Horizons Why an i7 processor?

[Asp Explorer]

*If I have to skimp I'd rather skimp on the GPU and not the CPU. Replacing the GPU when I can afford to won't be as big of a pain as swapping out the GPU. The resale value of the 960 is probably higher than the CPU as well.

I'd respectfully suggest otherwise. Most CPU's these days are "good enough" that in normal use you won't see a huge benefit in an enthusiast CPU over a mainstream one except in exceptional cases. Low end CPU's don't count here - and they all should be wiped out.

GPU's on the other hand, can offer hugely different performance between enthusiast and mainstream. Again - low end GPU's don't count here - and they should be wiped out.

Your "normal" computer user, on again a different hand, needs neither a powerful CPU or GPU. They will never do anything that requires either. People in stores trying to sell them such things should be wiped out

 

[tomalus]

Amd is cheaper and when you calculate the advantage of intel over price its not that good value.Same story for graphic cards.
If AMD was such crap as some suggest (intel master race fans) then it would go bust years ago.

 

[Brian of Ardagh]

I'd respectfully suggest otherwise. Most CPU's these days are "good enough" that in normal use you won't see a huge benefit in an enthusiast CPU over a mainstream one except in exceptional cases. Low end CPU's don't count here - and they all should be wiped out.

GPU's on the other hand, can offer hugely different performance between enthusiast and mainstream. Again - low end GPU's don't count here - and they should be wiped out.

Your "normal" computer user, on again a different hand, needs neither a powerful CPU or GPU. They will never do anything that requires either. People in stores trying to sell them such things should be wiped out

I think you are misunderstanding what I'm saying. If I were to build a high performance track day car and I didn't have the option of unlimited funds I'd buy the slightly better engine even if it only had a few more horsepower or torque. The GPU would be the tires in this example and I would get the decent tires now on my budget and get the really high-performamce tires later.

The way I see it I'll be happy with the i7 engine for awhile and I can wait until the newer GPUs come out later this year. My 960 GPU will still be pretty decent and I can recoup a bit of my cost selling it after I upgrade. An i5 might have been good enough but for me it wasn't worth gambling on it not being as good as I'd like. The best i5 I could have bought was at 3.5 GHz and the i7 I bought was 4.0 GHZ. Task Manager showed all 8 processors running at about 60% utilization. Don't know what an i5 would have shown but for the price I don't think it was worth taking that chance. If I wasn't happy it would have been a pain to remove and try to return the CPU. If I want more than the 960 can provide upgrading isn't a big deal.

I've read a lot of benchmarks and reviews of the i7-6700K vs. the i5-6600K and the consensus is that the i5 is a "better value" the i7 does outperform the i5 in many games. I wasn't concerned with value but I did have to keep the cost down until the new GPUs come out.

In the end it's my choice and I'm quite satisfied with it. I just finished installing ED did some flying and fighting and got a solid 55-60 fps with all settings at high and ultra. I'm happy with my build as I never saw any core go over 55C, the GPU went to 73C and the box was pretty quiet.

 

[znôrt]

Is there a specific reason why Hyper Threading is beneficial for ED?

cpu is becoming a thing again. in some complex games it's not only about pure render anymore plus the tasking on the gpu is getting so high that it makes sense to balance (horizons for instance has a dedicated slider for shifting planet geometry calculations from the gpu to the cpu), so more and more games are starting to load work off the gpu on to the cpu. i5 is fine for most games now, but if you are changing gear now and can fit a i7 i would go for it. depends on the types of games you'll want to play of course.

 

[HeavyGroovez]

I'm running a water cooled i5 6600k at 4.5Ghz and it's rock solid. Performance in VR is outstanding.

 

[Bertak]

I was running an i5 2500k overclocked to 4.8 and GTX 970sc. Runs elite dangerous just fine. Never thought it could possibly bottleneck a GTX 970 but I was wrong. I recently upgraded to an i7 6700K while still running same GTX 970sc and it made a huge difference in GTAV, Witcher 3. I was able to increase the graphic settings to very high and maintain over 60 fps while most times over 100 fps. My I5 2500K was almost always pegged at 100% and had stutters and frame drops in those games with high settings. ED seems more GPU intensive but at the same time the i7 did make a noticeable difference. More games are ported from consoles which have more cores so IMO the day's of an i5 is just as good as an i7 for games is gone.

EDIT

I am running at 1440P resolution.

 

[GG7]

I think you are misunderstanding what I'm saying. If I were to build a high performance track day car and I didn't have the option of unlimited funds I'd buy the slightly better engine even if it only had a few more horsepower or torque. The GPU would be the tires in this example and I would get the decent tires now on my budget and get the really high-performamce tires later.

The way I see it I'll be happy with the i7 engine for awhile and I can wait until the newer GPUs come out later this year. My 960 GPU will still be pretty decent and I can recoup a bit of my cost selling it after I upgrade. An i5 might have been good enough but for me it wasn't worth gambling on it not being as good as I'd like. The best i5 I could have bought was at 3.5 GHz and the i7 I bought was 4.0 GHZ. Task Manager showed all 8 processors running at about 60% utilization. Don't know what an i5 would have shown but for the price I don't think it was worth taking that chance. If I wasn't happy it would have been a pain to remove and try to return the CPU. If I want more than the 960 can provide upgrading isn't a big deal.

I've read a lot of benchmarks and reviews of the i7-6700K vs. the i5-6600K and the consensus is that the i5 is a "better value" the i7 does outperform the i5 in many games. I wasn't concerned with value but I did have to keep the cost down until the new GPUs come out.

In the end it's my choice and I'm quite satisfied with it. I just finished installing ED did some flying and fighting and got a solid 55-60 fps with all settings at high and ultra. I'm happy with my build as I never saw any core go over 55C, the GPU went to 73C and the box was pretty quiet.

You can easily overclock your 6700k to 4.8Ghz too. I am running mine at that speed along with a factory overclocked ASUS Strix GeForce GTX 980ti in 1080p (My 55" SONY W900 HDTV). This game doesn't even begin to push my system even with everything maxed to ULTRA/High settings, my temps are all nice and cool. FPS is triple digits most of the time.

Kind of wish FD would give us an even higher level of graphics settings. The textures on some planets could still use some work, and I still see some Aliasing issues even when downscaling the resolution x4. These few quirks are obviously in-game rendering issues which I hope FD is aware of and will hopefully patch in the next update.

On this rig I am running, I should not be seeing ANY AA issues anywhere.

Oh! And congrats on the upgrades!

 

[Bertak]

You can easily overclock your 6700k to 4.8Ghz too. I am running mine at that speed along with a factory overclocked ASUS Strix GeForce GTX 980ti in 1080p (My 55" SONY W900 HDTV). This game doesn't even begin to push my system even with everything maxed to ULTRA/High settings, my temps are all nice and cool. FPS is triple digits most of the time.

Kind of wish FD would give us an even higher level of graphics settings. The textures on some planets could still use some work, and I still see some Aliasing issues even when downscaling the resolution x4. These few quirks are obviously in-game rendering issues which I hope FD is aware of and will hopefully patch in the next update.

On this rig I am running, I should not be seeing ANY AA issues anywhere.

Oh! And congrats on the upgrades!

Easily overclock i7 6700k to 4.8 lol. If you were able to hit 4.8 you hit the silicon lottery as that is top 18% of 6700k's. 56% 4.7Ghz, 87% 4.6Ghz, 99% 4.5Ghz and about 1% can't hit 4.4Ghz.

 

[Brian of Ardagh]

Easily overclock i7 6700k to 4.8 lol. If you were able to hit 4.8 you hit the silicon lottery as that is top 18% of 6700k's. 56% 4.7Ghz, 87% 4.6Ghz, 99% 4.5Ghz and about 1% can't hit 4.4Ghz.

I usually lose the lottery. My i7-6700K seems to only run up to 4.3GHz, as soon as I push it past that the benchmarks go back down; it's not unstable at 4.4GHz but the benchmarks aren't any better than 4.3GHz. I'm only using the basic tuning app that Intel provides, I haven't tried manually tweaking any settings.

With the i7 and a GTX-960 4GB I see triple digit fps (like 250+) in the galaxy and system maps and in SC and Hyperspace I see about 130 fps. The 2 areas where I see the lowest rates are planetary surfaces and the starport services screen; somewhere around 70-90. I'm happy with my system for now and will limit the frame rate to 60 and keep vertical sync on.

 

[Eros]

Core2Quad at 2.83GHz running a GTX-980... works fine

Very top heavy system, and the bottleneck is definitely the CPU and RAM combo. Just here to basically say... anything better than a Q9550 processor and a ok-ish graphics card will do you just fine.

SC and normal space... in space im around 50-60 fps, no drops unless lots of action on screen. Planet side depends on the planet, but i can get somewhere between pinned at 30 to 50. Also running a 2048x1152 monitor with a 1.5x resolution down sample to boot

Basically I know the bottleneck isn't the GPU since pretty much nothing i change settings wise cause any performance changes

 

[cygnusa]

Easily overclock i7 6700k to 4.8 lol. If you were able to hit 4.8 you hit the silicon lottery as that is top 18% of 6700k's. 56% 4.7Ghz, 87% 4.6Ghz, 99% 4.5Ghz and about 1% can't hit 4.4Ghz.

I recently built an I7-6700K mini-itx water cooled (H100iv2) system. Got it up to 4.6ghz OC'd. Temps are great and very stable. I wasn't sure it could do it, so a pleasant surprise. The cpu may run at 4.8ghz but I'm not one to push to the very extremes. I'm ok with a mid to high OC, but pushing the limits increases risk for hardware failure and I want the system to run for a good few years. With DDR4-3200 memory and an OC'd GTX 970 Stryx (got it sort of close to a 980 performance it seems), the StreamVR benchmark test is coming back at 8.3-8.5 (very high) marks. Plenty good enough for me... now just in holding pattern until May (for Vive delivery.. hopefully). I may be able to squeeze some OC out of the memory, but the gain would be relatively negligible so stuck to the rating on the memory.

When I build my systems, I build to the spec I am after. Then if I can OC it, it just adds icing to the cake. That way if something doesn't quite OC, I don't need to swallow a bitter pill. ;P Over the years its been hit or miss. Some builds OC beautifully and run for years. Other builds don't OC worth anything. Its the luck of the draw..

 

[GG7]

Easily overclock i7 6700k to 4.8 lol. If you were able to hit 4.8 you hit the silicon lottery as that is top 18% of 6700k's. 56% 4.7Ghz, 87% 4.6Ghz, 99% 4.5Ghz and about 1% can't hit 4.4Ghz.

Seriously? :O

WOW! I had NO idea!

This is the first Windows PC I have built in 15 years, so I have been totally out of the loop on the latest hardware tech and whatnot. Just bought the best of everything and learned just what I needed to know to put it together and get it tweaked to the highest performance possible.

As far the CPU speed/overclock.... It was easy for me with my 6700k CPU to get 4.8Ghz. I have been running mine at that speed since pretty much day one. Used the ASUS 5 way optimization thing that came with my Z170 DLX motherboard and it picked that speed after running the system through a series of tests. 4.8 seemed like a decent amount above the baseline so I went with it. I didn't realize that I was in some kind of top % of 6700k owners.

Mine has been running great at that speed both in terms of performance and heat output and I just assumed that everyone could overclock to that level. Using a Corsair H100i GTX cooler in a 760t case with 4 case fans. (3 intake and 1 exhaust "140mm" + the two 120s on the cooler and the three fans on the GPU) And of course, the CPU isn't running at 4.8 all the time. At Idle it drops way down below that. My typical CPU temps while running ED kind of moves around between 35c-60c depending on the temperature of our living room and the game's demands. Idle temp is around 27 to 29c. Looks like I really lucked out with the 6700k I received, which is great news! Again...I had no idea, and just assumed that what I am getting was typical of the chip. Really surprised to learn how huge a variance there can be from one CPU chip to another. Those ratios you posted represent a pretty dramatic range of performance.

Using Corsair Vengance 32GB RAM running at 3200mhz as well via XMP. My 980ti is running at just under 1350mhz. 750 watt PSU "EVGA SuperNova Platinum P2.

Glad to know it all paid off so well! The game runs beautifully which was the entire point of buying and building this rig. I seriously doubt I am going to be going back to the XB1 version unless friends want to play ED on XBL. The difference in performance is rather significant!

 

[cygnusa]

A word of caution and a lesson:

Defective watercooling on an I7-6700k is bad... mmmkay? For some reason its not letting me upload pics here at the moment.

My H100i v2 decided to pop a tube from the cpu block and spray the insides of my NEW gaming rig. I built the system just a couple weeks ago.

Yay fun. Tonight I go home after work, disassemble the entire system, clean everything with alcohol and let dry for a few days. Hopefully Corsair gets back to me by then and remedies the situation appropriately.

The lesson: This has me rethinking water cooling.. I only went with a water cooler rig for this system as its a mini-itx compact build. The water cooler just works better given the small space I have to work with in this build. The system ran great when it did.. got 8.5 on SteamVR rating which was more than I expected. Just wish the cooler wasn't defective. Wasting a ton of my time. I'll stick with it for now, but I may revert back to air cooled systems for the next build.

 

[Bertak]

A word of caution and a lesson:

Defective watercooling on an I7-6700k is bad... mmmkay? For some reason its not letting me upload pics here at the moment.

My H100i v2 decided to pop a tube from the cpu block and spray the insides of my NEW gaming rig. I built the system just a couple weeks ago.

Yay fun. Tonight I go home after work, disassemble the entire system, clean everything with alcohol and let dry for a few days. Hopefully Corsair gets back to me by then and remedies the situation appropriately.

The lesson: This has me rethinking water cooling.. I only went with a water cooler rig for this system as its a mini-itx compact build. The water cooler just works better given the small space I have to work with in this build. The system ran great when it did.. got 8.5 on SteamVR rating which was more than I expected. Just wish the cooler wasn't defective. Wasting a ton of my time. I'll stick with it for now, but I may revert back to air cooled systems for the next build.

Sorry to hear that. I am sure Corsair will take care of you if you have the pics to prove it. I have seen in their forums they have paid for replacement components that were damaged from a leaking cooler. My i5 2500k build ran 5 years with the original H100i flawlessly. Even though they are sealed they do have some evaporation from the tubing and I noticed mine the last couple months didn't cool as well as it used to. When I removed it I could shake it and hear it had less water and more air than when new. I bought a H110i for my 6700K build and I am glad I did. It cools better and is much quieter than the H100i.

 

[Nick Sticks]

A word of caution and a lesson:

Defective watercooling on an I7-6700k is bad... mmmkay? For some reason its not letting me upload pics here at the moment.

My H100i v2 decided to pop a tube from the cpu block and spray the insides of my NEW gaming rig. I built the system just a couple weeks ago.

Yay fun. Tonight I go home after work, disassemble the entire system, clean everything with alcohol and let dry for a few days. Hopefully Corsair gets back to me by then and remedies the situation appropriately.

The lesson: This has me rethinking water cooling.. I only went with a water cooler rig for this system as its a mini-itx compact build. The water cooler just works better given the small space I have to work with in this build. The system ran great when it did.. got 8.5 on SteamVR rating which was more than I expected. Just wish the cooler wasn't defective. Wasting a ton of my time. I'll stick with it for now, but I may revert back to air cooled systems for the next build.

What a bummer, I really hope it all dries out ok.
.

 

[Bertak]

I recently built an I7-6700K mini-itx water cooled (H100iv2) system. Got it up to 4.6ghz OC'd. Temps are great and very stable. I wasn't sure it could do it, so a pleasant surprise. The cpu may run at 4.8ghz but I'm not one to push to the very extremes. I'm ok with a mid to high OC, but pushing the limits increases risk for hardware failure and I want the system to run for a good few years. With DDR4-3200 memory and an OC'd GTX 970 Stryx (got it sort of close to a 980 performance it seems), the StreamVR benchmark test is coming back at 8.3-8.5 (very high) marks. Plenty good enough for me... now just in holding pattern until May (for Vive delivery.. hopefully). I may be able to squeeze some OC out of the memory, but the gain would be relatively negligible so stuck to the rating on the memory.

When I build my systems, I build to the spec I am after. Then if I can OC it, it just adds icing to the cake. That way if something doesn't quite OC, I don't need to swallow a bitter pill. ;P Over the years its been hit or miss. Some builds OC beautifully and run for years. Other builds don't OC worth anything. Its the luck of the draw..

Skylake is easy to overclock and with good cooling tends to hit voltage limit before temp limit. 1.35 Vcore is the sweet spot. Highest multiplier stable at 1.35V will tend to take 1.4V + on most to get 100mhz more so you have to decide if 100 mhz is worth running that much more voltage through it. Me personally I wouldn't run 1.4V unless I really wanted 4.8mhz or higher and those that can hit 4.8mhz will require it.

- - - - - Additional Content Posted / Auto Merge - - - - -

Seriously? :O

WOW! I had NO idea!

This is the first Windows PC I have built in 15 years, so I have been totally out of the loop on the latest hardware tech and whatnot. Just bought the best of everything and learned just what I needed to know to put it together and get it tweaked to the highest performance possible.

As far the CPU speed/overclock.... It was easy for me with my 6700k CPU to get 4.8Ghz. I have been running mine at that speed since pretty much day one. Used the ASUS 5 way optimization thing that came with my Z170 DLX motherboard and it picked that speed after running the system through a series of tests. 4.8 seemed like a decent amount above the baseline so I went with it. I didn't realize that I was in some kind of top % of 6700k owners.

Mine has been running great at that speed both in terms of performance and heat output and I just assumed that everyone could overclock to that level. Using a Corsair H100i GTX cooler in a 760t case with 4 case fans. (3 intake and 1 exhaust "140mm" + the two 120s on the cooler and the three fans on the GPU) And of course, the CPU isn't running at 4.8 all the time. At Idle it drops way down below that. My typical CPU temps while running ED kind of moves around between 35c-60c depending on the temperature of our living room and the game's demands. Idle temp is around 27 to 29c. Looks like I really lucked out with the 6700k I received, which is great news! Again...I had no idea, and just assumed that what I am getting was typical of the chip. Really surprised to learn how huge a variance there can be from one CPU chip to another. Those ratios you posted represent a pretty dramatic range of performance.

Using Corsair Vengance 32GB RAM running at 3200mhz as well via XMP. My 980ti is running at just under 1350mhz. 750 watt PSU "EVGA SuperNova Platinum P2.

Glad to know it all paid off so well! The game runs beautifully which was the entire point of buying and building this rig. I seriously doubt I am going to be going back to the XB1 version unless friends want to play ED on XBL. The difference in performance is rather significant!

Check to see what Vcore it set. I know the ASUS 5 way sometimes push more voltage than most are comfortable with. Intel specs 1.5V but at that no doubt you would suffer degradation. ASUS say's 1.45 max and I still wouldn't want to run that much for a couple hundred mhz more. Only people that will push it that high are those who overclocking is their hobby and could care less if they destroy a cpu.

 

[Bertak]

I usually lose the lottery. My i7-6700K seems to only run up to 4.3GHz, as soon as I push it past that the benchmarks go back down; it's not unstable at 4.4GHz but the benchmarks aren't any better than 4.3GHz. I'm only using the basic tuning app that Intel provides, I haven't tried manually tweaking any settings.

With the i7 and a GTX-960 4GB I see triple digit fps (like 250+) in the galaxy and system maps and in SC and Hyperspace I see about 130 fps. The 2 areas where I see the lowest rates are planetary surfaces and the starport services screen; somewhere around 70-90. I'm happy with my system for now and will limit the frame rate to 60 and keep vertical sync on.

I lost it on my first i5 2500k. All I could hit with it was 4.2 and anyone who knows sandy bridge knows how unlucky that is. They are the best overclockers ever. Most could push 4.8-5 no problem. I ended up building a HTPC and bought a new 2500K for my game rig.

 

[FireStream]

I have an i3, it's still works well, even if I use my DK2 with VR high settings. And it's not even quad-core processor.

 

[Bertak]

I have an i3, it's still works well, even if I use my DK2 with VR high settings. And it's not even quad-core processor.

I see no reason why it wouldn't. ED is GPU heavy. IMO way too much and needs some optimization to utilize the cpu more. Right now my gtx 970 sc stays pegged at 99% while my cpu barely breaks 30%. ED VR your i3 is a bottleneck even if you think it isn't.

 

[CMDR Ellegon]

Bad time to be buying now anyway. New CPUs will be out soon, as will GPUs.

But if you must buy right now go for a 5820k rather than a Skylake chip. Those are the best value for money, 6 physical cores and better overclockers.

+1, I have a 5820k running at 4.0 GHz on six cores and I am not nearly at the overclocking limit - I just don't need more umph than that at the moment. 100% CPU load equals about 58°C with water cooling. Planet Coaster Alpha is one of the few games taxing the CPU (about 75% load on all 12 threads in large parks with many peeps).