Difference in processors

[echodrome]

I've read in a couple of places that the best gaming CPU is the i5-2500k however I continue to see people going for other CPUs such as the i7-2600k i7-3xxxk or i5-3xxxk.

Is that because they are not using this exclusively for gaming or is it that what I read about the 2500k is wrong?

[dandelioneater]

2500K is still the best bang for the buck CPU. I am buying the 3770K to use for gaming, folding for the chimp challenge since it has hyperthreading, and to take advantage of PCIe 3.0 capability on my z68 board. The two chips perform essentially the same in games, but the 2500K can be had new for close to $200 and the 3770K is $340. It depends what other features you want.

[LarkStarr]

basically if you're just gaming, don't worry about hyperthreading capable CPUs. If you're doing some sort of rendering or editing or other CPU intensive job, then spring for a hyperthreaded CPU.

[echodrome]

I would generally get the most juice out of it playing games, the rest is just watching netflix, or simple things like spreadsheets and what not.

So if money was no problem would the i7-3xxx line be best for gaming?

[Dzzope]

the ivy chips are better for the average user.. The sandy chips are better tor those on a bit of a budget but like to push it oc's and the SB-E chips are for the people that have either more money than sense or really will use them..
Same goes for i5 v i7... i5 for general usage i7 if you'll actually use the extra threads (rendering number crunching etc)

Personally if I was building a gaming / media / web pc now I'd get the Ivy equivalent of the 2500k (3570k)

ps don't worry about pci-e 3.0.. as show in the 690 review, 3.0 to x16 2.0(or 2.1 can't remember) is basically no difference and so even a z68 board is an option if the z77 boards are too pricey



To be honest.. you could save a boat-load and have a very good gaming rig with a quad core phenom II 980

Cpu has very little effect on games once you get to a certain point.. for eg:
Intel i7-3770K Ivy Bridge CPU Review
and most of the games it has an effect on you have such high frame-rate that it makes not difference anyway..

Not that I'm saying to go amd.. But there is very little wrong with an amd base for a gaming pc and you'll see very little if any difference between the bigger Intels.

[Dragonstongue]

cheers to that comment. Most folks are blind to that fact. High res, the difference in frames can be counted with 10 fingers or less as long as you got a good board and the cpu is clocked to take advantage of it.

[elmorejohn46]

If you are just a gamer and don't plan on overclocking to 5gigs then the i5-3750k is the chip to get .But the i5-2500K is still a good chip is just the graphics on the ivory-bridge is a lot better if you plan on useing internal graphics.But if you do video editing or recoding then the hyperthreading come in to play with four extra threads.Really all of the top chips intel or AMD will do the job in gameing CPU's today are really fast.It just pick out a motherboard that has the features you want or the price you want to pay and go with what ever the best deal is .I went with a i7-3820 because of the TR-SLI and some other feature.I was updateing my i7-920 and EX58 board and to me the x79 motherboard had what I wanted and the i7-3820 is a good chip that overclocks great and runs a lot cooler then my i7-920 at 4.2gigs did and uses less power .

[neptune3d]

Pretty much the same as everyone else, if you are just playing games than between any of the chips mentioned you will see little difference, invest in the GPU instead (obviously the internal gpu in the Ivy/Sandy setups is not going to cut it for that). If you want the rig to do other things that are intensive (Rendering/Folding/whatever else) than get the biggest you can afford. I personally like to get the best chip I can at the time I buy and ride it out for many years.

Remember, the chip you get is going to kick the crap out of what is in a 360/PS3/whatever and many, many, many games are console ports, invest in the GPU.

Good luck.

[terrybear]

Here's the problem most of you's seem to not ask/identify ..... IS this user going to be running only 1 task PERIOD at a time on there system? Then MAYBE the arguments about using 4 cores or less is valid .....

BUT here's the reality of things .... you plan to game online? &/also voicechat/skype? look at multiple web pages ... lisen to music in the background, run 1 or more im programs as well? IF you do those things or would like to in a multi tasker kinda way .... then you need to look at more then 4 core/thread solutions .... ESPECIALY if you want max preformance in a game or what not.

Try frapsing a game your playing while playing it on a 4 core solution .... your gonna get a preformance hit from it cause the game + the fraps is tryin to share 4 core's in say a 2500k cpu senario. It wont happen.

[Dzzope]

I don't think anyone suggested a chip with less than 4 cores..

Hell my old single-core AMD runs ts, skype, msn messenger and a game without too much difficulty.. (granted an older game)

i5 2500k or the newer i5 3570k will be more than enough for any gaming - general use rig.. Also good for light video - image editing and rendering..