin89]

i3 540 is faster than Phenom II x2 @ 3.5GHz
If you trade that i3 for free , i think you should go for it since the i3 is much better value for overclocking
Otherwise get Ivy Bridge Pentium G2120 + B75 mobo , it much faster than the outdated i3

[NaturalViolence]

If it's free it's worth it.

If it's going to cost you some money I would hold off on it if I were you. The very small increase in performance (without OCing) isn't going to be worth it.