i5-6500 vs i3-6100

[Freezanator]

Should I get an i5-6500 or an i3-6100? I've compared both CPUs at the link below and the i3 isn't very far from the i5 at 'desktop' while there's a pretty significant difference under 'gaming' and 'workstation' factors. Price is a HUGE factor as I am planning on a very tight budget build.
Comparison link: http://cpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/Intel-Core-i5-6500-vs-Intel-Core-i3-6100/3513vs3511

[Guest]

Don't use userbenchmark

 

There is difference. i5 6500 would be ideal. But depending on your build then i3 6100 should be fine enough

[Freezanator]

1 minute ago, dexxterlab97 said:

Don't use userbenchmark

 

There is difference. i5 6500 would be ideal. But depending on your build then i3 6100 should be fine enough

IS the i3 enough to run AAA titles alongside the ZOTAC GTX 1060 Mini 6GB?

[Guest]

Just now, Freezanator said:

IS the i3 enough to run AAA titles alongside the ZOTAC GTX 1060 Mini 6GB?

Yes. 

[ColinW]

If you want something for a strict budget build and are planning on overclocking, go for the i3. It has better power consumption than the i5 which will add up as savings.

[Freezanator]

2 minutes ago, ColinW said:

If you want something for a strict budget build and are planning on overclocking, go for the i3. It has better power consumption than the i5 which will add up as savings.

Ok, I'm throwing in another CPU if you don't mind; the i5-6400. How does it fare against the i3 and the 6500? Btw, I don't overclock.

[SnowyMus]

11 minutes ago, Freezanator said:

IS the i3 enough to run AAA titles alongside the ZOTAC GTX 1060 Mini 6GB?

On many titles, it may just run fine, giving you better price to performance than an i5 in these cases. 

 

Some titles appreciate having four physical cores and can result in limited frame rates with the i3, making the i5 the better buy overall, but most games handle the i3 just fine, plus you can always just upgrade later.

 

6 minutes ago, Freezanator said:

Ok, I'm throwing in another CPU if you don't mind; the i5-6400. How does it fare against the i3 and the 6500? Btw, I don't overclock.

The i3 does run a bit faster than both i5s due to being clocked at 3.7 GHz, giving you better single threaded performance and better multi-core where only a couple threads are concerned, but the i5s do have four physical cores.

[ColinW]

I would still go for the i3. By default it has a much higher clock speed and still has better power consumption. I have a friend with the 6400 and he doesn't like it. 

[Freezanator]

3 minutes ago, Kavawuvi said:

On many titles, it may just run fine, giving you better price to performance than an i5 in these cases. 

 

Some titles appreciate having four physical cores and can result in limited frame rates with the i3, making the i5 the better buy overall, but most games handle the i3 just fine, plus you can always just upgrade later.

 

The i3 does run a bit faster than both i5s due to being clocked at 3.7 GHz, giving you better single threaded performance and better multi-core where only a couple threads are concerned, but the i5s do have four physical cores.

Ok, I have seen reviews and people say that more cores is better for multi-tasking but, what the heck IS multi-tasking?

[Freezanator]

In what factor does he not like about the i5-6400?

[ARikozuM]

23 minutes ago, Freezanator said:

Should I get an i5-6500 or an i3-6100? I've compared both CPUs at the link below and the i3 isn't very far from the i5 at 'desktop' while there's a pretty significant difference under 'gaming' and 'workstation' factors. Price is a HUGE factor as I am planning on a very tight budget build.
Comparison link: http://cpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/Intel-Core-i5-6500-vs-Intel-Core-i3-6100/3513vs3511

Are you playing 60hz? Go for either by looking at benchmarks. What GPU are you getting? Can you live with the next step down and get the i5 for now?

[SnowyMus]

23 minutes ago, Freezanator said:

Ok, I have seen reviews and people say that more cores is better for multi-tasking but, what the heck IS multi-tasking?

"Multi-tasking" means doing multiple tasks at once, but this is a little confusing, as it implies you're doing multiple things at once, and you're not likely to be exporting a video while playing games or anything like that. If you intend on running multiple programs at once, having enough RAM is a better cost-effective solution.

 

What they really mean is that some CPU-based workloads will use multiple threads, which more efficiently uses the available CPU's resources often by running code on more than one logical processor, allowing for the CPU to effectively do each task at the same time and get work done sooner. Both the i5 and i3 have four logical cores, meaning they technically can do four things at once, but the i5 has four physical cores, where the i3 only has two physical cores, and each physical core has only so many resources.

 

Many games aren't very thread-heavy or don't use more than two threads and will run better on the i3 versus the i5 due to the higher clock speed of the i3, though the i5 is usually already fast enough and this won't make much of a difference in frame rate, if any, as it's likely the game is GPU-bound. However, many CPU intensive workloads such as compression and exporting use many CPU threads in order to get the workload done more efficiently and much sooner, which is where the i5 will excel, as it has four physical cores. Additionally, some games will take advantage of the multiple threads of the processor to process stuff like game logic, GPU calls, and physics simultaneously instead of doing everything in sequential order on a single thread, which is where the i5 may also excel.

 

Long story short, more cores is better, but only if these cores are actually being utilized.

[Freezanator]

22 minutes ago, Kavawuvi said:

"Multi-tasking" means doing multiple tasks at once, but this is a little confusing, as it implies you're doing multiple things at once, and you're not likely to be exporting a video while playing games or anything like that. If you intend on running multiple programs at once, having enough RAM is a better cost-effective solution.

 

What they really mean is that some CPU-based workloads will use multiple threads, which more efficiently uses the available CPU's resources often by running code on more than one logical processor, allowing for the CPU to effectively do each task at the same time and get work done sooner. Both the i5 and i3 have four logical cores, meaning they technically can do four things at once, but the i5 has four physical cores, where the i3 only has two physical cores, and each physical core has only so many resources.

 

Many games aren't very thread-heavy or don't use more than two threads and will run better on the i3 versus the i5 due to the higher clock speed of the i3, though the i5 is usually already fast enough and this won't make much of a difference in frame rate, if any, as it's likely the game is GPU-bound. However, many CPU intensive workloads such as compression and exporting use many CPU threads in order to get the workload done more efficiently and much sooner, which is where the i5 will excel, as it has four physical cores. Additionally, some games will take advantage of the multiple threads of the processor to process stuff like game logic and physics simultaneously instead of doing everything in sequential order on a single thread, which is where the i5 may also excel.

 

Long story short, more cores is better, but only if these cores are actually being utilized.

Do you know of any games which benefit from more cores (i5) and those games which can benefit from a higher clock speed (i3)?

[ARikozuM]

Just now, Freezanator said:

Do you know of any games which benefit from more cores (i5) and those games which can benefit from a higher clock speed (i3)?

Pretty much all of them. Games are (usually) coded to use physical cores. Intel CPU's have an instruction set as does Windows itself (through API's) that will off-load work to threads if available. Having physical cores is better if frequency is the same or close. In this case you should check gaming benchmarks to see if there's an appreciable difference in frame-rates.

[SnowyMus]

1 hour ago, Freezanator said:

Do you know of any games which benefit from more cores (i5) and those games which can benefit from a higher clock speed (i3)?

Games won't usually be able to tell the difference between four physical cores and two physical cores as long as there are four threads, but some of the latest AAA games may end up running slower on an i3-6100 versus an i5-6500 despite being clocked higher due to being a bit more. Some examples are GTA V, Ryse: Son of Rome, Crysis 3, The Witcher 3, and Far Cry 4 to name a few.

 

Games that do benefit from a higher clock speed rarely benefit very much, as, again, they're most likely to be GPU bound, anyway. Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor, for instance, may perform slightly higher on the i3-6100 versus a stock i5-6600K, but only by a few frames at most. The same effect is seen when you overclock an already high-end CPU like an Intel Core i7-6700K or i7-4790K - you don't usually get very many frames per second out of it.

 

While an i3-6100 isn't a bad processor (it's a decent processor for its price point), an i5 has better overall performance despite running a little slower because it's not limited to two cores.

[Dabombinable]

41 minutes ago, Freezanator said:

Do you know of any games which benefit from more cores (i5) and those games which can benefit from a higher clock speed (i3)?

Well pretty much any game from at the very least 2010 onwards, web browsers also run better on quad cores (Phenom II P920 compared to an A8 4555M dual module 4 core), video encoding, streaming are the main ones