Intel Cores i5 vs. i7 [Quick Question]

[WeeFreeMen]

Evening forums,

I had a quick question, many of the people over at the New Build forums have recommended the i5 series, specifically the i5-2600k for its overclocking abilities. If I didnt overclock, would an i7 with its superior Hyper Threading be more beneficial? What are some pros vs. cons of the i5 vs. i7?

Ill provide the build I was looking into below for some extra details. This is ofcouse a gaming PC.

Case-
-COOLER MASTER HAF X RC-942-KKN1 Black Steel/ Plastic ATX Full Tower Computer Case
ID#: N82E16811119225
Cost: $190.00

CPU-
-Intel Core i5-2500K Sandy Bridge 3.3GHz (3.7GHz Turbo Boost) 4 x 256KB L2 Cache 6MB L3 Cache LGA 1155 95W Quad-Core Desktop Processor
ID#: N82E16819115072
Cost: $220.00

MOBO-
-ASUS P8Z68-V PRO LGA 1155 Intel Z68 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard
ID#: N82E16813131730
Cost: $210.00

GPU-
-MSI R6950 Twin Frozr III PE/OC Radeon HD 6950 2GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.1 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support Video Card with Eyefinity
ID#: N82E16814127575
Cost: $280.00

RAM-
-G.SKILL Ripjaws X Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model F3-12800CL9D-8GBXL
ID#: N82E16820231428
Cost: $75.00

Storage-
-(SSD) Crucial M4 CT128M4SSD2 2.5" 128GB SATA III MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD)
ID#: N82E16820148442
Cost: $230.00
-(HD) Seagate Barracuda XT ST32000641AS 2TB 7200 RPM 64MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive
ID#: N82E16822148506
Cost: $150.00
OR
-(HD) SAMSUNG Spinpoint F3 HD103SJ 1TB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive
ID#: N82E16822152185
Cost: $65.00

CD Drive-
-

PSU-
-COOLER MASTER Silent Pro Gold Series RSA00-80GAD3-US 1000W ATX 12V v2.3 / EPS 12V v2.92 SLI Ready CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS GOLD Certified Modular Active PFC Power Supply
ID#: N82E16817171056
Cost: $200.00

 

[Umbongo]

The pros are the i7 has hyper threading and has a faster clock speed, the cons are it costs more. There are a bajillion benchmarks out there that basically say "go with the i5 if gaming is the primary processor intensive use". The i7 offers more to other processing tasks than it does to your FPS rate.

 

[ghnader hsmithot]

dont forget the extra 2mb of cache!

 

[Daave12]

The i7 is Intel’s top-range chip. It is designed for the best performance Intel can currently offer. They are significantly faster than the chips they replaced (LGA775).
The i5 line is a mid-range/budget chip. It is meant for applications where cost is more important than overall performance. It’s secondary function is a replacement for LGA775 (Core 2) processors in the Intel product line.

 

[Emperus]

www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/288?vs=287

The above link shows a comparison between the i5 2500k and the i7 2600k. Check out the relevant benchmarks. If they make you feel that the i7 is worth the extra 100$ then sure go for it. If you have no budget limits then might as well drop all analysis and get the i7 2600k. Its currently the fastest desktop processor available.

 

[IntelEnthusiast]

The differences between the Intel® Core™ i5-2500K and the Intel Core i7-2600K come down to just two things. The Intel Core i7-2600K has hyper-threading which allows support for 4 additional threads to be run at the same time. Because of the hyper-threading software like video/audio edit or some other heavily multi-threaded applications can receive a performance boost. Also the Intel Core i7-2600K is clocked 100MHz faster than the Intel Core i5-2500K. Now sense there are very few games that will take advantage of more than 3 threads the value for hyper-threading on a gaming computer is very minimal. So if you are building this system for gaming you need to ask your self is it worth $100 to get a 100MHz performance increase? Most of gamer out there don’t believe so.

Christian Wood
Intel Enthusiast Team