I5-3570k OR i7-3770k for Gaming

[Stephen72000]

Hello Tomshardware!

Been traversing a few forums and have decided to just ask you guys:

i5-3570k or i7-3770k
I have a GTX 680 as a GPU

Play tons of Battlefield 3, I truly just play games, that pretty much sums it up.

so, assuming I could acquire said 3770k, which would be better for

a) Future proofing
b) performance for games
c) Money? (Not very important to me)


I figured I would ask the expects and get some well rounded opinions, thanks guys!!

P.S. I need recommendations for which Z77 Mobo, under 200$, I like Asus but I will accept all reccomendations!

Thanks again guys!

 

[bearclaw99]

The i7 will give you zero extra performance for games over the i5

The ASRock Extremes are good budget boards. I've had a P67 Extreme 4 for the last 16 months with no problems. Never even exchanged it due to the SATA port problem because I have plenty of S3

As with SB, you are much better off getting the i5 3570K and using the $100 towards a better video card (or in your pocket)

 

[basch99]

For the CPU,

core i5-3570K vs the core i7-3770K

Both are excellent choices but if you think a few frames per second makes that much of a difference and price doesn't really matter, get the i7-3770K because you can overclock a bit more easily because of the higher clock rate. However, both are indeed quad-core CPUs, so general applications will feel very similar to each other. But looking at the gaming section of this http://www.bittech.net/hardware/cpus/2012/05/01/intel-core-i5-3570k-cpu-review/1
a highly overclocked i5-3570K can actually beat the i7-3770K. I am not completely abidding by this website's benchmarks but as far as I'm concerned there is little difference and the best bet in your case is the i7-3770K.

as for a Z77 mobo,

you can get two options if SLi is your thing:

ASRock Z77 Extreme6 LGA 1155 Intel Z77 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard $139.99
This one offers a sweet spot between quality and performance and quite frankly, it has all the ports you need. This has a bit more PCI-lanes (not PCI 3.0 x16 lanes as both these two have two)

BIOSTAR TZ77XE3 LGA 1155 Intel Z77 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard with UEFI BIOS
This one is very similar to the one before, only that it's cheaper and priced at $121.99

There is a $169.99 variation of the first one (ASRock Z77 Extreme6 LGA 1155 Intel Z77 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard), however, the features are extremely similar and you are better off getting the cheaper version.

One step down is:
BIOSTAR TZ77B LGA 1155 Intel Z77 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard with UEFI BIOS $99.99
The main thing about this is the presence of only one PCI 3.0 x16 lane, which renders SLi unfeasable unless GTX 690 is your type of thing.

 

[digdog]

hmm.. besides the fact that you can just read the listings on newegg, go with 3570k and ASrock extreme 4; no reason to get the 6, it's the same thing.

 

[bwrlane]

If it's just games, you want the i5. The i7 has no performance advantage in games. However, it comes into its own with applications that are heavily threaded and CPU limited. Examples are photo/video editing, video transcoding, modelling and simulation.

 

[Azok]

Just to reaffirm... 3570k

 

[sarinaide]

Simple answer and hopefully one worthy of the best answer moniker as it is to the point with no confussion involved.

If you are gaming you don't need more than a 3570K, and no it is not a random thumbsuck.

 

[ilikepcgaming]

The i7 will give you zero extra performance for games over the i5

The ASRock Extremes are good budget boards. I've had a P67 Extreme 4 for the last 16 months with no problems. Never even exchanged it due to the SATA port problem because I have plenty of S3

As with SB, you are much better off getting the i5 3570K and using the $100 towards a better video card (or in your pocket)

he said he had a gtx 680 i dont think it could get any better with $100

 

[Stephen72000]

he said he had a gtx 680 i dont think it could get any better with $100

Haha yeah I thought that too but hey it was still good advice!



So I went with the i5-3570k and the ASRock Extreme6, I'll get back to how that Mobo does, I had mixed feelings about it but I just couldn't find an Asus that really jumped at me.

P.S. This is my OFFICIAL switch from AMD to Intel.

Went FROM:
2 x 6870 in Crossfire (HUGE Bottleneck on CPU though)
Phenom II 965 (Quad core @ 3.4) [BF3 was huge bottleneck, 50% MAX on each of the cards]

I'm hoping this will put me OVER the top haha. Thanks for all of the reaffirmations guys I needed that!

 

[Stephen72000]

Best answer selected by Stephen72000.