Hardware & Technical Question about newer Intel CPUs.

I'm currently planning out a new PC build early in the year for gaming and I was wondering will the i5-5000 or i5-6000 series be comprable to the i7-3770k in terms of power for video games. I ask because I notice that Elite Dangerous Horizons, Witcher 3, Fallout 4 and some other games want i7-3770k or i7-4790 for a processor on recommended specs. I don't know how those match up to the newer i5s in terms of performance and if I still could get good performance out of them with an i5 5k or 6k series since I want to try and save some money if they're good enough.
 
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If you can find a way to stretch to an i7 then do so. It is superior, especially for gaming.

Shop around, prices are getting better.

If you're really short of cash, you might want to go for an i5 in the short term, upgrading to an i7 later.

If you're looking at a ready built system then do try to get an i7.

This is a brief comparison:

i5 i7.jpg

Taken from here: http://www.diffen.com/difference/i5_vs_i7

There are numerous sites which will give you an essentially similar story.

The i5 is an excellent CPU. Not a cut down compromise. It gives first call results.

The i7 is just better.
 
In short: it is complicated.

The longer answer would be, you'd have to look at reviews on games/CPUs/GPUs and find out what influences each individual game's performance, to see if there is any advantage in picking a particular CPU or other. In my opinion, that is over-complicating matters. Don't forget other factors will influence performance, in different ways, that may or may not translate into a tangible benefit. For example, if CPU1 gives you 2% more performance than CPU2, does it really matter? That is the sort of difference you might see in realistic situations. Bigger differences might be seen in less useful scenarios e.g. running very low resolution/settings.

My opinion, get a high-ish end CPU and you're not going to be suffering. A higher spec GPU would make much more of a difference in most situations anyway. That is, if you have to start sacrificing the GPU to get a faster CPU, that would likely be the wrong way to go. Putting together a new system in the near future, I'd suggest the Skylake i5-6600k and it is a trivial overclock to 4 GHz+ with some good cooling. Get some faster than standard DDR4 helps too, but don't have to go extreme. I'd suggest G.Skill Ripjaws V since there can be compatibility problems with older kits at higher speeds - been there, done that! Not fun. Broadwell (5000 series) was interesting in reviews as its unusual large L4 cache seemed to help, but it never really took off coming in very late after Haswell (4000 series) and not long before Skylake (6000 series). Haswell is a tried and tested option but I personally don't see a compelling reason to pick this now two generations old processor over Skylake, unless you can find really good pricing. Haswell-E (5800+ series) is still interesting but it is definitely not a budget option.
 
In short: it is complicated.

The longer answer would be, you'd have to look at reviews on games/CPUs/GPUs and find out what influences each individual game's performance, to see if there is any advantage in picking a particular CPU or other. In my opinion, that is over-complicating matters. Don't forget other factors will influence performance, in different ways, that may or may not translate into a tangible benefit. For example, if CPU1 gives you 2% more performance than CPU2, does it really matter? That is the sort of difference you might see in realistic situations. Bigger differences might be seen in less useful scenarios e.g. running very low resolution/settings.

My opinion, get a high-ish end CPU and you're not going to be suffering. A higher spec GPU would make much more of a difference in most situations anyway. That is, if you have to start sacrificing the GPU to get a faster CPU, that would likely be the wrong way to go. Putting together a new system in the near future, I'd suggest the Skylake i5-6600k and it is a trivial overclock to 4 GHz+ with some good cooling. Get some faster than standard DDR4 helps too, but don't have to go extreme. I'd suggest G.Skill Ripjaws V since there can be compatibility problems with older kits at higher speeds - been there, done that! Not fun. Broadwell (5000 series) was interesting in reviews as its unusual large L4 cache seemed to help, but it never really took off coming in very late after Haswell (4000 series) and not long before Skylake (6000 series). Haswell is a tried and tested option but I personally don't see a compelling reason to pick this now two generations old processor over Skylake, unless you can find really good pricing. Haswell-E (5800+ series) is still interesting but it is definitely not a budget option.

Thanks for the advice. I'm gonna be buying through ibuypower so I'm probably gonna go with the i7-6700 or i7-6700k in the end once I save the money up. I'm picking the case and PSU around putting a 980 TI in there eventually so I'm probably gonna go with a 970 as a hold over untill then. I might go with the i5-6600k though if the i7 of the Skylake models fits the same socket though.
 
Sounds not dissimilar to my main box :) i7-6700k + 980Ti. I do have a secondary i5-6600k system too. They overclock pretty much the same. I get 4.2 GHz at 1.25v set without droop compensation, as I don't like long term high voltages. Depending on the processing task, you can detect performance benefits from the i7 (probably due to the bigger L3 cache, and/or hyper-threading). I haven't tested nor shown if that similarly impacts gaming performance.

I would ask, if you intend to overclock CPU or not? That could vary the spending somewhat. If you do overclock, you need a Z170 chipset and it can make use of faster than standard ram. If you wont overclock, then you can look at cheaper chipset boards and will be more or less limited to standard speed ram.

Also depending on how long you intend keeping the 970 as a stepping stone, you might find it worth holding out for next gen cards rather than the 980Ti.
 
Sounds not dissimilar to my main box :) i7-6700k + 980Ti. I do have a secondary i5-6600k system too. They overclock pretty much the same. I get 4.2 GHz at 1.25v set without droop compensation, as I don't like long term high voltages. Depending on the processing task, you can detect performance benefits from the i7 (probably due to the bigger L3 cache, and/or hyper-threading). I haven't tested nor shown if that similarly impacts gaming performance.

I would ask, if you intend to overclock CPU or not? That could vary the spending somewhat. If you do overclock, you need a Z170 chipset and it can make use of faster than standard ram. If you wont overclock, then you can look at cheaper chipset boards and will be more or less limited to standard speed ram.

Also depending on how long you intend keeping the 970 as a stepping stone, you might find it worth holding out for next gen cards rather than the 980Ti.

RAM wise I'm shooting for DDR4 at 2400, and the 970 I'm open to keeping for up to year really so I might just stick with it untill the next gen cards come out which I assume will use a similar amount of power as the 980TI. As for overclocking the CPU that's something I'm very very hesitant to do, I have a bit of anxiety in general and I'm rather afraid of damaging the CPU in doing so, its also part of the reason why I'm going through ibuypower rather than building a computer myself(that and also giant hands XD.).
 
Not sure that site really provides any useful insight. Simplifying things down to a few numbers doesn't tell you much.
 
The numbers do tell you actual stuff about the features of the CPU :)

Hyperthreading is a major distinguishing factor, but how much use is it? That's the conundrum IMO. If the software that's going to be run can make good use of virtual cores then that might well outweigh the other stuff. If not, then the i5 part might well be the better choice.
 
Those numbers indicate how good it is in the way they measured it. Unless you're running those specific tasks, it is of limited use. If you care about gaming performance, there is no real substitute for testing it with the actual games involved. Following a previous discussion on the impact of CPU on ED (way before Horizons), I even turned off two cores and then still had to underclock my CPU before any impact was detected in how many fps I got. From a general gaming perspective, the balance should be put far more towards the GPU than CPU.

In my other interest where CPU performance is more important than gaming, I think L3 cache sizes are under-rated, but that really depends on the task at hand.
 
Can't argue with the importance of a decent GPU. But this might not be the best time to spend a load of the latest card.

Next year the Rift is being released. The opinions so far are mixed but that will almost certainly mean others will release their efforts at the same time.

It may come to naught, but there may be some newer technology coming out then.

Either it will mean the latest kit or picking up the current best at a cut down price.

Either way, I'm holding off on a new Graphics card for the time being.
 
Rule of thumb usually for core-components (in order) is get next-to-the-latest-gen, highest clocked, multi-core (if you want to run multiple apps at once), most memory, video card as you can afford. SSD and other peripherals is more personal taste.

My 2009 i7-875k@3.2 16gb DDR3, Nvidia 970 on 512gb SSD has worked flawlessly and still chews through today's games. I can watch a .mkv or netflix, browse internet while playing Eilte64 with ease. Or I can play it on triple 24" monitors no problem. Plays graphic intensive games like SWTOR just fine, and that hero engine is crap. In fact, this is the longest I've gone between building systems and I think I got good value out of this awesome chip.

I'm going to build a new system soon with VR in mind using the same philosophy and hope I can get another 5yr good run for the money.
 
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Can't argue with the importance of a decent GPU. But this might not be the best time to spend a load of the latest card.

Is there ever a best time? Both nvidia and AMD are expected to have something quite different and new at some point next year. Lots of speculation, but no solid data where it matters: how fast, how much, and when? It doesn't help you if you need something now. The original poster has said they're getting a 970 to tick over, then maybe get something higher end when next gen hits.

My 2009 i7-875k@3.2 16gb DDR3, Nvidia 970 on 512gb SSD has worked flawlessly and still chews through today's games.

I think that agrees with my general observation, that as long as you have enough CPU, you will be mostly GPU bound in gaming. I did similar on my last system. That was i7-2600k based and I had it for 4 years before replacing this year. I did upgrade the GPU and increased the ram quantity while I had it. Arguably I didn't need to replace the system, but did it anyway because I could :)
 
Is there ever a best time?

The best time is when you absolutely need to buy it.

But my suggestion is not to spend a load of your dosh on the highest end card right now. If you must buy a new card, get something adequate and cheap, waiting for a few more months.

If nothing happens by next May say, you will have had the time to save up and get somehting really good. But I wouldn't be surprised if prices do fall by then in any case.

Some comments on buying expensive, higher speed RAM:

[video=youtube;dWgzA2C61z4]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dWgzA2C61z4[/video]

https://www.pugetsystems.com/labs/articles/Breaking-the-Hype-of-High-Frequency-RAM-142/
 
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Haven't watched that video, but in my own testing (not for gaming) I found Skylake i7 to really benefit from buying high end DDR4, although there are increased risks of compatibility problems much above 3000 or so. For reasons unconfirmed, I haven't seen such a benefit for Skylake i5, and I suspect it might be an interaction with L3 cache. So on that basis, if somewhat faster ram is available at little price increment, it would be a "good to have", but outside of niche uses or bragging rights, you don't need to pay the price for absolute top end.
 
Haven't watched that video, but in my own testing (not for gaming) I found Skylake i7 to really benefit from buying high end DDR4, although there are increased risks of compatibility problems much above 3000 or so. For reasons unconfirmed, I haven't seen such a benefit for Skylake i5, and I suspect it might be an interaction with L3 cache. So on that basis, if somewhat faster ram is available at little price increment, it would be a "good to have", but outside of niche uses or bragging rights, you don't need to pay the price for absolute top end.

Thanks Porina.

My own direct experience is limited. Reviews such as the two presented above and your own experiences are all interesting.

The second link has this which is interesting:

While a few of our benchmarks did show differences with the higher frequency RAM (WinRar in particular) the performance gain by using high frequency RAM was highly inconsistent. Especially considering that some of our benchmarks showed worse performance with the higher frequency RAM, it makes it impossible to make a blanket statement regarding whether frequency or timings are more important. Add in the fact that on many of our benchmarks, the performance result with the Intel-based system were the opposite of what we saw with the AMD-based system, the results are so sporadic that the answer is simply not very straight-forward.

Another factor to take into account is the fact that high frequency RAM in general also has a higher failure rate. From our part failure reports, just the small jump from 1333MHz to 1600MHz RAM brings about a threefold increase in failure rates.

The first doesn't really go into criticism very much, but Linus does tend toward the positive.

Also, these reviews are a couple of years old. Probably irrelevant, but might be worth remembering.

For my own part I bought lower end RAM with my i7-6700K. I haven't noticed any problems at all with anything I've run so far. All sweet and smooth. If I ever get the chance to try faster RAM the comparison might be interesting.

One RAM review I didn't post talked about the cost justification for the huge extra expense. I picked up 16Gb RAM, 2133MHz 15-15-15 for under £100. To get the fastest, at the time, was going to cost around £400+. Now the 16Gb 3300Mhz 16-18-18-38-2N is under £200.

It's a volatile market to be sure.
 
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I think I'd choose a chipset/proc combo that gives me more PCIe lanes to move data around (i.e. the Z170) do some reading around how the lanes get shared between various USB/SATA/M.2 devices and how it can affect performance.
 
It's possibly even more complicated than that. What holds for Haswell (and earlier) with DDR3 doesn't necessarily apply to Skylake and DDR4. We have to remember that mainstream DDR4 only kicked off with Skylake's launch, since before then it was pretty much limited to the still expensive X99 chipset Haswell-E.

I built my first Skylake i7-6700k system early on, and I could only get X99 era DDR4, going for G.Skill Ripjaws 4 4x4GB 3333 (about £200 at the time, including two ram cooling fan assemblies). On compute intensive tasks I was seeing tens of percent improvement in performance compared to running the same ram at 2133, but I had ram errors at full speed, requiring a lower overclock. Long story short, I replaced it with Ripjaws 5 3200 2x8GB (just over £100), which is made "for" Skylake, and that worked fine right away.

To play with the old ram I now had spare (too late to return, not worth selling on), I built a 2nd Skylake using the cheaper i5-6600k. Long story short, I was unable to see the same performance as the i7 even with ram running close to the same speed.

My take away point is still, if you can get faster ram for not a lot extra over standard ram, might as well.

As for PCIe lanes, I haven't looked below Z170 for Skylake yet, but the Z170 is adequate up to dual GPU. If you really need more lanes e.g. for more than 2 GPUs, you're back to X99 and Haswell-E, at least until Broadwell-E is due out next year some time (same chipset).
 
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