i5 or i7 for my needs

[libra21]

Hi everyone. Hoping I can get an input for making the i5 or i7 processor decision. (from a newegg mobo/cpu combo)

My uses:
1) A TON of windows open for work at a time (data/search analyst, use 3 monitors). A number of diff browser, close to 20 tabs at times. With multiple word docs and excel files open. I also have music sometimes from youtube in the background. So definitely quantity here. But I don't do anything like video/audio editing, encoding, rendering which I'm told are the reason for an i7?

2) A PC Gamer Enthusiast.. wanna make sure I'm okay when the next gen titles come out for PC

Thanks all!!

 

[Shephard]

i5 and 16gb ram.

An i7 is useless for you.

 

[rituraj]

^ +1. I was in the same situation as you are and decided to go for i5. And in future if you occasionally do some editing, encoding stuff, i5 will still be fast enough. But if an i7 can do it in 50 seconds, i5 will take around 60. That's not life and death, after all it's just video editing. Save the money for games.

 

[moonbogg]

A PC gamer enthusiast? Next gen games? i7 my friend.

 

[toyota]

A PC gamer enthusiast? Next gen games? i7 my friend.

yeah funny how the first two people discounted that. i7 and 16gb for sure. 100 more bucks now for i7 over i5 is nothing in the long term.

 

[Shephard]

The 3570k or now 4670k in this case, is good enough for any game.

An i7 is not going to help him with #1 or #2. Even in 3 years I highly doubt that i7 will have been worth the money for him. The 4670k will still either be good enough or a better CPU will be out.

Most games don't take advantage of hyper threading and the 3570k is close in most benchmarks to the 3770k.

$100 not a good justification.

 

[toyota]

The 3570k or now 4670k in this case, is good enough for any game.

An i7 is not going to help him with #1 or #2. Even in 3 years I highly doubt that i7 will have been worth the money for him. The 4670k will still either be good enough or a better CPU will be out.

Most games don't take advantage of hyper threading and the 3570k is close in most benchmarks to the 3770k.

$100 not a good justification.

Crysis 3 cannot maintain 60 fps with only 4 cores on very high no matter how much gpu power you throw at it. my 2500k at 4.4 is at 90% or more even hitting 100% in spots of that game. most people keep cpus for 3-4 years so its very short sided to save 100 bucks now to go with i5 over i7.

 

[Shephard]

Crysis 3 cannot maintain 60 fps with only 4 cores on very high no matter how much gpu power you throw at it. my 2500k at 4.4 is at 90% or more even hitting 100% in spots of that game. most people keep cpus for 3-4 years so its very short sided to save 100 bucks now to go with i5 over i7.

Crysis 1 cannot maintain minimum 60 fps on a 3570k nor a 3770k, so I am not sure why you are making Crysis your argument here. The game is known for being CPU bound and not optimized so well.

The 2600k has a 2 fps maximum framerate increase over the the 2500k. That doesn't justify $100 in my opinion.

Games are slowly starting to take advantage of more cores, but not all respond well to hyper threading. When BF3 came out hyper threading caused massive stuttering and crashing on the game. It's fixed now, but the performance increase is not even good.

 

[ShintaiDK]

Crysis 1 cannot maintain 60 fps on a 3570k so I am not sure why you are making Crysis your argument here. The game is known for being CPU bound and not optimized so well.

The 2600k has a 3 fps minimum framerate increase over the the 2500k. That doesn't justify $100 in my opinion.

Games are slowly starting to take advantage of more cores, but not all respond well to hyper threading. When BF3 came out hyper threading caused massive stuttering and crashing on the game. It's fixed now, but the performance increase is not even good.

[imghttp://i.imgur.com/LQrnQ9x.jpg[/img]

Its an outdated benchmark tho. Quite large benefit with Crsysis patch 1.3 and up.

Personally I would still go i5.

 

[Shephard]

The OP doesn't mention a budget and only says 'mobo/cpu' combo. No word if he needs a graphics card or has any other parts.

If he just needed the cpu and mobo and could drive to microcenter, then okay I see reasoning to get the 3770k or 4770k. Cheap cpu combo there.

From Newegg though, nope.

If he needs other parts, it's better to spend that extra money on a better gpu, ram, or SSD.

 

[ShintaiDK]

There is no reason to get anything but Haswell if LGA11xx

 

[Shephard]

There is no reason to get anything but Haswell if LGA11xx

If you can find a really good deal on Ivy Bridge it's worth it. USA always has the good deals unlike Canada. :thumbsdown:

 

[BallaTheFeared]

Crysis 3 is misleading from a next gen perspective because the cpu demand comes from physics whereas the PS4 was already demonstrated featuring Havok running off the GPU, in fact it was one of the "features".

The scaling there is also pretty nuts, 35% for HT and 100MHz is pretty crazy.

 

[toyota]

Crysis 1 cannot maintain minimum 60 fps on a 3570k nor a 3770k, so I am not sure why you are making Crysis your argument here. The game is known for being CPU bound and not optimized so well.

The 2600k has a 2 fps maximum framerate increase over the the 2500k. That doesn't justify $100 in my opinion.

Games are slowly starting to take advantage of more cores, but not all respond well to hyper threading. When BF3 came out hyper threading caused massive stuttering and crashing on the game. It's fixed now, but the performance increase is not even good.

http://imageshack.us/a/img825/8585/0nikcab.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/LQrnQ9x.jpg

that is NOT true. i can lower the res and stay WAY above 60 in Crysis 1. Crysis 1 only effectively used 2 cores anyway so what you are trying to counter with is silly and outdated. Crysis 3 on the other hand will eat all 4 of my 2500k at 4.4 cores for lunch in some spots. http://maldotex.blogspot.nl/2013/02/hyperthreading-and-real-custom-graphics.html


AGAIN 100 bucks more is NOTHING for a cpu that you will keep for 3 to 4 years.

 

[CakeMonster]

Those $100 is still better spent elsewhere, and its definitely not "nothing" since they can be used in another upgrade later on when you might actually have use for more (real) cores.

 

[toyota]

Those $100 is still better spent elsewhere, and its definitely not "nothing" since they can be used in another upgrade later on when you might actually have use for more (real) cores.

it is basically nothing over the period of 3 years compared to the whole cost of a pc. especially if there is benefit and even right now there is some benefit and that will only grow. but hey go ahead and suggest the short sided view. I will not because I have already experienced my cpu being fully maxed out right now. no way in hell I would get another 4 core cpu if buying right now and wanting it to last 3 years or more.

 

[lehtv]

AGAIN 100 bucks more is NOTHING for a cpu that you will keep for 3 to 4 years.

Why would you do that though? Intel releases a new generation every year, so the $100 you save by getting an i5 could be used to upgrade to a two generations better i5 in two years, rather than holding on to a lower performance per core i7 for 3-4 generations.

 

[toyota]

Why would you do that though? Intel releases a new generation every year, so the $100 you save by getting an i5 could be used to upgrade to a two generations better i5 in two years, rather than holding on to a lower performance per core i7 for 3-4 generations.

AGAIN most people do NOT upgrade their cpus but every 3 or 4 years. we are getting small jumps with each new cpu so its not really an issue. a typical oced 2600k will give you basically the same gaming performance of an typical oced 3770k or 4770k so why on earth go through the hassle of getting a new cpu and even new cpu and mobo for almost nothing? if getting a new cpu right now though then of course the 4770k is the better overall 3-4 year choice than the 4670k.

hell 3 years ago we were debating dual cores and 1 to 2 years ago we were saying a dual core with HT is more than plenty for high end gaming for next few years. its a MOVING target and we are at the point where having more than 4 cores makes sense going forward for a higher end gaming pc.

if you dont have the money then fine go 4670k but if you do and you are asking then of course a 4770k is the better choice.

 

[lehtv]

How do you know the progression from Sandy to Ivy to Haswell is indicative of future generational improvements? The recent generations have been unusually small improvements in performance per clock, unlike earlier generations. Who knows, there could be a change to the opposite with the next generation or the generation after that. Remember that Sandy was a pretty big upgrade over Lynnfield which was a big upgrade over C2Q. Those generational jumps in performance per clock were at least three times as big as the last two generational jumps combined

we are at the point where having more than 4 cores makes sense going forward for a higher end gaming pc.

So why aren't you suggesting an FX-8320 over an i5 then? i7 is still 4 cores

 

[toyota]

How do you know the progression from Sandy to Ivy to Haswell is indicative of future generational improvements? The recent generations have been unusually small improvements in performance per clock, unlike earlier generations. Who knows, there could be a change to the opposite with the next generation or the generation after that. Remember that Sandy was a pretty big upgrade over Lynnfield which was a big upgrade over C2Q. Those generational jumps in performance per clock were at least three times as big as the last two generational jumps combined

So why aren't you suggesting an FX-8320 over an i5 then? i7 is still 4 cores

and what part of keeping the cpu for 3 years are you not understanding?

the 8320 is too slow clock for clock in some current games so why start off already gimped. a 4770k will give the benefits of BOTH good IPC and handle games needing more than 4 threads.

 

[BrightCandle]

Your first requirement isn't really very special, you can likely get away with an i3 and 8GB of RAM, maybe less. Even a lot of windows don't really take up much RAM, its normally big programs with big data that do that more, 20 tabs for example at most is going to be 2GB. Maybe you need 16GB of RAM, you are best placed to tell us that because you can open up task manager on your existing machine and see how much RAM you are using.

But requirement 2 is the heavier one. For that you ideally want at least a high end i5. Comparing an i7 2600k verses an i5 2500k we see the i7 being about 5% ahead on average. At best its 22% ahead and 25% of games are 7% faster or more. Source data as a summary of gameGPU.ru benchmarks: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3638175/GameGPU CPU performance.ods

Whether an i7 is worth it to you very much depends how much you want that 5%-28% performance benefit. What we likely know about future games is that they will be more multithreaded than todays games. A lot of games are written using the Crytek engine which in its last incarnation uses 12 threads quite well. Next gen console games will target 8 threads or they will be lacking CPU power. So I think the i7 is the better call, but I also can't predict the future.

 

[CakeMonster]

Whether an i7 is worth it to you very much depends how much you want that 5%-28% performance benefit. What we likely know about future games is that they will be more multithreaded than todays games. A lot of games are written using the Crytek engine which in its last incarnation uses 12 threads quite well. Next gen console games will target 8 threads or they will be lacking CPU power. So I think the i7 is the better call, but I also can't predict the future.

I strongly disagree with this. The cores in the upcoming consoles are extremely weak compared to Haswell cores, and 1-3 of them will be tied up for OS/media purposes anyway. The assumption that the weak cores of those consoles will give an i5 any problems whatsoever with games is a wild guess, at best. Don't get me wrong, I'd like more cores/threads too, but the price/perf is not a good argument today and the short term future is anything but clear.

 

[ShintaiDK]

Not to mention cores that are dedicated to OS and other functions that the games wont use. If I recall right, "only" 6 cores will be avaliable for the games.

 

[2is]

Why would you do that though? Intel releases a new generation every year, so the $100 you save by getting an i5 could be used to upgrade to a two generations better i5 in two years, rather than holding on to a lower performance per core i7 for 3-4 generations.

I'd rather spend $100 now and save $500 later than save $100 and spend $500 later.

 

[frozentundra123456]

I'd rather spend $100 now and save $500 later than save $100 and spend $500 later.

Granted it is impossible to say what future performance needs will be, but I am not sure that hyper threading will make the difference between upgrading and not. How much difference does hyperthreading really make, 20 or 30 percent max?