i5-7400 vs i5-7600K

[KingPete12]

I’m still relatively new to the PC building game but I have recently put together a few budget machines for the family so we can all play Fortnite together. My sons build is is the one in question since I started with a pre-built HP and stripped it down to try and save a few bucks. Aiming to get him at 144 FPS I thought the i5-7400 that was in that system would be enough, but we just got him a 1660ti for Christmas and the CPU usage is 100% and stuttering pretty bad unless I limit the frame rate to 60 FPS. Everything worked fine on the old setup but that was only a Radeon r7 card that barely got 60 even with medium settings. The on screen counter and MSI afterburner both show he’s getting about 90 FPS with everything set to epic but the cpu usage is pegged at 100% on all cores with anything but 60 locked. Long story short I have found an i5-7600K on a local marketplace for about $100 and I am wondering if that speed increase will make the game playable or would it need to be a jump into an i7 to get the extra threads? I don’t really have the money to upgrade it all now and since I just built 4 machines so even the $100 is pushing it but if the upgrade won’t make a difference I guess all we can do is leave it locked for now. The monitor is a dell bby-3cy31e 24” and this is the rest of the specs
 

Intel core i5-7400 cpu

Stock CPU cooler

2x8GB Samsung 2400mhz DDR4 ram

Insignia 550 watt 80 plus Bronze power supply

GTX 1660 Ti 6GB GDDR6 GPU

Inland pro 256GB M.2 boot drive

Toshiba 1TB 7200 RPM HHD

AS Rock Z270 Killer Mobo

so far fortnite and roblox is all we play but I’d like to do some overwatch and apex in the future. Any help is appreciated. Thanks

[Jurrunio]

7 minutes ago, KingPete12 said:

I am wondering if that speed increase will make the game playable

I mean, 60fps and 90fps are both plenty playable

[Fasauceome]

The 7400 is pretty terrible, the 7600K would be a big improvement but it's hard to justify for its usual asking price in the used market. The $100 asking price is not so bad but I'd favor an $80 price point quite a lot more

[KingPete12]

2 minutes ago, Jurrunio said:

I mean, 60fps and 90fps are both plenty playable

Sorry I meant playable at 144 FPS. I agree that it is enough but he saw how smooth mine is at 120 and the idea was getting him the better GPU would have accomplished that. 

[Sorenson]

I would say go for the 7600k as long since you have an overclockable motherboard. A 4 core cpu can still do pretty well especially if you raise the clock speeds a bit, but you will probably need a better cooler. You still will probably be cpu bottlenecked, but I use to play PUBG really well on a 6600k.

[Jurrunio]

26 minutes ago, KingPete12 said:

Sorry I meant playable at 144 FPS. I agree that it is enough but he saw how smooth mine is at 120 and the idea was getting him the better GPU would have accomplished that. 

apart from 7600k, you should also check out the older 6600k and 6700k. Same technology anyway

[MadAnt250]

1 hour ago, Fasauceome said:

The 7400 is pretty terrible

No, it is not terrible, except the price, but performance is fine.

 

1 hour ago, KingPete12 said:

I have found an i5-7600K on a local marketplace for about $100

If it works right then I say yes, and maybe there is some haggle room. Your may have a little to moderate fps increase in some games and lowering the game's detail settings along with lowering the AA setting will help a bit.

[Fasauceome]

42 minutes ago, MadAnt250 said:

No, it is not terrible, except the price, but performance is fine.

 

from personal experience I'd have to disagree, it struggled in most of the titles I played most

[VEXICUS]

The i5 6400 and 7400 are known to have stuttering issues. Same happened when I paired my 980ti lightening with my wifeys i5 6400.

I'll recommend to wait a bit and upgrade to a Ryzen based system later on. Also, $100 for a 7600k isn't worth it.

[brob]

If you are buying used you can probably get an i7-7700K for a price similar to an I5-7600K.

[KingPete12]

I originally considered the 7700k but the price kinda excludes it for me. I just wasn’t sure if the 7600k would be enough of an improvement over the 7400 to get to at least 120 FPS in those games. I agree for the around $250- $300 eBay price range for a 7700k I might as well just wait and go Ryzen 2600X with a new board

[VEXICUS]

I'll recommend you to sell your CPU + Mobo combo for around $120-130.

 

And purchase this...

You can reuse your memory. Just OC it as high as possible.

 

PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 1600 3.2 GHz 6-Core Processor  ($85.00) The Ryzen 5 1600 AF is available on amazon.com for $85. It is basically a Ryzen 5 2600 with first gen IMC. It is based on 12nm.
Motherboard: MSI B450M PRO-VDH MAX Micro ATX AM4 Motherboard  ($79.98 @ Amazon) Pretty decent Mobo for it's price.
Total: $164.98
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2020-01-15 08:25 EST-0500

 

[MadAnt250]

On 1/14/2020 at 11:24 PM, Fasauceome said:

from personal experience I'd have to disagree, it struggled in most of the titles I played most

From personal experience, It performed fine for me at a locked 60-75fps, I do not know what games you played where the 7400 struggled in, but the few games that I know where it may struggle are not that well optimized or to demanding to keep a steady 60fps.

 

Some of us don't have deep pockets and sometimes just being able to play games is enough.

[MadAnt250]

12 hours ago, KingPete12 said:

I agree for the around $250- $300 eBay price range for a 7700k I might as well just wait and go Ryzen 2600X with a new board

2600x and 2700x are good value, and they come with a cooler. I upgraded to the 2600x from a 7400 and noticed an improvement, the i5 7400 was ok but the 2600x was better. So, from what I can gather from the intel 6th and 7th gen used market, is that Ryzen is the way to go because prices just keep getting more affordable.