2500k vs 3570k vs 3550

[S0L0]

I am building a new gaming rig with z77 mobo and a 7850. I don't plan on overclocking, will the k's give any advantage over the 3550?

 

[hellfire24]

no,if you are not overclocking then go with 3550.

 

[Pinhedd]

The only real advantage that the k series offers is an unlocked multiplier. Sometimes they actually ship without other features such as VT-d and V-Pro.

Look up each processor on http://ark.intel.com/ to see what each has and doesn't have, you can easily use the compare tool to put them all side by side.

Let me know if you are unclear on anything and I will gladly help

 

[amuffin]

Here's some reason why you should always buy the K version.

Every 18 months intel releases new processors, this puts your processor X% slower. If you overclock, you can reach that percentage and be on par and/or surpass the newer processor performance.

 

[hellfire24]

Here's some reason why you should always buy the K version.

Every 18 months intel releases new processors, this puts your processor X% slower. If you overclock, you can reach that percentage and be on par and/or surpass the newer processor performance.

yeah but OP said he is not going to OC.
@OP,you don't need a high end z77 board if you are not overclocking.

 

[InvalidError]

Here's some reason why you should always buy the K version.

Every 18 months intel releases new processors, this puts your processor X% slower.

That would be a wonky reason, your existing CPU is not getting any slower and not everyone feels an urge to try keeping up with the latest and greatest all the time.

I'm still perfectly fine with my E8400 running at stock 3GHz, the only times I overclocked it was for burn-in testing the CPU @ 3.5GHz and RAM @ ~440MHz.

The only reason I might pick the 3570k is that it is currently only $20 more expensive than the cheapest i5-3xxx available at my local computer store.

To OP: Since you do not want to overclock (the only major benefit of K-chips), you will be perfectly fine with non-K models. Also, if you do not plan to ever want to do SLI/Crossfire, you can step down to h77 chipset boards to shave another ~$30 off the motherboard price. If you do not want to use Intel's SSD cache technologies either, you can take yet another step down to b77 chipset to save another $10-20.

 

[S0L0]

Best answer selected by S0L0.