Best CPU For Gaming 2012?

[Roomka]

Hey trying to get advice on building a gaming pc, Im stuck on which cpu to choose so if anyone can help me out its much appreciated

 

[cmdrdredd]

3570k

edit: If you think Hyperthreading will help you in other things somehow... 3770k

 

[Don Karnage]

3570k

 

[Roomka]

why is it that the i5 is better than the i7?

 

[n0x1ous]

why is it that the i5 is better than the i7?

The hyper threading ability of the i7 isn't often used much in games so the i5 gets the nod when talking about gaming because its $100 cheaper and pretty much just as fast for gaming.

If you needed more CPU power for video/photo editing/production then an i7 would be the right choice.

The hyper threading of the i7 generates a little more heat as well limiting potential over clock - of course the hyper threading can be disabled in the BIOS in essence making it a 3570k.

so if you only care about gaming get the i5 and save $100 bucks, but if you need more threads for video/photo work get the i7

EDIT: not sure why my post became post #1???

 

[greenhawk]

why is it that the i5 is better than the i7?

2/3 the price, 90%+ of the performance

in ruff numbers anyway.

 

[cmdrdredd]

Also the i7's hyper threading offers very little for a gamer. Most games don't use more than 2 cores anyway and the ones that use more don't scale better on HT CPUs. I've even seen some games lose performance with HT on.

 

[Don Karnage]

99% of games don't use HT

Thankfully i can post again. I got an error saying i had to wait 21,000 seconds till my next post

 

[Roomka]

i see, well what i really wasnt is for my goddanm starcraft II to work without lag lol, anyone played starcraft II here?

 

[cmdrdredd]

99% of games don't use HT

Thankfully i can post again. I got an error saying i had to wait 21,000 seconds till my next post

I got that too...but mine was 28074 or something lol.

OP for Starcraft 2 I think a 3570k overclocked a bit combined with a good GPU will be fine. You probably don't even need a $400 GPU either.

 

[Roomka]

lol yeah, i would want to play starcraft with the highest graphics settings and like on the 8 player maps with like 6 teams you know, for me the budget is under 4k, but then again i dont wanna pay

for something im never gonna use. like i dont think ill need the SLI if i purchase the GeForce GTX 690. probably want it water cooled and 32gb of ram or more if i will really make a difference.

basically i would want this pc to last me for the next 5 years with upcoming new edge games, i also do photoshop for work but nothing crazy on it.

 

[cmdrdredd]

You wouldn't even need 16GB of memory, and a GTX 690 is already using SLI. It's just on a single card. Totally overkill but if you can afford it...

 

[Roomka]

hmm didnt know that. what do you think of the gtx 690 tho? is it the #1 card on the market?

 

[cmdrdredd]

Well, yeah but you could get two GTX 670s and overclock them and beat a single 690 for less money.

 

[Roomka]

yeah i was thinking of that i saw a clip on youtube comparing the 7970 vs gtx sli 680 and the 690 they all looked almost the same and it makes it more confusing. but i think ill probably go with the 680 sli

 

[Yuriman]

yeah i was thinking of that i saw a clip on youtube comparing the 7970 vs gtx sli 680 and the 690 they all looked almost the same and it makes it more confusing. but i think ill probably go with the 680 sli

You can always throw money at it and get faster hardware, but at some point you realize that 600fps doesn't look any different than 300fps. Depends entirely on what games you play and what kind of screen you have, of course, but I'm super-comfortable running Guild Wars 2 and Diablo 3 on a 5 year old card on my 24" LCD. If I played BF3 it'd be another story.

 

[Roomka]

yeah like i said before i play starcraft and i play on the 8 player maps which have alot of detail and then you have like 300 units fighting with each other, and i wanna be able to play in the highest of highest detail settings. i rather spend an xtra 1k to have something that will hold games for the next 5 year or more

 

[OVerLoRDI]

2500k, 2550k, 3570k. Whichever is cheaper

 

[Roomka]

yeah im not trying to go the cheap route here, i dont only play games i use photoshop

 

[Yuriman]

If Starcraft is your only game, a GTX670 is already a lot more power than you need. Don't bother with SLI yet - you can add another card when you need.

 

[borisvodofsky]

If Starcraft is your only game, a GTX670 is already a lot more power than you need. Don't bother with SLI yet - you can add another card when you need.

Ooof, he's got a super tough choice now.

Starcraft 2 performance is hurt by hyper-threading. LOLOL.
The i5 iterations get higher fps, The difference is subtle, but there.

If one's are actually serious about SC2, definitly get 2500k or 3570k,



HOWEVER, he's also using photo-shop, which benefit from i7,

If one's serious about photo-shop, go with 2600k or 3770k


As for the difference between z68 and z77, THERE is no worthwhile difference. Both platforms will support pcie3.0 with an ivy-bridge CPU.

NO other feature differences between the two are worthwhile.


Decision 1 is, i5 or i7

Decision 2 is, Ivy or Sandy

Decision 3 is, Z68 or Z77


I really wouldn't go x79 at this point, unless you have serious cpu workloads, like if you're a scene encoder. :ninja:

^_^

 

[ShintaiDK]

3570k.

 

[IntelEnthusiast]

The Intel® Core™ i5-3570K with a Z77 board and start with a single GTX 670 and add another in the future for SLI. The reason you are going with the Intel Core i5-3570K is that you are picking up PCI-E 3.0 which offers double the bandwidth for PCI-E 2.0.

 

[Roomka]

what do you mean the hyper threading hurts the sc2?, i read articles where people just say you can disable that feature, tell you the truth i dont think ill need any of the bs like OC and hyper threading, if you have like 32gb of ram and 680 SLI with a i7 ivy-bridge i dont think youll be needing any of that. correct me if im wrong