Skylake i7 3.4ghz vs i5 3.9ghz for gaming

norse_mjolnir · Dec 11, 2015

Hey guys, so i'm currently running a ES Skylake i7 (locked multiplier) which has a turbo boost of 3.4ghz. I recently managed to get a sweet deal on an i5 6600 non-K which will be used in my GFs gaming PC. I was just wondering which would be better for gaming overall?
The i7 has four cores and [strike]four[/strike] eight threads but the i5 has 0.5ghz higher turbo frequency (I will try to up the baseclock once I install it).
I am running a GTX 970 with 8GB DDR4 with a 1440p monitor if that make any difference.

blazorthon · Dec 11, 2015

You can't overclock the i5 unless your motherboard has the Z170 chipset. If you have such a board, then the i5 might be able to best the i7 in most games, but as games get more well-threaded, that advantage will dwindle down to nothing. Without such a board, then the i5's frequency advantage will help it in some games whereas its lack of Hyper-Threading will hurt it in a few others, that number growing with time as games get more well-threaded.

Derza10 · Dec 11, 2015

The i7 will be slightly ahead in some games, but for the most part they will be very close to the same. The i7 will be better for rendering and what not if you can to do that.

geofelt · Dec 11, 2015

You indicate you have a ES which I presume is an engineering sample and despite the i7 prefix, it apparently has no hyperthreading.

I see little difference in performance between the two.
There is possibly BCLK overclocking coming for non K skylake and non Z170 motherboards.
Read this:
http://www.anandtech.com/show/9848/bclk-overclocking-intels-non-k-skylake-processors-coming-soon

If your favored games tend towards strategy, sims, and mmo, then they are somewhat single threaded and cpu limited.
A cpu with a higher turbo would perform better.

For fast action shooters, it probably matters little, and the graphics card will be more important.

blazorthon · Dec 11, 2015

Ah, my bad, I didn't even think about that. However, correct me if I'm wrong, but don't engineering samples also tend to have unlocked multipliers? norse_mjolnir, what motherboard do you have? Are you sure it is the CPU and not the motherboard that disallows overclocking?

norse_mjolnir · Dec 11, 2015

Thanks for the replies, to clarify the i7 does indeed have hyperthreading, so I actually meant to type 8 threads.
I have two Z170 Asus pro gaming motherboards so I may be able to overclock the i5. The i7 on the other hand will NOT overclock. It crashes if I touch the multiplier or the baseclock in any way, even when i upped the core voltage to 1.35v so that's why I stated it was 'locked'.
My dilemma is I can either choose to keep the i5 for myself and give my gf the i7 but I dont know if its worth it (her requirements are lower and she will be gaming on a 1080p monitor). Both have upgraded coolers (arctic cooling i11 and coolermaster 212).
I was hoping to up the baseclock of the i5 to 115 for a decent overclock of 4.5ghz, if its at all possible.

geofelt · Dec 11, 2015

For gaming, hyperthreads are largely useless. From that point of view, it matters little.

As to bclk overclocking try to monitor the asus forums; it seems likely that there will be a bios upgrade sometime that will allow some sort of bclk overclocking.

teknobug · Dec 11, 2015

The i5 is more ideal for gaming, but the i7 will last a long time down the road due to more threads but the i7 will be just as fine in games although there's still very few that actually takes advantage of 4 cores or more.

norse_mjolnir · Dec 11, 2015

geofelt :

I thought that bclk overclocking was enabled out of the box as i'm able to change its value in the bios from what I remember?

geofelt · Dec 11, 2015

norse_mjolnir :

Yes, but normally more than 2-4% caused issues.
Future motherboard BIOS changes might address that.

norse_mjolnir · Dec 12, 2015

geofelt :

norse_mjolnir :

Yes, but normally more than 2-4% caused issues.
Future motherboard BIOS changes might address that.

Ah I see, good to know thanks.
So to summarize they should be neck and neck with the i5 maybe coming out on top if I can get a decent overclock?

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Skylake i7 3.4ghz vs i5 3.9ghz for gaming

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