i5 or i7 for SLI GTX 970s

king3pj · May 11, 2015

I'm currently running an FX 6300 overclocked to 4.0GHz and a single GTX 970. A second, identical 970 is being delivered today. My FX 6300 and motherboard came from my first PC build about 3 years ago. They just weren't replaced when I upgraded to the GTX 970. This motherboard doesn't support SLI and since I have to buy a new one I figure it doesn't make sense to stay with the AM3+ socket. That means I'm switching to Intel.

I've read many times, that an i5 is the sweet spot for a gaming PC and that an i7 is basically just more money and heat for very little gaming performance gain. Is that still true when you are talking about SLI though?

For a little background, I don't need more than 1080p/60fps. I play on a 1080p TV in my living room and I don't see the point of playing at a higher fps than my screen can output. My single 970 is already great for this purpose. The only reason I'm adding in a second 970 is because I'm basically getting it for free due to an unusual circumstance that will never happen again.

I want this to be a long term upgrade. I'm not going to upgrade my GPU again until this twin 970 setup is no longer great for 1080p/60fps. I'm thinking that should be a relatively long time by gaming hardware standards. I want my new CPU to be good for at least as long as the SLI 970s. I'm hoping I'm done upgrading PC parts for 4 or 5 years. If an i5 won't bottleneck SLI 970s than that will be my choice. If not I would rather spend a little more now on an i7 so I don't have to touch anything for the next 4-5 years. Also, will the i7 see any gains from DirectX12 that the i5 won't due to hyperthreading?

I have an evo 212 cooler and I don't mind doing modest overclocks if that makes a difference. Using that cooler I overclocked my current FX 6300 from 3.5GHz to 4.0GHz but I prefer to do it without increasing voltage.

TLDR: i5 or i7 for SLI 970s at 1080p/60fps for at least 4-5 years?

timeconsumer · May 11, 2015

I would go for the i5 4690K if you plan on overclocking. I don't see the lack of hyperthreading becoming any sort of limiting factor in gaming performance in the next 4-5 years. Quad cores have been out the better part of a decade and games still aren't using them to their full potential.

king3pj · May 11, 2015

timeconsumer :

Thanks for the quick answer. Is there any reason to think that will change with DirectX 12? Since I want this to be a long term solution changes between DirectX 11 and 12 could be important.

Undying89 · May 11, 2015

i5's are enough for gaming. 4690k would push your 970's just like any i7's will...extra 100$ is better spent on SSD or something useful.

Seoulja615 · May 11, 2015

I would suggest to get the i7 4790k. For gaming i5 will be ok but if you want to future proof your computer go with the i7. You might change your hobby from gaming to something else.. I used to play bunch of games but with new hobbies I do a lot of video rendering with my gopro.. If you want to just game then go with i5 and get a nice ssd for your computer.

Undying89 · May 11, 2015

When 4690 becomes absolete 4790 will be too, its just a quad core after all. If you really want to future proof your system a real hexa core like 5820 is the way to go.

As you can see new upcoming Skylake i5 6600k will be 4core 4thread CPU again, it will probably beat any past generation i7. Stronger per-core performance and higher clock is that is important for gaming.

Seoulja615 · May 11, 2015

Undying89 :

I agree.. If you go Haswell - E route. Prepare to spend some money.. =D Or just wait for Skylake

king3pj · May 11, 2015

I'm an accountant and not the creative type. I won't be doing any video rendering or anything like that. This PC is strictly used for gaming on my 1080p TV. I have another, more simple PC in a home office for work stuff.

I'm also not really trying to future proof because I don't really believe that's possible with PC gaming hardware. If I will be set for 1080p/60 with most games with an i5 4690k and two GTX 970s for the next 4-5 years that would be great. Anything more than that is gravy.

I suppose I could hold off on my CPU upgrade and just leave the second 970 in its box until the Skylake CPUs come out if that will make a big difference since my current FX 6300 and single 970 is doing well for 1080p but it's below the recommended hardware (GTX 980) for Arkham Knight Ultra Settings.

As long as the i5 4690k overclocked won't be the limiting factor with my GTX 970s in SLI for at least 4-5 years I'd rather make the upgrade now though. It would be nice to fire up Witcher 3 and Arkham Knight and just put everything to max without thinking about it.

maddogfargo · May 11, 2015

An i5 is the sweet spot for a single high end GPU. This represents the majority of gaming builds.

But an FX 8350 or i7 4790 scales better in SLI or Crossfire.

Since both require a motherboard change, look at total cost for Board and CPU.

In most multithreaded games the 8350 and i7 will be within 3-4 FPS of each other with dual GPUs.

FX CPUs offer more PCIe lanes than comparable Intel CPUs, so they do very well in this config.

Whether you go with AMD or Intel, add in a good cooler and decent overclock and you'll get the most out of your multi-GPU setup.

Enjoy.

Undying89 · May 11, 2015

8350 scales better in SLI? lol, it cant even run single 970 without bottleneck it. You have no idea what your talking about...

timeconsumer · May 11, 2015

maddogfargo :

PCI-E lanes are not an issue when running dual-GPUs as x8/x8 has maybe a 1% performance difference compared to x16/x16. It's only when you get to tri/quad systems where it becomes an issue as cards have to start dropping to x4. Even a SLI Titan-X will see almost no difference on x8 vs x16.

Seoulja615 · May 11, 2015

king3pj :

For Gaming only.. you got your self a good system with the i5 4690k. Make sure to update all the drivers and make sure your sli is set up right in the control setting. That is another thread though. Enjoy your new system!

DubbleClick · May 11, 2015

maddogfargo :

This post is 100% wrong. Literally absolutely false.

i7's don't scale any better with sli than i5's. Actually, they don't scale at all, they're just strong enough to support any single and dual gpu combination to their fullest in games currently available. Fx cpu's however already (partially heavily) bottleneck single gpus, with sli, that only gets worse.

DubbleClick · May 11, 2015

king3pj :

It won't. However, with skylake being just about to hit (~2 months) with 15% improvement over haswell and four extra pcie lanes that will allow you to run a m.2 pcie ssd while sli I'd personally wait. If you already have a SSD, go ahead now and get the i5 4690k, it will most likely still be strong enough for the upcoming gpus in 4 years.

king3pj · May 11, 2015

DubbleClick :

I do already have an SSD that I've been using for the last couple years. It sounds like an i5 4950k is the right choice. I'll be ordering today.

I had one more question but it might be better suited for a different thread. I'm relatively new to PC gaming (3 years). In that time I have upgraded my GPU and built gaming PCs for a couple friends. I even did a CPU upgrade on another PC but that one was just putting a better processor on the same motherboard. I've never switched from AMD to Intel or put a new motherboard in an existing PC though.

I'm assuming I can't just plug everything into the new motherboard and fire it up. Do I have to format the SSD that Windows is installed on and do a clean install? What about my secondary HDD that is full of installed Steam games, save files, and music? Do I need to reinstall all of that? Is there a way to just reinstall windows without deleting everything off my current drives?

If I have to, I suppose I can just reinstall all of my games but we are talking about close to 1.5TB worth of stuff. I'd really rather not lose all my game saves either. Most of my games seem to have Steam Cloud support but I'm sure that's not the case for all of them.

DubbleClick · May 11, 2015

You don't need to delete everything off your drive, but you should definitely set up a new windows, including programs that are installed. Format the ssd partition of your OS - for the HDD just move your data to another partition and then format the application partition. Since your game progress is probably saved in folders of the application, you better make a copy of them that you can later paste into the folder of the new install.

king3pj · May 11, 2015

DubbleClick :

So if I copy the my documents folders and game saves over the the HDD it should be easy enough to format the SSD and then paste the files back where they belong later. Sounds like I will need to reinstall all the games installed on both drives though.

Will Windows give me the option to format the SSD during installation or do I need to do that before hand?

DubbleClick · May 11, 2015

Will give you the option to during installation. You can also delete or create new partitions there.

i5 or i7 for SLI GTX 970s

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