Alright, my buddy just gave me a MSI Z170A Gaming M7 motherboard. I'm looking into which CPU I should get, i5 7600k, i7 6700k and i7 7700k are the options I have in mind.
Which should I get?
Currently I do not own DDR4 sticks, so I would likely get 3000/3200mhz DDR4 Cat15/16.
I'm upgrading from an i5 3570k @ 4.5ghz with a 212+.
Questions that need to be asked:
From reviews it looks like the i7 6700 may actually be the better buy over a i7 7700k. Less heat, slightly cheaper, etc.
i5 vs i7, I feel like it's getting to the point where an i7 is more certainly necessary. (Crysis 3, Tomb Raider are good examples of why)
Also, will I need to get a new heatsink? (212+ currently, as I said above)
You should get either i7. The i5 wouldn't be much of an upgrade. You get an improvement in IPC and memory bandwidth, that's it. At least an i7 gives you more threads.
Try your 212+ and see what temperatures are like before committing to a few cooler. There's little point in buying a better cooler if your current cooler does a satisfactory job.
RAM prices are due to simple supply and demand. Demand was much lower a year ago. In the last year, we have seen Kaby Lake, Ryzen, Skylake-X, Kaby Lake-X, and Threadripper hit the market. That's a lot more platforms using DDR4 than a year ago when it was Skylake, Haswell-E, and Broadwell-E.
You should get either i7. The i5 wouldn't be much of an upgrade. You get an improvement in IPC and memory bandwidth, that's it. At least an i7 gives you more threads.
Try your 212+ and see what temperatures are like before committing to a few cooler. There's little point in buying a better cooler if your current cooler does a satisfactory job.
RAM prices are due to simple supply and demand. Demand was much lower a year ago. In the last year, we have seen Kaby Lake, Ryzen, Skylake-X, Kaby Lake-X, and Threadripper hit the market. That's a lot more platforms using DDR4 than a year ago when it was Skylake, Haswell-E, and Broadwell-E.
It's true your motherboard might need a BIOS update to recognize a Kaby Lake CPU. As far as which is better, they're practically the same processor. Kaby Lake is to Skylake what Devil's Canyon was to Haswell. It was merely a refresh, Skylake on a more refined process. You're going to see a difference in maybe 200 MHz in terms of maximum overclock between any given i7-6700K and i7-7700K.
With 1060 you will not be able to tell the difference. 7700K will be the CPU to get if you want to go 5GHz. 6700K clock 200-300MHz lower. You will probably need better cooling for both CPUs if you want to go to the Max. Yes you probably need a BIOS update for Z170. 6700K vs 7700K it all depends what the difference in price is.
Thanks guys, the i7 6700k definitely seems more what I'm after. Overclock it slightly to 4.6ghz/4.5ghz with my current cooler. It's only $20 cheaper at Microcenter.
Prices on older processors will be tricky because of Coffee Lake. We won't see it affect Skylake or Kaby Lake prices, which is a shame. The only thing those processors have going for them are being in stock and having more affordable motherboard choices.
You should be able to get $100+ for your processor, I would think. It's unlocked Ivy Bridge. How much more than $100, I'm not sure. Post those items in the appraisals section for more opinions.
Prices on older processors will be tricky because of Coffee Lake. We won't see it affect Skylake or Kaby Lake prices, which is a shame. The only thing those processors have going for them are being in stock and having more affordable motherboard choices.
You should be able to get $100+ for your processor, I would think. It's unlocked Ivy Bridge. How much more than $100, I'm not sure. Post those items in the appraisals section for more opinions.
The $120 i3 cannot overclock. So it'll be 3.6ghz on the i3 vs 4.5ghz minimum on my i5 3570k. Both have 6mg cache, the i3 can use better ram for sure. From benchmarks it looked like the i3 is 7% faster at stock settings. So the i5's overclock will easily out-class it. You would need to spend at least $180 for the i3 8350k(which is basically a i5 7600k).
The $120 i3 cannot overclock. So it'll be 3.6ghz on the i3 vs 4.5ghz minimum on my i5 3570k. Both have 6mg cache, the i3 can use better ram for sure. From benchmarks it looked like the i3 is 7% faster at stock settings. So the i5's overclock will easily out-class it. You would need to spend at least $180 for the i3 8350k(which is basically a i5 7600k).
Using an i5-2500K to defend your stance on the i5-3570K is reaching slightly. An i3-8100 is going to have the advantage in memory bandwidth and that's it. I think the high end of your estimates ($220) is a fair price for the bundle, maybe a tad low. If the memory overclocks fairly well, it's definitely on the low side.
Sell the mobo and get a Z370 or B350/X370. Giving you then an option for 8400-8700K or 1600-1700X.
Don't buy a 4 core CPU in 2017 unless all you do is web browsing.
The i5-7600K is priced around $220. It's a terrible value unless the Z370 motherboard you're getting is ~$40 more than an equivalent Z170/270 motherboard.
Quote:
Originally Posted by JackCY
Sell the mobo and get a Z370 or B350/X370. Giving you then an option for 8400-8700K or 1600-1700X.
Don't buy a 4 core CPU in 2017 unless all you do is web browsing.
Microcenter has their Coffee Lake parts priced way too high at the moment. If you want to get one from Microcenter, you probably have to wait until inventory is more readily available. The best value I'm seeing is the i7-6700K for $279.99. I would definitely pony up another ~$86.60 for hyper-threading. B&H and Newegg both have the i5-8400 available for about $200, which I'd probably rather have than the i5-7600K at that price point. You can upgrade to an i7-8700K down the road if you ever need the extra threads.
Can you show me some benchmarks? I've seen some videos in the past and it shows the i7 winning, especially in tittles like Crysis 3 and Tomb Raider.
The i5 8600k is also $70 more than a i7 6700k at my microcenter. performance in the benchmarks I've seen are within 10% of each other, usually with the i7 6700 winning.
Can you show me some benchmarks? I've seen some videos in the past and it shows the i7 winning, especially in tittles like Crysis 3 and Tomb Raider.
The i5 8600k is also $70 more than a i7 6700k at my microcenter. performance in the benchmarks I've seen are within 10% of each other, usually with the i7 6700 winning.
Before I make this post, Ijust want to say I'm not here to recommend X processor over Y processor.
Games at this point rarely scale past 4 threads. With recent processors it's hard to tell, like with my Ryzen 7 chip. I can do things I know only use one or two threads, but task manager shows the CPU is using more than 7%/12% (which is 1/16 or 2/16 of my chip) for that task. Before, I could look at task manager and see these things using 25% of a quad core, or 12% of my 8350 - but those loads would show up on more than one of my cores on the Performance tab. This all ways reminds me a news article from when Watch_Dogs was released. Many outlets were reporting all 8 cores of an 8350 being used, yet it couldn't get 60FPS. However, if people looked at their Processes tab, they would see the task never went over 50%. It only used 4 threads.
Next up if the 4C w/HT versus 6C variants. HT (AKA SMT) essentially divides the core into two halves. It drops single threaded performance to provide better multithreaded performance in applications that can utilize even work loads across multiple cores. What does this actually mean?
If you render video on one core with HT and load both threads, you will see about 125% performance for that core. If you are using both cores for different tasks, they are going to compete for those resources. That is what happens when you play a game that can use 4 threads on a quad core chip while trying to run something in the background - like a resource monitor or just the OS. This may drag down one of the threads impacting gameplay - typically only slightly. However, if you are doing something that can use 4 thread on a 6C variant, there are 2 idle cores that will handle what is needed.
The issue with trying to find out what is best with the 4C w/SMT vs 6C is the fact that there are too many variables. In either situation, they are both better than 4C w/o SMT. One final note: SMT adds about 25% performance for Intel. So 4C ships have the multithreaded potential of a 5C chip.
I put the board up for sale for $160 (after looking at how much they're going for on ebay)
It's never been open so it's as good as it gets lol
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