i3 and Water or i5 and Air (Cooling)

[SirCallow]

Yo dogs, I'm poor af right now, and I won't be buying my PC until later this year. I have a job for the summer, and I'm just raking in as much dough as I can, yo. I'm kinda stuck. I've wanted a nice water cooled system for about 2 years now. The thing is, the i5 and a Kraken X61 is out of my price range of $1500 max. I actually have never had a desktop at all, and I need all the peripherals in the part list below.

http://pcpartpicker.com/p/3jN7Yr

 

I can afford the i5 6600k and something like the Cryorig C7, or go for the i3 6100 and the Kraken X61. I want the build to be just as beautiful as it is powerful, which is why I went with such an expensive case (and other items). In short, is it worth it to buy the i3 as a placeholder for an i5 or i7 later, or just forego water cooling for a few months and get an i5?

 

Games I actually play/will pick up in the future:

The Batman Arkham series

Black Ops 1 and 3

Borderlands 1 and 2

The Bioshock series

CS:GO

Dead Island Remastered

Rainbow Six Siege

Metro 2033 and Last Light

Fallout 4

Arma 3

Battlefield 4

No Man's Sky

To name a few...

 

Thanks brothas. <3

[Guest]

 i3/Kraken

Since its temporary you might as well get it.

[SSL]

Does this even need to be asked? An i5 will stomp the i3 no matter what the latter is under. Plus, the i3 is a waste of money, ultimately.

[Guest]

2 minutes ago, SSL said:

Does this even need to be asked? An i5 will stomp the i3 no matter what the latter is under. Plus, the i3 is a waste of money, ultimately.

But look at it this way -- You put an inital investment of $200 in. You have an amazing cooler, you can sell the CPU once your done with it for about 70~ dollars cause its in excellent condition, So in total your spending $330 , and if OP decides that an i5 isn't enough, thats more around $360+  

[0ld_Chicken]

i5 and air will be plenty.  Water isn't really going to do you a lot of good, performance wise, even with an i7

[MoonlightSylv]

An i5 will completely wreck an i3 under any cooling.

[aisle9]

There are so many things wrong with the idea of putting a Kraken on an i3...

 

Just buy the i5 now and run it at stock speeds on the stock cooler until you can get the Kraken. Trust me, it'll be plenty fast at stock, and you don't have to dick around with selling an i3 down the line.

 

Seriously though, an i3 on water? Not as bad as the Reddit post where a guy had slapped a Corsair AIO on a G3258, but not much better 

[SirCallow]

All of you have very interesting opinions, which I value very much. Obviously the i5 would yield better performance, however, I am not completely sure it would be the best option. According to many reviewers, the GTX 1070 performs about in between the 980ti and the Titan X. I also watched a Digital Foundry comparison which is below. It seemed to me that the i3 is pretty good, although vastly inferior to the i5, which is expected.

 

[SirCallow]

Just now, aisle9 said:

There are so many things wrong with the idea of putting a Kraken on an i3...

 

Just buy the i5 now and run it at stock speeds on the stock cooler until you can get the Kraken. Trust me, it'll be plenty fast at stock, and you don't have to dick around with selling an i3 down the line.

 

Seriously though, an i3 on water? Not as bad as the Reddit post where a guy had slapped a Corsair AIO on a G3258, but not much better 

Again, it would just be a place holder. A good point though.

[SSL]

19 minutes ago, Ronnie76 said:

But look at it this way -- You put an inital investment of $200 in. You have an amazing cooler, you can sell the CPU once your done with it for about 70~ dollars cause its in excellent condition, So in total your spending $330 , and if OP decides that an i5 isn't enough, thats more around $360+  

 

And in the meantime you're getting gimped performance. The amazing cooler is useless until the i5. The chances than an i7 will be necessary are slim; if the OP thinks that is likely, just get the i7 up front.

[SirCallow]

Just now, SSL said:

 

And in the meantime you're getting gimped performance. The amazing cooler is useless until the i5. The chances than an i7 will be necessary are slim; if the OP thinks that is likely, just get the i7 up front.

An i5 may well be worth it. Do any of you know how loud the stock cooler/custom air coolers get? I need something sexy and quiet, which was why I was leaning for the AIO and the i3. 

[SSL]

4 minutes ago, SirCallow said:

An i5 may well be worth it. Do any of you know how loud the stock cooler/custom air coolers get? I need something sexy and quiet, which was why I was leaning for the AIO and the i3. 

 

aio coolers are not necessarily quieter. Pump + fans to deal with.

[SirCallow]

Just now, SSL said:

 

aio coolers are not necessarily quieter. Pump + fans to deal with.

AH! This is a very interesting point indeed! I noticed the fans, but it did not occur to me that it would probably be just as loud as most others.

[Mira Yurizaki]

Pump noise is a concern too. If there's air trapped in it (and there more than likely always will be some air in the system), it's going to sound like a hard drive grinding away.

[SSL]

22 minutes ago, SirCallow said:

AH! This is a very interesting point indeed! I noticed the fans, but it did not occur to me that it would probably be just as loud as most others.

 

Yeah. No doubt, AIO coolers can manage more heat than air. However, note that they usually require some stiff fan speeds to do this.

[Lays]

Or you could buy the i5 6500 I'm selling in the classifieds here, it still has warranty from intel til December 1st 2018.

Then you could still get the watercooler, correct?

 

[SirCallow]

Just now, Lays said:

Or you could buy the i5 6500 I'm selling in the classifieds here, it still has warranty from intel til December 1st 2018.

Then you could still get the watercooler, correct?

 

That is indeed a fantastic deal! I'll think it over and get back to you.

[Lays]

2 minutes ago, SirCallow said:

That is indeed a fantastic deal! I'll think it over and get back to you.

Just let me know,

[alanz25]

get the i5, any amount of overclocking (even if you get a chip forged in the kitchen of lord GabeN himself) from the i3 will not compete with the i5 on a stock cooler.