Haswell i3 vs. Ivy Bridge i5 vs. Haswell i5

[cooper69]

Building a PC for a friend that uses the computer mostly for light gaming (e.g. League of Legends, Overwatch, and other eSports titles). Will be paired with an R7 270 for sub-1080p gaming - I think 1680x1050 resolution.

From my understanding:

Haswell i3 has higher clockspeeds/IPC vs. the IB i5 - AKA higher single threaded performance
Ivy Bridge i5 has 4 real cores vs. the Haswell i3 - AKA better multi-threaded performance

Haswell i5 has 4 real cores, but lower clockspeeds - AKA better single/multi-threaded IPC, but lower clockspeed, but newer architecture??

Which one would be more beneficial in this case?

 

[evident]

newer architecture always better, get the haswell i5, but any of those processors will be fine for what you're doing.

 

[cooper69]

newer architecture always better, get the haswell i5, but any of those processors will be fine for what you're doing.

Even at 3.2 GHz? vs. the 3.7 GHz HW i3 and 3.5 GHz IB i5

 

[TheELF]

Get a skylake i3-6100 with good ddr4 ram if it's not too expensive were you are,it's faster and the platform will last longer.
With the r7-270 you could even get a pentium you wouldn't see much difference if any at all.
If your friend can wait a few weeks then wait for kabylake release in jan and see if they release some new i3 right away.

 

[cooper69]

Get a skylake i3-6100 with good ddr4 ram if it's not too expensive were you are,it's faster and the platform will last longer.
With the r7-270 you could even get a pentium you wouldn't see much difference if any at all.
If your friend can wait a few weeks then wait for kabylake release in jan and see if they release some new i3 right away.

i'm asking for these 3 specific CPUs because I already have them in my possession, buying everything brand new isn't optimal for his build

 

[MajinCry]

Just posted this on another thread, but it's about as relevant as it gets.

If it's only another £20 tops for the Haswell, might as well get that for the emulator prowess. Otherwise, don't bother spending more.

 

[Denithor]

http://www.techspot.com/review/1180-overwatch-benchmarks/page5.html

Looking specifically at Overwatch, more cores seems to help more than higher clockspeed.

Haswell had at most 5% higher IPC than Ivy, making the 3.2GHz about equal to an Ivy 3.35GHz.

The Ivy quad is therefore probably the best chip for his needs.

 

[TheELF]

http://www.techspot.com/review/1180-overwatch-benchmarks/page5.html

Looking specifically at Overwatch, more cores seems to help more than higher clockspeed.

Haswell had at most 5% higher IPC than Ivy, making the 3.2GHz about equal to an Ivy 3.35GHz.

The Ivy quad is therefore probably the best chip for his needs.

With two maxed out teams of AI bots, Overwatch is quite CPU intensive. That said, while the Core i7 processors were considerably faster than the Core i3 and FX-series processors, it's important to keep in mind that we are testing at 1080p using a GTX 1080. Therefore, while the Core i3-6100 looks slow in comparison it still maintained over 70fps at all times and the same is true for the FX-series. Those with 120Hz or 144Hz monitors will want to ensure that they have a Core i5 or better.

Folks using a low-end CPU such as a Pentium or AMD APU will be sacrificing quite a bit of performance in Overwatch, though if they are running a GTX 960/R9 380 or slower (which they should be) then this CPU limitation isn't really a big deal.

 

[frozentundra123456]

I voted for the Haswell i5. However, not so sure now, as I just looked it up and those clockspeeds listed by the OP are actually max single core turbo for the i5's. The haswell only has a base clock of 3.0 and the IB 3.1, so they *are* giving up quite a bit of clockspeed. For these particular games, I think it is a toss up, and any of them will be more than adequate. However, for overall use, I still think one of the i5's would still be the better choice. FWIW, I have a 3.0 ghz Sandy Bridge i5, and it is still quite adequate for older or less demanding games, which these are (less demanding that is).

 

[cbn]

Core i5 4430 (3.0/3.2) would be a bit faster than the Core i5 3450 (3.1/3.5).

However, if you have a Z board that Core i5 3450 is potentially faster than the Core i5 4430 due to the ability of locked Ivy Bridge processors to OC 4 speed bins (ie, 400 Mhz).

 

[cbn]

FWIW, I have a 3.0 ghz Sandy Bridge i5, and it is still quite adequate for older or less demanding games, which these are (less demanding that is).

New games where your processor was not adequate?

 

[MajinCry]

New games where your processor was not adequate?

He might not be hitting a constant 75fps. But honestly, if it's below 30, sure the games are hobbled by the proccy. Only game I can think that could possibly drop a post Nehalem i5 to below 30fps, would be the siege warfare in Elder Scrolls Online. But that hobbles even the latest 'n' greatest.

 

[Denithor]

Any of the three will likely work fine. I'm just pointing toward longevity, a true quad will still be pushing games properly several years down the road while duals (even with HT) are rapidly becoming inadequate.

Beyond this, yeah, if you have a Z chipset board for the Ivy CPU, you can set it to run 400 MHz faster than base speed, so 3.5GHz on all four cores in this case. Making it the easy choice for this situation.

 

[frozentundra123456]

New games where your processor was not adequate?

None really, I only say that because I havent played any of the recent most demanding games. The most demanding games I have played are Witcher 3 and Dragon Age Inquisition, but I only have a HD7770 so I am gpu limited in any case.

 

[cbn]

FWIW, I have a 3.0 ghz Sandy Bridge i5, and it is still quite adequate for older or less demanding games, which these are (less demanding that is).

New games where your processor was not adequate?

None really, I only say that because I havent played any of the recent most demanding games. The most demanding games I have played are Witcher 3 and Dragon Age Inquisition, but I only have a HD7770 so I am gpu limited in any case.

Looks like i5 2500 is still doing fairly well in Watch Dogs 2 (a game that scales out to a lot of threads):

http://gamegpu.com/action-/-fps-/-tps/watch-dogs-2-test-gpu

P.S. What RAM speed is your processor running? DDR3 1333 or something faster?