Debate

[Guest]

Friends building a computer to play games and has recie Ed some poor advice but I'll let you decide. He's looking at CPUs...his budget is around $800-$900. Which CPU and why

i5 sandy bridge
i7 sandy bridge
i7 760

 

[adam1712]

i7 2500K is pretty much the most recomended cpu you can get right now. I just built my first system with a 2600K and apart from HT and an extra £100 theres not much difference. I only got the 2600K because i was getting it on finance and liked the bragging rights. They are SIMPLE to overclock and you get more performance for your money than anything else. I work in £ not $ so i dont know how much that would leave you for a gpu but a 560ti plus the other stuff shouldnt be too far off budget

 

[simon12]

+1 i5 2500K is the best gaming CPU you can get.

 

[Guest]

That's my argument I suggested the i5 because it runs cooler and the only difference is by which isn't really utilized for gaming so it's not worth he money

 

[christop]

Go with the I5 2500k FTW..

 

[Guest]

*HT

 

[empier1988]

bump

 

[blackhawk1928]

Currently, the Intel i5-2500K is the best gaming processor for the money. The best gaming processor hands down, on the 1155 socket at least, is the i7-2600K. The i7-2600K may not be worth to get for the extra price, but it is more powerful and you may see that come in handy in new games playing on very high resolutions and settings.

For a budget of $800-$900 I would hands down, go with the i5-2500K. The money saved from getting the i7 would give you far more benefit in putting that money into a better GPU, because your i5 is unlikely to be a bottleneck compared to your GPU.

 

[Wisecracker]

Gaming is roughly 1/3 CPU -- 2/3 GPU

An i3 or AMD Phenom with a high-end card will spank an i5/i7 with a low- to mid-range card.

 

[blackhawk1928]

^That really depends on the game and the types of processes (AA, AF, Physics...etc)

 

[simon12]

^ and the resolution, but its a good generalisation.

 

[jaguarskx]

Get the i5-2500k instead of the i5-2600k since games do not take advatange of Hyper Threading (HT). However, if you do video encoding and/or 3D rendering, then HT can improve performance.