FX-9590 vs. i5-4690k

[sebastien calvignac]

Hi, i would like to know if you guys think its worth the extra money to get the FX-9590 over the 4690k and their pros/cons. Im starting a build from scratch and have no bias over each company since its my first build so yeah...

 

Thank you for any help.

 

EDIT: and what are the (OEM/Tray) versions ?

[tiny voices]

4690k FOR SURE. THe 9590 has ALL kinds of issues. Don't even consider it.

[Dive5885]

Hi, i would like to know if you guys think its worth the extra money to get the FX-9590 over the 4690k and their pros/cons. Im starting a build from scratch and have no bias over each company since its my first build so yeah...

 

Thank you for any help.

If you plan on getting anything AMD just get a 8350 and Overclock it.

 

A 9590 is just a highly Overclocked 8350.

[Brandogg255]

4690k the 9590 is a heater and for gaming the intel stuff is better atm.

[connorpiper]

Please stay away from the "Flagship" 9590. 220W TDP!

4690K

[Jarif yasar]

Go for a 8350 overclock it and spend more on your gpu

[Speedyv]

The 9590 is pretty much a convection oven.

 

Go 4690K, you can't go wrong.

[tiny voices]

An OEM/TRAY CPU is JUCK the chip, no cooler/manual/box.

[Enderman]

The only people who should ever buy a 9590 are AMD fanboys. If you are not, never buy that CPU. Just don't.

[Clyne]

Unless you want a space heater, a rise in energy costs, having bottlenecks in games, buying a expensive mobo to handle the 9590 then buy a i5 4690K

[sebastien calvignac]

4690k FOR SURE. THe 9590 has ALL kinds of issues. Don't even consider it.

 

If you plan on getting anything AMD just get a 8350 and Overclock it.

 

A 9590 is just a highly Overclocked 8350.

 

4690k the 9590 is a heater and for gaming the intel stuff is better atm.

 

Please stay away from the "Flagship" 9590. 220W TDP!

4690K

 

Go for a 8350 overclock it and spend more on your gpu

 

The 9590 is pretty much a convection oven.

 

Go 4690K, you can't go wrong.

 

An OEM/TRAY CPU is JUCK the chip, no cooler/manual/box.

 

The only people who should ever buy a 9590 are AMD fanboys. If you are not, never buy that CPU. Just don't.

 

Unless you want a space heater, a rise in energy costs, having bottlenecks in games, buying a expensive mobo to handle the 9590 then buy a i5 4690K

 

 

I guess i got carried away with the cores and Ghz haha. Thank you all for your help i think ill stick with the 4690k. Thanks again.

[tiny voices]

Glad to help!

[Aniallation]

Hi, i would like to know if you guys think its worth the extra money to get the FX-9590 over the 4690k and their pros/cons. Im starting a build from scratch and have no bias over each company since its my first build so yeah...

What are you doing with the PC? FX8 is not always a bad choice over i5 like people stereotype it to be (too many fanboys)

 

Gaming -> 4690K

Photo/video editing and/or rendering -> 8350

 

9590 is the same as 8350, and most 8350s can hit 4.7 anyways.

[Clyne]

What are you doing with the PC? FX8 is not always a bad choice over i5 like people stereotype it to be (too many fanboys)

 

Gaming -> 4690K

Photo/video editing and/or rendering -> 8350

 

9590 is the same as 8350, and most 8350s can hit 4.7 anyways.

But here's the thing, your gonna spend more money to OC a 8350 to the speeds around 4.7ghz that may or may not match the performance of a i5 than buying a locked i5 and a lga 1150 mobo.

AMD:

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

 

CPU: AMD FX-8350 4.0GHz 8-Core Processor  ($169.99 @ Amazon) 

CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO 82.9 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler  ($29.98 @ OutletPC) 

Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-970A-UD3P ATX AM3+ Motherboard  ($74.98 @ OutletPC) 

Total: $274.95

Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available

Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-11-10 01:22 EST-0500

Intel:

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

 

CPU: Intel Core i5-4460 3.2GHz Quad-Core Processor  ($174.99 @ NCIX US) 

Motherboard: ASRock B85 Anniversary ATX LGA1150 Motherboard  ($66.98 @ Newegg) 

Total: $241.97

Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available

Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-11-10 01:23 EST-0500

[Enderman]

I guess i got carried away with the cores and Ghz haha. Thank you all for your help i think ill stick with the 4690k. Thanks again.

You're welcome!

We enjoy helping people make the right decisions in life.

 

 

Don't do drugs.

[Faceman]

 

Don't do drugs.

Unless you're sharing.

[Icecube26]

intel tech tips ... confirmed... dont even bother posting a build here if u are considering amd.... cuz this place is full with intel guys that think.... amd is evil based only on benchmarks.... and amd is botlenecking everything cuz it has less fps in games ....60-80 vs 100fps.... which isnt true at all...

[Joshua Ondangan]

actually both of those cpu are fine.

 

but you can grab something like the 8320 and spend stuff on your gpu or the i5 4690K or any non k version as it will be fine.

 

but if it's me I'd step it up to something more better in my eyes.

[Psykomantis00]

Just get an 8350, the 9590 is for suckers. 

[Faceman]

intel tech tips ... confirmed... dont even bother posting a build here if u are considering amd.... cuz this place is full with intel guys that think.... amd is evil based only on benchmarks.... and amd is botlenecking everything cuz it has less fps in games ....60-80 vs 100fps.... which isnt true at all...

Or you could just use some brain power and see that AMD is an inferior product that costs the same.

 

If you enjoy games like MMOs(ArcheAge, WoW, Guild Wars2, World of Tanks, Planetside2 etc..) DayZ, ARMA2, ARMA3, Dead Rising 3, Indies, RTS, Emulators, etc.. the FX will be unplayable unless you think 10-15fps is acceptable.

 

Then the other games that are playable, but no where near as fluid as on Intel.  A few examples are: Starcraft, Skyrim, Civilization V.

 

Graphs

The modern i3s beat the FX8 in the majority of games.

 

Benchmarks:

http://www.hardcorew...-4340-review/2/

http://www.hardwarep...8-games-tested/

http://www.tomshardw...cpu,3929-7.html

http://www.anandtech...w-vishera-95w/3

 

 

"To put it nicely, the FX-8370E is a true middle-of-the-road CPU. Using it only makes sense as long as the graphics card you choose comes from a similar performance segment.

Depending on the game in question, AMD’s new processor has the potential to keep you happy around the AMD Radeon R9 270X/285 or Nvidia GeForce GTX 760 or 660 Ti level.

A higher- or even high-end graphics card doesn’t make sense, as pairing it with AMD's FX-8370E simply limits the card's potential."

 

"Pop over to the gaming scatter, though, and the picture changes dramatically. There, the FX-8350 is the highest-performance AMD desktop processor to date for gaming, finally toppling the venerable Phenom II X4 980. Yet the FX-8350's gaming performance almost exactly matches that of the Core i3-3225, a $134 Ivy Bridge-based processor. Meanwhile, the Core i5-3470 delivers markedly superior gaming performance for less money than the FX-8350. The FX-8350 isn't exactly bad for video games—its performance was generally acceptable in our tests. But it is relatively weak compared to the competition.

This strange divergence between the two performance pictures isn't just confined to gaming, of course. The FX-8350 is also relatively pokey in image processing applications, in SunSpider, and in the less widely multithreaded portions of our video encoding tests. Many of these scenarios rely on one or several threads, and the FX-8350 suffers compared to recent Intel chips in such cases. Still, the contrast between the FX-8350 and the Sandy/Ivy Bridge chips isn't nearly as acute as it was with the older FX processors. Piledriver's IPC gains and that 4GHz base clock have taken the edge off of our objections.

The other major consideration here is power consumption, and really, the FX-8350 isn't even the same class of product as the Ivy Bridge Core i5 processors on this front. There's a 48W gap between the TDP ratings of the Core i5 parts and the FX-8350, but in our tests, the actual difference at the wall socket between two similarly configured systems under load was over 100W. That gap is large enough to force the potential buyer to think deeply about the class of power supply, case, and CPU cooler he needs for his build. One could definitely get away with less expensive components for a Core i5 system."

 

"The FX-8370E stretches its legs a little in terms of minimum frame rates, particularly in SLI, however it is handily beaten by the i3-4330."

 

i5-4670k Vs. FX8350 Aggregate Comparison

 

You should read through the link above, but here is the conclusion.

 

"Conclusion

 

If you've made it this far, congrats and thank you very, very much for reading. I appreciate it genuinely.

 

Okay, so let's conclude. Yes, Intel won 5-2, but that's meaningless. Looking at benchmarks for the sake of looking at benchmarks doesn't

help us. What helps us is seeing where the 4670K wins massively and where the 8350 wins massively. 

 

Gaming

In gaming, the 4670K wins. This is said by Linus, said by AnandTech, said by Bit-Tech, said by Tom's Hardware, said all around the internet

except for at Tek Syndicate. If you are going for a gaming PC, go with the 4670K.

 

Video Editing and 3D Rendering

Yes, there are benchmarks where the 8350 beats the 4670K, however, what is important is that these two are almost neck and neck.

Some sites have the 8350 ever so slightly faster, some have the 3570K/4670K as ever so slightly faster. At the end of the day, it's too close to call.

However, the extra IPC that Haswell offers should help in a wider variety of situations, so I would award this to the 4670K. 

 

Calculations

This one goes to the 8350 which demonstrates a higher performance with calculations throughout due to its higher core count. It beats Intel convincingly

in most calculation benchmarks. 

 

So, what does this mean?

 

This has been said in the introduction, but I will say it again. I am not an Intel fanboy, which is why I went out to research instead of screaming that Intel

is better. I have suggested AMD in the past, their Athlon 64 was better than the Pentium 4, their Athlon 64 x2 was better than the Pentium D. However,

I genuinely dislike the promulgation of false information, especially to people who are asking for help selecting new parts. 

 

If you're an AMD fanboy, you're not going to like it, but Intel's 4670K is better than AMD's 8350. Regardless of however you look at it, in most situations,

the 4670K wins, but it isn't just that, its far superior IPC gives it such an advantage in most every day tasks, which are mostly still single-threaded. 

 

The AMD 8350 is good for certain workloads, but apart from those workloads, it is simply terrible. Its IPC, which is weaker than the i7 920's, which is

5 years old, is simply too weak to put it as any sort of real competition to the 4670K. 

 

I hope that this clears up some of the misconceptions here. Yes, AMD had their time, their Athlon 64 was better than the Intel Pentium 4, however,

those days are well and truly over. If, in this day and age, you recommend an AMD processor for any usage apart from calculations, you are either

being a fanboy or just plainly ignorant of the facts which say that the 4670K is superior. 

 

Of course, this is not to say that nobody should use AMD, but, if you suggest an AMD build for someone else, especially if you suggest an 8350

against a 4670K, know that you are suggesting a worse option, especially for a gaming PC. To argue that the 8350 is competitive with the 4670K

across the board is delusional and just plainly wrong. Yes, you are wrong. 

 

So that's it guys, for most people, the 4670K is the better option compared to the 8350 and the information shows it. 

 

Once again, thank you for taking the time to read my little article. I hope I have helped you see what the statistics say about these two processors.

I appreciate you taking the time to read what I have written. Cheers :)"

 

Also, when people say that the FX8 is a less expensive option, they are wrong.  In order for the FX8 to be viable, it needs to be overclocked, which means you need a motherboard with at least 8+2 VRM phase design, and more expensive cooling solution.  This makes it cost the same, if not more than a locked i5 processor which will beat the FX8 in every single game, no matter how high the FX is overclocked.

 

This is the bare minimum for an overclocked FX8 processor that will still under achieve compared to an Intel processor no matter how high you manage to overclock it, and leave you unable to play some of those games I mentioned above.

 

PCPartPicker part list: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/sLd6hM

Price breakdown by merchant: http://pcpartpicker....hM/by_merchant/

CPU: AMD FX-8320 3.5GHz 8-Core Processor  ($126.00 @ Newegg)

CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO 82.9 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler  ($29.98 @ OutletPC)

Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-990FXA-UD3 ATX AM3+ Motherboard  ($93.00 @ Newegg)

Total: $248.98

Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available

Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-11-10 03:38 EST-0500

 

Vs.

 

PCPartPicker part list: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/TPL4pg

Price breakdown by merchant: http://pcpartpicker....pg/by_merchant/

CPU: Intel Core i5-4430 3.0GHz Quad-Core Processor  ($174.99 @ Amazon)

Motherboard: ASRock H81 Pro BTC ATX LGA1150 Motherboard  ($40.00 @ Amazon)

Total: $214.99

Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available

Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-11-10 04:22 EST-0500

 

You could even spend $10 more to get a Z87 Motherboard, which gives you an upgrade path to an unlocked i5 or i7.

[Mush Brain]

No contest.

 

image quality maxed out with 2 EVGA GTX 480 SSC's on air and a i5 2500k.

 

 

 

Even with a 7990 the FX cannot keep up with the 2500k and a lowly pair of GTX 480's in single thread games, but then again, most of us with sense know the FX is terrible at multi GPU.

 

 

7990 Devil 13 (2x 7970's, roughly a 7970 is 1.9x faster than a stock GTX 480) and AMD FX 8 core.

 

 

 

 

The i5 simply decimates the FX with multi GPU setups, the FX is clearly bottlenecking the 7990 by a huge margin.

 

 

 

 

Imagine the 4690k 

[sebastien calvignac]

Glad to help!

 

What are you doing with the PC? FX8 is not always a bad choice over i5 like people stereotype it to be (too many fanboys)

 

Gaming -> 4690K

Photo/video editing and/or rendering -> 8350

 

9590 is the same as 8350, and most 8350s can hit 4.7 anyways.

 

 

But here's the thing, your gonna spend more money to OC a 8350 to the speeds around 4.7ghz that may or may not match the performance of a i5 than buying a locked i5 and a lga 1150 mobo.

AMD:

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

 

CPU: AMD FX-8350 4.0GHz 8-Core Processor  ($169.99 @ Amazon) 

CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO 82.9 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler  ($29.98 @ OutletPC) 

Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-970A-UD3P ATX AM3+ Motherboard  ($74.98 @ OutletPC) 

Total: $274.95

Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available

Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-11-10 01:22 EST-0500

Intel:

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

 

CPU: Intel Core i5-4460 3.2GHz Quad-Core Processor  ($174.99 @ NCIX US) 

Motherboard: ASRock B85 Anniversary ATX LGA1150 Motherboard  ($66.98 @ Newegg) 

Total: $241.97

Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available

Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-11-10 01:23 EST-0500

 

 

You're welcome!

We enjoy helping people make the right decisions in life.

 

 

Don't do drugs.

 

Unless you're sharing.

 

intel tech tips ... confirmed... dont even bother posting a build here if u are considering amd.... cuz this place is full with intel guys that think.... amd is evil based only on benchmarks.... and amd is botlenecking everything cuz it has less fps in games ....60-80 vs 100fps.... which isnt true at all...

 

actually both of those cpu are fine.

 

but you can grab something like the 8320 and spend stuff on your gpu or the i5 4690K or any non k version as it will be fine.

 

but if it's me I'd step it up to something more better in my eyes.

 

Just get an 8350, the 9590 is for suckers. 

 

Or you could just use some brain power and see that AMD is an inferior product that costs the same.

 

If you enjoy games like MMOs(ArcheAge, WoW, Guild Wars2, World of Tanks, Planetside2 etc..) DayZ, ARMA2, ARMA3, Dead Rising 3, Indies, RTS, Emulators, etc.. the FX will be unplayable unless you think 10-15fps is acceptable.

 

Then the other games that are playable, but no where near as fluid as on Intel.  A few examples are: Starcraft, Skyrim, Civilization V.

 

Graphs

The modern i3s beat the FX8 in the majority of games.

 

Benchmarks:

http://www.hardcorew...-4340-review/2/

http://www.hardwarep...8-games-tested/

http://www.tomshardw...cpu,3929-7.html

http://www.anandtech...w-vishera-95w/3

 

 

"To put it nicely, the FX-8370E is a true middle-of-the-road CPU. Using it only makes sense as long as the graphics card you choose comes from a similar performance segment.

Depending on the game in question, AMD’s new processor has the potential to keep you happy around the AMD Radeon R9 270X/285 or Nvidia GeForce GTX 760 or 660 Ti level.

A higher- or even high-end graphics card doesn’t make sense, as pairing it with AMD's FX-8370E simply limits the card's potential."

 

"Pop over to the gaming scatter, though, and the picture changes dramatically. There, the FX-8350 is the highest-performance AMD desktop processor to date for gaming, finally toppling the venerable Phenom II X4 980. Yet the FX-8350's gaming performance almost exactly matches that of the Core i3-3225, a $134 Ivy Bridge-based processor. Meanwhile, the Core i5-3470 delivers markedly superior gaming performance for less money than the FX-8350. The FX-8350 isn't exactly bad for video games—its performance was generally acceptable in our tests. But it is relatively weak compared to the competition.

This strange divergence between the two performance pictures isn't just confined to gaming, of course. The FX-8350 is also relatively pokey in image processing applications, in SunSpider, and in the less widely multithreaded portions of our video encoding tests. Many of these scenarios rely on one or several threads, and the FX-8350 suffers compared to recent Intel chips in such cases. Still, the contrast between the FX-8350 and the Sandy/Ivy Bridge chips isn't nearly as acute as it was with the older FX processors. Piledriver's IPC gains and that 4GHz base clock have taken the edge off of our objections.

The other major consideration here is power consumption, and really, the FX-8350 isn't even the same class of product as the Ivy Bridge Core i5 processors on this front. There's a 48W gap between the TDP ratings of the Core i5 parts and the FX-8350, but in our tests, the actual difference at the wall socket between two similarly configured systems under load was over 100W. That gap is large enough to force the potential buyer to think deeply about the class of power supply, case, and CPU cooler he needs for his build. One could definitely get away with less expensive components for a Core i5 system."

 

"The FX-8370E stretches its legs a little in terms of minimum frame rates, particularly in SLI, however it is handily beaten by the i3-4330."

 

i5-4670k Vs. FX8350 Aggregate Comparison

 

You should read through the link above, but here is the conclusion.

 

"Conclusion

 

If you've made it this far, congrats and thank you very, very much for reading. I appreciate it genuinely.

 

Okay, so let's conclude. Yes, Intel won 5-2, but that's meaningless. Looking at benchmarks for the sake of looking at benchmarks doesn't

help us. What helps us is seeing where the 4670K wins massively and where the 8350 wins massively. 

 

Gaming

In gaming, the 4670K wins. This is said by Linus, said by AnandTech, said by Bit-Tech, said by Tom's Hardware, said all around the internet

except for at Tek Syndicate. If you are going for a gaming PC, go with the 4670K.

 

Video Editing and 3D Rendering

Yes, there are benchmarks where the 8350 beats the 4670K, however, what is important is that these two are almost neck and neck.

Some sites have the 8350 ever so slightly faster, some have the 3570K/4670K as ever so slightly faster. At the end of the day, it's too close to call.

However, the extra IPC that Haswell offers should help in a wider variety of situations, so I would award this to the 4670K. 

 

Calculations

This one goes to the 8350 which demonstrates a higher performance with calculations throughout due to its higher core count. It beats Intel convincingly

in most calculation benchmarks. 

 

So, what does this mean?

 

This has been said in the introduction, but I will say it again. I am not an Intel fanboy, which is why I went out to research instead of screaming that Intel

is better. I have suggested AMD in the past, their Athlon 64 was better than the Pentium 4, their Athlon 64 x2 was better than the Pentium D. However,

I genuinely dislike the promulgation of false information, especially to people who are asking for help selecting new parts. 

 

If you're an AMD fanboy, you're not going to like it, but Intel's 4670K is better than AMD's 8350. Regardless of however you look at it, in most situations,

the 4670K wins, but it isn't just that, its far superior IPC gives it such an advantage in most every day tasks, which are mostly still single-threaded. 

 

The AMD 8350 is good for certain workloads, but apart from those workloads, it is simply terrible. Its IPC, which is weaker than the i7 920's, which is

5 years old, is simply too weak to put it as any sort of real competition to the 4670K. 

 

I hope that this clears up some of the misconceptions here. Yes, AMD had their time, their Athlon 64 was better than the Intel Pentium 4, however,

those days are well and truly over. If, in this day and age, you recommend an AMD processor for any usage apart from calculations, you are either

being a fanboy or just plainly ignorant of the facts which say that the 4670K is superior. 

 

Of course, this is not to say that nobody should use AMD, but, if you suggest an AMD build for someone else, especially if you suggest an 8350

against a 4670K, know that you are suggesting a worse option, especially for a gaming PC. To argue that the 8350 is competitive with the 4670K

across the board is delusional and just plainly wrong. Yes, you are wrong. 

 

So that's it guys, for most people, the 4670K is the better option compared to the 8350 and the information shows it. 

 

Once again, thank you for taking the time to read my little article. I hope I have helped you see what the statistics say about these two processors.

I appreciate you taking the time to read what I have written. Cheers :)"

 

Also, when people say that the FX8 is a less expensive option, they are wrong.  In order for the FX8 to be viable, it needs to be overclocked, which means you need a motherboard with at least 8+2 VRM phase design, and more expensive cooling solution.  This makes it cost the same, if not more than a locked i5 processor which will beat the FX8 in every single game, no matter how high the FX is overclocked.

 

This is the bare minimum for an overclocked FX8 processor that will still under achieve compared to an Intel processor no matter how high you manage to overclock it, and leave you unable to play some of those games I mentioned above.

 

PCPartPicker part list: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/sLd6hM

Price breakdown by merchant: http://pcpartpicker....hM/by_merchant/

CPU: AMD FX-8320 3.5GHz 8-Core Processor  ($126.00 @ Newegg)

CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO 82.9 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler  ($29.98 @ OutletPC)

Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-990FXA-UD3 ATX AM3+ Motherboard  ($93.00 @ Newegg)

Total: $248.98

Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available

Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-11-10 03:38 EST-0500

 

Vs.

 

PCPartPicker part list: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/TPL4pg

Price breakdown by merchant: http://pcpartpicker....pg/by_merchant/

CPU: Intel Core i5-4430 3.0GHz Quad-Core Processor  ($174.99 @ Amazon)

Motherboard: ASRock H81 Pro BTC ATX LGA1150 Motherboard  ($40.00 @ Amazon)

Total: $214.99

Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available

Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-11-10 04:22 EST-0500

 

You could even spend $10 more to get a Z87 Motherboard, which gives you an upgrade path to an unlocked i5 or i7.

Thank you all ! Seems like ill go with the 4690k since most of you suggested it + ill be using it for gaming which seems to be the 4690k's up side  + i happen to be in a hot country where extra heat from the PC is not in my best interest !

[sebastien calvignac]

 

 Imagine the 4690k 

 

[Sauron]

Personally I don't think the extra money is worth it. The i5 not only draws a lot less power while still allowing good overclocks, it also supports more avanced technologies such as pcie 3.0 and (as weird as it may sound considering how it used to be) it even offers a better upgrade path. If you have more money to spend, you can make the jump to an i7, the performance of which is simply unreachable by the 9590 when overclocked.

 

-edit-

 

ignore the last part, an i7 doesn't make a lot of sense f'or gaming (there is almost no performance difference with the i5)

[sebastien calvignac]

Personally I don't think the extra money is worth it. The i5 not only draws a lot less power while still allowing good overclocks, it also supports more avanced technologies such as pcie 3.0 and (as weird as it may sound considering how it used to be) it even offers a better upgrade path. If you have more money to spend, you can make the jump to an i7, the performance of which is simply unreachable by the 9590 when overclocked.

 

-edit-

 

ignore the last part, an i7 doesn't make a lot of sense f'or gaming (there is almost no performance difference with the i5)

Agreed, Im going to my local shop tomorrow and ill see what motherboards they offer but upgradability is definitely going to be a factor. Thank you !