Do I really need a i7?

[Charkel]

Hey guys,

 

I am building a new computer and trying to save as much as possible. I've decided to go with a gtx 970 but I don't know about CPU.

 

Do I really need the i7 6700K 4,0GHz or can I go with the i5 6600K 3,5GHz?

 

I will upgrade to a good closed water cooler later but for starters I'm using my Hyper 212

 

Thank you!

[DXMember]

what do you plan to use the PC for?

if you're not sure if need the i7 or not, then most likely you don't

 

also have you considered going with R9 390 or waiting for the new cards to release later next month?

[Cela1]

Depends on what the build is for. if it is just gaming then no... but if you intend to do heavy 3D modeling or video editing or other CPU demanding tasks then yes.

[Charkel]

5 minutes ago, DXMember said:

what do you plan to use the PC for?

if you're not sure if need the i7 or not, then most likely you don't

 

also have you considered going with R9 390 or waiting for the new cards to release later next month?

 

4 minutes ago, Cela1 said:

Depends on what the build is for. if it is just gaming then no... but if you intend to do heavy 3D modeling or video editing or other CPU demanding tasks then yes.

 

I can wait a bit. 

 

I guess I would mostly use it for games and running a lot of applications simultaneously. I'm not into 3D modeling.

[ChrisCross]

7 minutes ago, Charkel said:

 

if your just gaming an i5 is enough. 

also the 390 is faster than the 970.

whats your budget? 

[ChrisCross]

1 minute ago, Charkel said:

 

 

I can wait a bit. 

 

I guess I would mostly use it for games and running a lot of applications simultaneously.

if they arent too heavy go with 16gb of ram and your out of trouble. 

[Charkel]

1 minute ago, ChrisCross said:

if they arent too heavy go with 16gb of ram and your out of trouble. 

RAM is cheap as f*** so I think I'll at least throw 16GB in but more seems a bit overkill.

[ChrisCross]

2 minutes ago, Charkel said:

RAM is cheap as f*** so I think I'll at least throw 16GB in but more seems a bit overkill.

whats your budget for the whole system? maybe i can help you out. 

[RealGamer]

1 minute ago, Charkel said:

RAM is cheap as f*** so I think I'll at least throw 16GB in but more seems a bit overkill.

For now,maybe it is a little overkill,but ram is always a long-term investment. After 5-6 years, it may not be the case anymore

[Charkel]

1 minute ago, ChrisCross said:

whats your budget for the whole system? maybe i can help you out. 

Budget is about 9.000-10.000 SEK (I have HDD and CPU cooler) and hardware is a bit more expensive here in Sweden and we got no amazon.

 

Parts: http://www.prisjakt.nu/list.php?l=3014700&view=m (Swedish)

[ChrisCross]

6 minutes ago, Charkel said:

Budget is about 9.000-10.000 SEK (I have HDD and CPU cooler) and hardware is a bit more expensive here in Sweden and we got no amazon.

 

Parts: http://www.prisjakt.nu/list.php?l=3014700&view=m (Swedish)

i would do something like this:

PCPartPicker part list: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/djhKJx
Price breakdown by merchant: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/djhKJx/by_merchant/

CPU: Intel Core i5-6600 3.3GHz Quad-Core Processor  ($215.99 @ SuperBiiz) 
Motherboard: ASRock H170A-X1/3.1 ATX LGA1151 Motherboard  ($79.98 @ Newegg) 
Memory: G.Skill NT Series 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-2400 Memory  ($53.99 @ Newegg) 
Storage: A-Data Premier SP550 240GB 2.5" Solid State Drive  ($56.56 @ NCIX US) 
Video Card: Sapphire Radeon R9 390 8GB Nitro Video Card  ($317.99 @ SuperBiiz) 
Case: Fractal Design Core 2500 ATX Mid Tower Case  ($55.99 @ Directron) 
Power Supply: Antec Green 550W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply  ($61.99 @ SuperBiiz) 
Total: $842.49
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2016-05-10 02:56 EDT-0400

 

 

 

if the i5-6500 is much cheaper you can use that too. 

[DumbAsshole32]

.

[Monarch]

21 minutes ago, ChrisCross said:

if your just gaming an i5 is enough. 

also the 390 is faster than the 970.

whats your budget? 

 

There's a reason all the latest AAA titles recommend an i7 CPU. It's because games can and will utilize more than 4 threads. Example:

 

1920x1080, Ultra Settings, Titan X GPU	Low/Avg FPS
Core i3 4130 [?] (3.4GHz, two cores, four threads)	25.0 / 48.1
Core i5 4690K [?] (Max 3.9GHz, four cores, four threads)	30.0 / 64.5
Core i7 4790K [?] (Max 4.4GHz, four cores, eight threads)	51.0 / 80.7
FX-6300 [?] (Max 4.1GHz, six cores, six threads)	23.0 / 48.4
FX-8350 [?] (Max 4.2GHz, eight cores, eight threads)	30.0 / 55.5

 

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-2015-fallout-4-performance-analysis

 

Not only does the i7 give you higher avg frame-rate, but also more consistent frametime and the lowest recorded frame-rate is much higher.

 

 

[ChrisCross]

2 minutes ago, Monarch said:

 

of course when you have a titan x. but having a lower end gpu is a whole different story. 

[Monarch]

1 minute ago, ChrisCross said:

of course when you have a titan x. but having a lower end gpu is a whole different story. 

 

The reason they used the Titan X is to absolutely make sure the CPUs are the bottleneck in order to properly test them. That doesn't mean they won't bottleneck a slower GPU. In Fallout 4, the i5 drops as low as 30 fps. I hope you're not suggesting the 970 can't render more than that. It's obvious it's the CPU's fault. Even if the 970 was the bottleneck, you could lower your graphics settings, but you wouldn't get higher framerate due to the CPU bottleneck. There's nothing you can do when you're CPU-bound, few settings in games affect the CPU.

[ChrisCross]

1 minute ago, Monarch said:

 

The reason they used the Titan X is to absolutely make sure the CPUs are the bottleneck in order to properly test them. That doesn't mean they won't bottleneck a slower GPU. In Fallout 4, the i5 drops as low as 30 fps. I hope you're not suggesting the 970 can't render more than that. It's obvious it's the CPU's fault. Even if the 970 was the bottleneck, you could lower your graphics settings, but you wouldn't get higher framerate due to the CPU bottleneck. There's nothing you can do when you're CPU-bound, few settings in games affect the CPU.

as said with a gpu more expensive than the whole pc it becomes a problem. but a 3,9ghz skylake i5 doesnt bottleneck a 970.

fallout 4 hasnt got the best pc port. something like battlefield or crysis gives a better representation of the hardware. of course some games favor a brand of gpu's. 

maybe you get 3fps more with 4,5ghz 6700k but your spending 2x on cpu, mobo and cooler. 

[Monarch]

15 minutes ago, ChrisCross said:

as said with a gpu more expensive than the whole pc it becomes a problem. but a 3,9ghz skylake i5 doesnt bottleneck a 970.

fallout 4 hasnt got the best pc port. something like battlefield or crysis gives a better representation of the hardware. of course some games favor a brand of gpu's. 

maybe you get 3fps more with 4,5ghz 6700k but your spending 2x on cpu, mobo and cooler. 

 

3570k vs 6700k. Huge difference overall, especially in the city, for example at 3:31. 20 fps difference. The i5 also drops below 60. Of course, with the 6600k the difference would be smaller, but still.

 

There's nothing wrong with Fallout 4 port. The reason why performance is sometimes not that good is high draw call count, but that has to do with the fact that D3D11 is an outdated, crappy API.

 

Notice frametime spikes in TW3 with the 6600k.

 

 

As for Crysis,

If you look at this video, you'll see just what the difference is between HT on and off is 10 fps. 

 

The point is, the 6600k is not a bad CPU to pair with the 970, but the 6700k will be faster. It's up to OP to decide if it's worth it.

 

 

[ChrisCross]

2 minutes ago, Monarch said:

 

 

again its pointless to use a titan x as comparison here. and using an i5 from 3 generations ago isnt fair too.

i have heard many people complaining that fallout 4 isnt optimized very well for the pc. 

also woth dx12 on the horizon our discussion becomes even more pointless. 

[Monarch]

3 hours ago, ChrisCross said:

again its pointless to use a titan x as comparison here. and using an i5 from 3 generations ago isnt fair too.

i have heard many people complaining that fallout 4 isnt optimized very well for the pc. 

also woth dx12 on the horizon our discussion becomes even more pointless. 

 

Actually DX12 improves performance by utilizing more cores/threads. It's a common misconception that it's going to just increase performance on slow CPUs. I mean, it will, but only in scenarios where the CPU doesn't have its hands full. 

One of DX12's main features is multi-threaded rendering, and for that to make a difference you need additional cores/threads. It's pointless if your CPU is already bottlenecking your PC.

[ChrisCross]

Just now, Monarch said:

 

mantle and dx12 are low-level api meaning they are ment to reduce the overhead created by bottlenecks. it has the disadvantage is more complicated code but that not our problem

the ability to utilize multiple cores is something that only accures with very good optimized, modern games. dx12 is just better for that because its more modern.

 

but the main goal is still the overhead. so your fine with an i5. you dont need an 8-core extreme edition for gaming in the future.

[Monarch]

13 minutes ago, ChrisCross said:

mantle and dx12 are low-level api meaning they are ment to reduce the overhead created by bottlenecks. it has the disadvantage is more complicated code but that not our problem

the ability to utilize multiple cores is something that only accures with very good optimized, modern games. dx12 is just better for that because its more modern.

 

but the main goal is still the overhead. so your fine with an i5. you dont need an 8-core extreme edition for gaming in the future.

 

But the way it reduces overhead is multi-threaded rendering. Sure, it does have some additional optimizations, but the main boost comes from multi-threaded rendering. Which is useless if your CPU is already chocking on AI, physics, and rendering. And that performance boost MT rendering will allow won't be used to really increase framerate, but enable developers to render more objects on screen.

My i5 already limits me in the latest titles. When I play Crysis 3, grass physics just destroys it. In GTA V, when there's a lot of NPCs around, my CPU hits 100% and the framerate tanks. In TW3, in the city of Novigrad, same thing. Like I said, there's a reason they recommend an i7. 

[SteveGrabowski0]

OP, anyone telling you to buy an R9 390 or a GTX 970 now is a fucking moron with the 1070 about to come out in a month.

[SteveGrabowski0]

4 hours ago, ChrisCross said:

as said with a gpu more expensive than the whole pc it becomes a problem. but a 3,9ghz skylake i5 doesnt bottleneck a 970.

fallout 4 hasnt got the best pc port. something like battlefield or crysis gives a better representation of the hardware. of course some games favor a brand of gpu's. 

maybe you get 3fps more with 4,5ghz 6700k but your spending 2x on cpu, mobo and cooler. 

And in a month you'll get that Titan X performance for $370, so that test really does make sense now,

[Nena Trinity]

i5 is better value for gaming but with DX12 coming the i7 is not a bad idea really...  

[Spectrez]

1 minute ago, SteveGrabowski0 said:

OP, anyone telling you to buy an R9 390 or a GTX 970 now is a fucking moron with the 1070 about to come out in a month.

and anyone preemptively advising people to buy a certain product without knowing anything about it, is as moronic.

In the 300$ range you have to wait and see what AMD brings to the table, as it seems to be the focus for AMD this time around.

 

On topic:

I would personally still go for a i5 and focus the rest of the money into a single better gpu