I7 vs I5 for next Gen Gaming

[kkzee123]

Hey linustechtips forms i have a burning question. Is it worth getting the I7 over the I5 for gaming with Amd's new graphics cards?

 

I will be playing games like battlefield 4 when it fully comes out. I can afford the I7 but if there is not that much of a difference in the gaming performance like there was in the past i would get the I5 however i have heard that the next gen games will have better support for more threads.... I7

 

But

[CoolBeans]

For gaming i5/8350/8320

[Langdon]

I'd personally go with an 8350.

[The Great Sayain Man]

Budget ?

[piplupgao]

8350 but there will probably be 6-8 core intels next gen

[Mo5]

If rumours are correct then AMD might be a better option

[xox]

If your budget allows for it, go for the i7. Mantle is going to utilise more cores, coincidentally, the i7 has more cores for the purpose of this post

 

(AMD's offering is pretty good too, but it doesn't really perform as well as Intel's i7s)

 

EDIT: I also like that Intel parts don't consume much power; I am all for the 80+ thing and I think there is premise for an argument that you save power.

Edited October 13, 2013 by tomlambert01

[WoodenMarker]

An i5 will game pretty much the same as the i7.

[Glenwing]

If your budget allows for it, go for the i7. Mantle is going to utilise more cores, coincidentally, the i7 has more cores for the purpose of this post

 

(AMD's offering is pretty good too, but it doesn't really perform as well as Intel's i7s)

 

EDIT: I also like that Intel parts don't consume much power; I am all for the 80+ thing and I think there is premise for an argument that you save power.

 

i7 doesn't have any more cores than an i5 (LGA 1150 SKUs anyway).

[qwertywarrior]

for future high end gaming

ANYTHING with 8 threads

[delet my acc pls]

For bf4 a 8320/8350 is the way to go proccesor.

[Shrubpig]

An i5 will game pretty much the same as the i7.

Except the i7 has hyperthreading, and next gen games seem to support more cores.

[xox]

i7 doesn't have any more cores than an i5 (LGA 1150 SKUs anyway).

I agree, but Windows sees i7s as 8-Core parts, and they perform better than i5s generally. I would recommend one for Mantle as it is going to use more threads, so by that logic, the i7 is superior.

 

NOTE: I would recommend an i5 if the budget could not stretch to an i7.

[911^NEmeSis]

i5 will be enough really. i7 more for rendering etc.

[WoodenMarker]

Except the i7 has hyperthreading, and next gen games seem to support more cores.

Hyperthreading is not more cores. It's more threads and games aren't really taking much advantage of HT.

[urworstnit3m3r]

If your budget allows for it, go for the i7. Mantle is going to utilise more cores, coincidentally, the i7 has more cores for the purpose of this post

 

(AMD's offering is pretty good too, but it doesn't really perform as well as Intel's i7s)

 

EDIT: I also like that Intel parts don't consume much power; I am all for the 80+ thing and I think there is premise for an argument that you save power.

Just want to point out that the i7 is a quad core processor with hyperthreading it is not a 8 core processor thus doesn't truly have more cores.

[Shrubpig]

Hyperthreading is not more cores. It's more threads and games aren't really taking much advantage of HT.

I know they are only threads, but they act as cores. I bet next gen games will support threads.

[TheRisingMyth]

Hyperthreading is not more cores. It's more threads and games aren't really taking much advantage of HT.

 

I hope you really read the topic, he said next-gen gaming, the more threads you have, the more it helps.

 

Even if it doesn't deliver FULL 4 Cores Speed, it certainly contribute to performance and Intel won't probably need more than that to compete with AMD, an 8 Core of their line barely beats an i5 from Intel's line, the i7 basically destroys it, more robust and single-threaded capable cores are always a must for me.

[WoodenMarker]

I know they are only threads, but they act as cores. I bet next gen games will support threads.

HT is already supported by some games--it's just not that effective. Even programs optimized to take advantage of hyperthreading only get ~20-30% performance over no HT. Games are much less optimized. Not worth the $100 difference.

@ It's not much of a difference with HT.

[Glenwing]

I agree, but Windows sees i7s as 8-Core parts, and they perform better than i5s generally. I would recommend one for Mantle as it is going to use more threads, so by that logic, the i7 is superior.

 

NOTE: I would recommend an i5 if the budget could not stretch to an i7.

 

That's a reasonable deduction but unfortunately hyperthreading is a bit more complex than just magically generating performance; it works by reclaiming lost efficiency in the cores, but how efficiently the processor is running (and so, how much unused processing power there is to harness) depends on the type of work it is doing.  Gaming as a category has never really taken meaningful benefit from hyperthreading even in the most recent games, and the technology has been around since Pentium 4.  The type of threads that games generate are typically very heavy, continuous, and with relatively little RAM I/O, which all together makes efficient use of the cores, and so there is very little for hyperthreading to make use of.  And unless gaming type applications' logic changes at a very fundamental level, there never will be.

 

We already know plenty of games that are optimized to make great use of 4 cores, and a dual-core does bottleneck powerful graphics cards; and if you look at benchmarks on these games with Pentium vs i3 (dual-core/dual-threads vs dual-core/quad threads) the performance increase, when there is any at all, very rarely breaks single digits.  When you move up to an i5 (quad core/quad threads) the performance increase is astronomical, even though no threads have even been added over an i3; the two hyperthreaded cores are just upgraded to physical ones, so to speak.

 

Hyperthreading has been known to even decrease performance sometimes.

[TheRisingMyth]

HT is already supported by some games--it's just not that effective. Even programs optimized to take advantage of hyperthreading only get ~20-30% performance over no HT. Games are much less optimized. Not worth the $100 difference.

@ It's not much of a difference with HT.

 

When you code for 8 APU-Like Cores, we're having a total different conversation.

 

I think HT will be a bigger deal from now on.

[WoodenMarker]

When you code for 8 APU-Like Cores, we're having a total different conversation.

 

I think HT will be a bigger deal from now on.

Read what @Glenwing posted. It better explains what I was trying to say.

[Mixzzz]

I think you should take either 8350 or i7 for next gen games because they will utilise more cores probably... Personally I would take 8350 because its way cheaper(for me its like 160$ difference between i7 and 8350) and will probably perform the about the same as i7, but I would go i7 because its performs better at heavily multi threaded apps... But we should wait a bit more until any good opinions, wait for BF4 release because it should be way more optimized and then we should be able to see which one is better... Well I think i5 wont be enough for next gen games...

[Andrew0472]

I think you should take either 8350 or i7 for next gen games because they will utilise more cores probably... Personally I would take 8350 because its way cheaper(for me its like 160$ difference between i7 and 8350) and will probably perform the about the same as i7, but I would go i7 because its performs better at heavily multi threaded apps... But we should wait a bit more until any good opinions, wait for BF4 release because it should be way more optimized and then we should be able to see which one is better... Well I think i5 wont be enough for next gen games...

the 3570k/4670k i5's will be more than enough for next gen games

[silencerbob]

There needs to be benchmarks to show how much hyperthreading is used on next gen games... Till then we really don't know. Battlefield4 seems to benefit at least a little in benchmarks.