upgrading to an i5 or i7

[thdarkshadow]

I have an i3 3220 right now (gpu doesnt matter as that will be upgraded to a 7950 or nvidia equivelent) and I am looking at upgrading. I am a gamer that plays crysis series, assassins creed, battlefield, call of duty and just about anything. I want to be able to max stuff and not worry about the cpu for several years. my main thing is that i dont want to spend over 200 and it last me only 1-2 years. so will the hyperthreading on the i7 make a difference in say 3 years? I want to spend my money wisely and not waste an upgreade like I have done before but also come out with a great experience. for i5 it would be ($220) 3570k or ($180) 3470 depends on if I decide to overclock down the road and the i7 would be ($320) 3770k or ($290) non k again depends on me and overclocking. any help is welcome also how much can really be gained from overclocking an i5 or i7? I know the overclocking i have done on low end stuff has ended with almost no change in performance

 

[hobson]

Is there a Micro Center near you? I just bought an Intel i7 3770k for $229. If you have time you may want to wait 6 months, save some money, and get the new 4th generation Haswell processor, or better yet if you do not have a Micro Center near you, still wait, and you will be able to get that 3770k considerably cheaper due to the new release. The i5 is a great processor, for the moment, but unless you plan on overclocking it to 4.7ghz it may not satisfy you as long as you hope it will.

You can overclock the i5 sandy bridge to the same frequency as an i7 ivy bridge for the most part, and have cooler temperatures with the i5, strange but thats what the word is. The i7 ivy bridge isnt as overclock friendly. So if you want a great processor out the box that flies and dont want to worry about the degradation of your processor get the i7 3770k (though a little more dough) or if you want to experiment and bargain shop go with the i5 3570k (if micro center not available) or lastly, save and splurge on the haswell and get 10% better performance at a 30% higher cost.

 

[hobson]

Another thing, especially if your primary use is gaming. There is a lot of technology around the bend. There is the haswell as i have mentioned and there isnt a really a huge slate of games coming out untill this fall, most of the with TBA dates. I bring this up also because you are debating the cpu more heavily than the gpu. I just built a new system out of necessity but i wish i couldve waited a year, theres about to be a whole stream of graphics cards and next gen games, if you have patience and believe me I dont, i would wait out the market. if you buy right now your buying for games that are just the tip of what the next gen is going to do. believe me crysis 3 looks great, but youre going to need 2 660ti to max that out. If you can save i would wait, really i would. You will have a better idea of what you REALLY want and what your building for, after this fall, youll be able to actually tell what you will need to coast the next few years.

 

[Flakkattack]

Another thing, especially if your primary use is gaming. There is a lot of technology around the bend. There is the haswell as i have mentioned and there isnt a really a huge slate of games coming out untill this fall, most of the with TBA dates. I bring this up also because you are debating the cpu more heavily than the gpu. I just built a new system out of necessity but i wish i couldve waited a year, theres about to be a whole stream of graphics cards and next gen games, if you have patience and believe me I dont, i would wait out the market. if you buy right now your buying for games that are just the tip of what the next gen is going to do. believe me crysis 3 looks great, but youre going to need 2 660ti to max that out. If you can save i would wait, really i would. You will have a better idea of what you REALLY want and what your building for, after this fall, youll be able to actually tell what you will need to coast the next few years.

I vote hobson with the best answer.
Very well put sir, and a very good point about next gen gaming and gpu's. The Haswell looks good an all, but you know how it goes for new stuff. Some gpu's that came out almost a year ago are still 230$ or more. Can only imagine what the Haswell or next gen gaming gpu's will cost.

I saw one the other day for a freaking 1000$...
I guess if you have the bread, might as well though.

 

[thdarkshadow]

Haswell is a different socket so that would mean a new motherboard which I'm not willing to do this year. Actually the i7 from what I could find overclocked to the same ghz as the i5. I am not buying for a little while since i like to research over a long period of time. thing is on waiting i dont want to wait till this time next year to get a new gpu. the next gen is expected next year and by the time they release more than the top card it will be several months in

 

[ManofDestiny]

I would only wait until this holiday season or some other time when you can find stupid good deals on graphics cards. However, as for haswell, i would think you could get by on your i3 if you wanted to wait. I suggest you wait if at all possible for a i5 or i7 haswell because at the very least it will have a slight increase in performance and the motherboards (eg. Z87 or Z88) will be able to support PCI gen. 3 and in an article i saw support for 3 PCI gen. 3. I have looked into this a lot(weather 4 core or 8 virtual/real core would be best utilized in the 5-7 years) I have found everybody suggesting for gaming to get i5 because the current games currently do not support more than 4 usually, however with the next gen. of consoles both being eight cores with more PC like hardware, I suspect that more multi-threaded support will actually be on the way. I also forgot to mention that haswell has been highly rumored to be better for overclocking, i believe someone from intel tweeted or leaked something along the lines of "haswell has something in store for overclockers, which could be hinting and the cheap thermal compound used on the CPU hotplate. If you didn't know, that was one of the biggest factors in why ivy will run so hot when overclocking. Another point is that on the ivy bridge and sandy bridge CPUs the CPU frequency and the memory or uncore frequency(i believe, will post article below) which meant if you touched the baseclock at all then the uncore would become unstable and possibly destroy the CPU. But on haswell they are suspected of having fixed this, which means crazy good oldschool overclocking will be back and performance will be reaped.So bottom line, if you cant wait then get ivy i7 but if you can then wait for haswell, especially if you would like to overclock.

Note: I am fairly sure you can purchase overclocking insurance from intel for under $30(US) if you are interested but afraid of damage.

http://www.overclock.net/t/1348242/hcw-intel-haswell-overclocking-preview-the-return-of-bclk-overclocking
http://www.hardcoreware.net/intel-haswell-base-clock-overclocking/

 

[Gennaios]

i would like to mention that again!there is no game that can fully use the max power an i7 can give in gaming!so its a bit waste of money!if you use the i7 for rendering then go get one!i5 was first made for games so if you build a system mostly for playing games you should go and get an i5 probably an 3570 or an 3570k in case you want to oc it!

 

[hobson]

Ahh yes, I did get caught up in it all and forgot you weren't building from scratch, haswell would be out of the picture without a new mobo. It seems that I underrated the 3570k but that was only because he mentioned ''future proofing'' it for the next 3+ years. I think you should try for the 3770k and a gtx670 or 680, then in a year or so grab another one for a SLI setup, IMO.

 

[ManofDestiny]

i would like to mention that again!there is no game that can fully use the max power an i7 can give in gaming!so its a bit waste of money!if you use the i7 for rendering then go get one!i5 was first made for games so if you build a system mostly for playing games you should go and get an i5 probably an 3570 or an 3570k in case you want to oc it!

This may be true now and for the next year or maybe two, but dont you think that with every device and machine getting more cores developers for games and other applications? Consoles are sadly the driving force of the game industry and with eight core x86 CPUs with low clock speeds, multitasking and better multi-core support will become a reality. Another point is that nearly every computer in use now is multi-core, so single and possible dual core support will no longer be. I dont claim to know how quickly, but i almost expect it to be within the next 4-5 years. Especially with phones having several cores( such as samsung S4 being a 4 or 8 core phone), you cannot deny that multi-threading will become more common.

Please do not take this as offensive i just want a good discussion of the near future higher core count support.

 

[hobson]

i would like to mention that again!there is no game that can fully use the max power an i7 can give in gaming!so its a bit waste of money!if you use the i7 for rendering then go get one!i5 was first made for games so if you build a system mostly for playing games you should go and get an i5 probably an 3570 or an 3570k in case you want to oc it!

This may be true now and for the next year or maybe two, but dont you think that with every device and machine getting more cores developers for games and other applications? Consoles are sadly the driving force of the game industry and with eight core x86 CPUs with low clock speeds, multitasking and better multi-core support will become a reality. Another point is that nearly every computer in use now is multi-core, so single and possible dual core support will no longer be. I dont claim to know how quickly, but i almost expect it to be within the next 4-5 years. Especially with phones having several cores( such as samsung S4 being a 4 or 8 core phone), you cannot deny that multi-threading will become more common.

Please do not take this as offensive i just want a good discussion of the near future higher core count support.

This is pretty much what i was trying to get at, yes the 3770k may seem like overkill now, but you do have the hyper threading and game developers are now starting to utilize it. If you can get it at a cost that you can afford, it really couldnt be a better option, its a respectable processor that you can take into a new build if you decide to in the coming years.

 

[ManofDestiny]

Sorry that i did not quite pick that up hobson, but i could not agree anymore.

 

[hobson]

Sorry that i did not quite pick that up hobson, but i could not agree anymore.

not a problem!

 

[logainofhades]

i would like to mention that again!there is no game that can fully use the max power an i7 can give in gaming!so its a bit waste of money!if you use the i7 for rendering then go get one!i5 was first made for games so if you build a system mostly for playing games you should go and get an i5 probably an 3570 or an 3570k in case you want to oc it!

Actually, Crysis 3 appears to be the exception to that rule.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/crysis-3-performance-benchmark-gaming,3451-8.html

 

[ManofDestiny]

Actually, Crysis 3 appears to be the exception to that rule.

That and i believe battlefield can actually utilize 4 cores, which is probably just the beginning.

 

[Gennaios]

i dont get what this has to do with what i said!anyway in the new few years you wont see new cpus with many cores such as 8core 12 core!as intel said!i mean there is one 8core the 8350 which we all know does not give the power of an 8core!
there are many multiple core cpus as intel xeon 12 core!dual 12 core cpus and so on!in some nasas super computeres there are more than 120000 cores running at more than 3000ghz!anyway in the next years the most commong cpus would be the 4cores and 2cores!intel said that nowadays the cpus have become very powerful for any game to come out within the next....(many years)!

to conclude my comment!six cores will be the max for a cpu for many years because for gaming 4 cores are more than great and companies seem start to understand this!thats why Hasswell cpus have only 2-3 cores!

multiple core cpus(8-12-16 cores with low clock speeds)are not made for gaming but only for multitasking!i mean rendering!only then!even that so a 12 core wont work properly in games!

and just to inform you!there is not going to be a six core cpu in a phone!i hope so!

 

[Gennaios]

firstly not all benchmarks are remarkable!i have made mine so i can really tell you how it is!
anyway frame rate is related to the graphics card and not(mostly)to the cpu!
but you cannot build a pc putting every part you want!i mean there has to be a connection between the cpu and graphics card!one 3930k (why to get this for gaming?no sense) is not giving its 100% is these benchmarks thats for sure and thats what i meant!an i7 with 1155 socket may reach at a 48% usage at heavy games!imagine +2 cores and new technology of the 3930k!35-30% working...a waste!(friendly)

 

[thdarkshadow]

wow someone likes exclamation marks... anyways thanks for all yalls opinion on it I believe for a few months I will stick with my cpu and put the money I was going to spend on that towards a graphics card. about battlefield 3 I think it actually can use more than four cores if my memory is right but i havent even bought that game yet. as far as graphic cards go I believe that I will be getting the 7950 because it has crysis 3 free and my motherboard supports crossfire but not sli didnt realize that when i bought it but oh well. thanks again for all the help

 

[ManofDestiny]

I believe that will probably be most advantageous for you, thedarkshadow, and i have heard and found a lot of people saying that a radeon 7950 is a really good gpu for its price.

And thank you for coming back to argue the other side Gennios. Although i did not say anything about six core processors, i do believe them to be a complete waste for gamers. Also i did not say any thing more than 8 cores, in which i believe i mentioned that i was refering to intels i7 8 virtual cores. And currently you are right there are no games to fully use the i7s full potential, but that is what i and some of the others are trying to say. With the i7 ivy or haswell or other semi new 8 real/virtual core CPU can future proof a system essentially, most likely until the next gen console generation or really heavy games, software, or applications become prevalent. Lastly i have mentioned intel haswell because of its own performance as well as all of the leaking specs on the Z87 motherboard look incredible.
Hope you have as much fun and learning as i have from this discussion.

 

[Gennaios]

actually....its Gennaios dude!

 

[ManofDestiny]

actually....its Gennaios dude!

Sorry if i offended you? hard to tell when you you use exclamations for nearly everything.

 

[Flakkattack]

I believe that will probably be most advantageous for you, thedarkshadow, and i have heard and found a lot of people saying that a radeon 7950 is a really good gpu for its price.

And thank you for coming back to argue the other side Gennios. Although i did not say anything about six core processors, i do believe them to be a complete waste for gamers. Also i did not say any thing more than 8 cores, in which i believe i mentioned that i was refering to intels i7 8 virtual cores. And currently you are right there are no games to fully use the i7s full potential, but that is what i and some of the others are trying to say. With the i7 ivy or haswell or other semi new 8 real/virtual core CPU can future proof a system essentially, most likely until the next gen console generation or really heavy games, software, or applications become prevalent. Lastly i have mentioned intel haswell because of its own performance as well as all of the leaking specs on the Z87 motherboard look incredible.
Hope you have as much fun and learning as i have from this discussion.

Totally agree with you here on this one. Good answer!

 

[logainofhades]

A sapphire 7870XT is Tahiti based and nearly as fast as a 7950 for less $$$. There are others making similar cards as well.

 

[thdarkshadow]

A sapphire 7870XT is Tahiti based and nearly as fast as a 7950 for less $$$. There are others making similar cards as well.

yeah but its $10 difference to go with 7950 if I include the price of crysis 3 which I REALLY want.

 

[logainofhades]

A sapphire 7870XT is Tahiti based and nearly as fast as a 7950 for less $$$. There are others making similar cards as well.

yeah but its $10 difference to go with 7950 if I include the price of crysis 3 which I REALLY want.

Yea, in your case, that does make good sense.