i7 3770K or i5 4670K for Gaming

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Fox_

Fox_

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Mar 16, 2013
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I have an ancient system (Pentium D 945, 4GB DDR2, GT 630, and 275 watt PSU) and I have narrowed it down to two processors, the i7 3770K or new Haswell i5 4670K. I can get them both bundled with motherboards, the i7 bundle is $275 and the i5 bundle $260. My primary use is gaming and no heavy number crunching. I am leaning heavily towards the i7 right now but if the i5 can do gaming just as well and is more future proof it might be worth the loss in performance.
 
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Fox_

Fox_

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Mar 16, 2013
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I am buying a whole new system, I found a good 80+ 500W for 30 bucks. For the i7 the motherboard is Z77A-G41 LGA 1155 ATX (http://www.microcenter.com/product/401769/Z77A-G41_LGA_1155_ATX_Intel_Motherboard) and the Haswell motherboard is the Z87-G41 PC Mate LGA 1150 ATX (http://www.microcenter.com/single_product_results.aspx?sku=614982)
 
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Immaculate

Immaculate

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Mar 26, 2013
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so the question is. is it better to have 3rd gen i7-3770K or save $10 step up a generation and down to i5-4670K and the 4th gen and skip out on i7's hyper threading?

edit: the Z87s have better audio that I've noticed.
 
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Fox_

Fox_

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Mar 16, 2013
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So the i5 seems to be the popular choice, ok. Plus the Z87 motheboard might be a little nicer do to it being more expensive but that might be because it just came out.
 
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photonboy

photonboy

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Jun 20, 2006
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I looked at the OTHER combos at your site, and I think your best choice is one of the i5-3570K combos.

The motherboard is the foundation of your PC and a very important one. It's a good idea to not only compare features (like Crossfire/SLI etc) but read reviews.

For $275, my opinion is that THIS is the best combo:
http://cart.microcenter.com/cart.aspx?RedirectUrl=http://www.microcenter.com

Here is a REVIEW of that motherboard:
http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/article/ASUS-P8Z77-V-LK-Motherboard/1745/9

If you compare to the bundles with more expensive CPU's but similar overall cost you are getting a BETTER motherboard with a CPU that's going to be almost identical for gaming purposes.

*And to WARN YOU further, I found lots of bad reviews and issues with the MSI Z77 board you linked (the other Z87 MSI board seems similar): http://www.hardocp.com/article/2012/09/11/msi_z77ag41_lga_1155_motherboard_review/7

Several comments such as:
"I had quite a few problems with this board during the time I used it."
and
"I think poor voltage regulation and an insufficient number of power phases are to blame for this. Even if you could achieve such speeds, the lack of cooling the board has would have me concerned about longevity."

The issues with overclocking alone start to negate the value added by the "K" series CPU as you may have issues overclocking. Instability is NOT something you want in a gaming PC.
 
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