Intel Core i7 2600 vs Intel Core i5 3570K for Gaming & Image Editing/4K Timelapse Rendering

[L0n3Gr3yW0lf]

Hi, I bought an ASRock Z68 Extreme 3 Gen. 3 motherboard from a friend so I can build a PC, to replace my ASUS X550LB laptop, for my image editing needs.

I mostly do exposure and color manipulation in Lightroom but where I do pull the most out of my laptop is panorama stitching, from a couple of 16MP images to hundreds (when I use long telephoto lenses) RAW images. The main reason I need a PC is for RAM, lots and lots of RAM, 32 is what I can get at most with my new motherboard but I would have loved 64GB or more, and a more powerful CPU to render thousands of images into time lapse video that I want to export as 4K or maybe even 8K for future proofing (without having to save hundreds of thousands of images for years).

I also like to game when I can (StarCraft II, Team Fortress 2, World of Tanks and newer games too).

My question is would i7 make a big enough difference in rendering/exporting 1080p and higher resolution video to an overclocked i5 (can't find i7 2600K at the moment). Or would the newer 22nm tech have better performance (overclocked too)?

Also I am hoping this PC will keep up for 4 years of use (can't afford the new tech right now)

PS. I have a 240GB SSD and I plan to add a few more (120GB maybe) for catching/temp. The GPU that I have is a eVGA GeForce GTX 460.

 

[xFeaRDom]

The i7 2600 would make a significant difference when it comes to rendering. As it has 4 cores 8 threads, and the i7 chip has Hyperthreading technology, so it would make it significantly faster as it would be quicker to render each frame. Hyperthreading technology will allow the render to be spread out over 4 cores/8 threads rather than the i5 3570K only having 4 cores and 4 threads.

When rendering, I do not believe that the overclocked 3570K will be better than the 2600, as the GHz does not make everything. The hyperthreading (2 threads per core) will assist and most likely make a great difference when rendering/exporting.

Although the 3570K allows overclocking, I still believe that the 2600 would be considerably faster when rendering.

Gaming wise, it would still be able to run many games, although i7's are not exactly recommended for gaming, as there is not a considerable difference between the i5 (in most chips) and the i7 when it comes to gaming. But you will still be able to play games at high quality.