6600 or 6500... Long term PC

[Gonçalo Tomás]

I saw a topic here on LTT and people where comparing the performance of the 6600K with the 6500. I was planning to overclock the CPU but here in Portugal the difference in price is too much to justify a 2-6 fps like improvement…between 6600k/6600/6500.  

 

I want to build a PC that I know it will perform well in 3 - 4.5 years….playing games between 45-60 fps on ultra. For example: BF4, BFH, Battlefront, Crysis 3, Need for speed underground 3, GRID Autosport, F1….. (I like First person shooters and racing games).

For that reason I will be investing on a solid but not crazy expensive 1080p monitor because I don’t see any reason to go 1440p knowing that games through the years get hard to run on old hardware and the resolution will already be struggling the GTX 970. And 4k monitors by the time of the 4^th year of using this pc will be mainstream…So Investing on 1440p just makes it harder to accomplish the 60fps and it’s more expensive knowing, once again, that 4k will be around the corner at that time and then I will jump straight to 4k.

 

I will only be doing web browsing and word type of work…nothing CPU intensive except gaming. And I thought that  i5 would be perfect to go through 4 years of word and gaming but the “K” it’s very expensive. Now the problem… if I choose the 6600K I will need to buy a expensive mobo, a expensive cooler and the CPU will be more expensive. Where if I choose a 6600 or a 6500 I will save money by going with a non K and the cooler can be the stock one paired with a much cheaper mobo… H170.  

 

Anyways, I think that by going with a GTX 970 which is a GPU targeted for 1440p on a 1080p monitor and i5 6600/6500 I will be getting good performance. But I need a opinion concerning which one to get!!!! I couldn’t find a comparison between these two processors. I already have a case plus a hard drive and in the near future I will be adding a 256GB  SSD when I feel like it or when the SSD price gets cheaper.

 

The K build:

 

http://www.pcdiga.com/2/18064/Motherboard-MSI-Z170A-Krait-Gaming

http://www.pcdiga.com/2/17863/Intel-Core-i5-6600K-3-5GHz-6MB-Sk1151-BX80662I56600K

http://www.pcdiga.com/2/18136/Gskill-Ripjaws-V-DDR4-2133MHz-2x4GB-F4-2133C15D-8GVR

http://www.pcdiga.com/2/17810/Grafica-MSI-GTX970-Armor-4GD5T-OC-912-V316-035

http://www.chiptec.net/componentes-para-computadores/fontes/fontes-de-alimentacao/enermax-maxpro-600w.html?

http://www.chiptec.net/componentes-para-computadores/cooling/watercooling/enermax-liqmax-ii-240.html?  

TOTAL: 993.5 €

 

The NK build 6500/6600 (just replace the correspondent parts):

 

http://www.pcdiga.com/2/18375/Motherboard-MSI-H170-GAMING-M3

http://www.pcdiga.com/2/18449/Intel-Core-i5-6500-3-2GHz-6MB-Sk1151-BX80662I56500

OR

http://www.pcdiga.com/2/18446/Intel-Core-i5-6600-3-3GHz-6MB-Sk1151-BX80662I56600

http://www.chiptec.net/componentes-para-computadores/cooling/coolers-para-cpu/cooler-master-hyper-212-evo.html?___SID=U

TOTAL: 875.50 € OR 895.90

 

 

As you can see the difference is around 100€ (97€) if I choose to go with the K of the 6600. My question is: “Is it worth it or is it overkill for my scenario?”

 

Sorry for reading such a long thought… I will be thanking everyone that participates on this topic! 

[Egad]

R9 390 for the video card, additional VRAM and better context switching is a better bet right now if your goal is 3 to 4 years of gaming with reasonable performance.  

 

Do you plan on a significant overclock?  If yes, buy the 6600K, if no, buy the 6500.

[Gonçalo Tomás]

R9 390 for the video card, additional VRAM and better context switching is a better bet right now if your cool is 3 to 4 years of gaming with reasonable performance.  

 

Do you plan on a significant overclock?  If yes, buy the 6600K, if no, buy the 6500.

I really wanted to go with the R9 390 Nitro sapphire or the MSI but it's so much expensive here in Portugal...

[Nena Trinity]

I personally feel OCable is the safest option!

[Gonçalo Tomás]

I personally feel OCable is the safest option!

I know part of me knows it's the safest bet going with "K" but the other part of me wants to save money....

[Nena Trinity]

Then save money cause the 1151 is so new and you probably if Intel is not gonna be douchy then you can get Cannonlake 8-core later?

[Gonçalo Tomás]

Then save money cause the 1151 is so new and you probably if Intel is not gonna be douchy then you can get Cannonlake 8-core later?

If you add the price of the AIO cooler with the 6600K it will be as expensive as buying a 6700 stock. Will a 6700 stock be better on gaming than a i5 6600k overclocked? 

[Egad]

I don't think the K is really safer.  I'd say the general rule for overclocking is it improves your experience within a range.  Like it makes a good experience better, but it can't make a shitty experience great.  Unless you really win the silicon lottery and get a beast.  

 

Given the R9 is pricier, I'd save money now and go 6500 and 970.  The reality is right now Windows 10 is primarily gaining market share at the expense of Windows 8.1 and Windows 7 is holding stable at 50% of the market.  So this means developers are going to either need to produce games that run well on DX11 for quite some time and the GTX 970 is a strong DX11 card.  They can't just go all in on DX12 at this point, unless MS pays them off to make a DX12 showpiece.  

[Egad]

If you add the price of the AIO cooler with the 6600K it will be as expensive as buying a 6700 stock. Will a 6700 stock be better on gaming than a i5 6600k overclocked? 

 

Yes, but you're not really going to use the extra threads in gaming right now.  Keep the cash in your pocket and upgrade later.  6700 prices will only drop as additional CPUs come out.  Or as Nena said you might want to jump right to a Cannonlake depending on what Intel offers.  The current Skylake CPUs are really only our first sniff of the new stuff, no reason to go all in on the appetizers they're currently tossing over the walls.  

[Nena Trinity]

If you add the price of the AIO cooler with the 6600K it will be as expensive as buying a 6700 stock. Will a 6700 stock be better on gaming than a i5 6600k overclocked? 

In DX12 sure for other games that is random depends on optimization!

[Gonçalo Tomás]

Yes, but you're not really going to use the extra threads in gaming right now.  Keep the cash in your pocket and upgrade later.  6700 prices will only drop as additional CPUs come out.  Or as Nena said you might want to jump right to a Cannonlake depending on what Intel offers.  The current Skylake CPUs are really only our first sniff of the new stuff, no reason to go all in on the appetizers they're currently tossing over the walls.

I have a small question... Do we need a Z170 board to do a blck overclock or does a H170 has the capability of doing blck overclocking? If so, it could be good to add to the 3.9Ghz of the 6600.