i7-6700k vs i5-6600K

[amac733]

Hi everyone!

 

I'm currently in the middle of a build and would love to get your opinion. 

 

This build will be strictly for gaming only. No other task will be done on this computer as I'm a Mac user for all my day to day tasks and content creation (Pro Tools HD, Photoshop).

 

So that being said, I feel like the i5-6600K would be the best option. But could there be a case made for the i7-6700k? The GPU I bought is a MSI GTX 1070 and plan on gaming at 2560 x 1440. 

 

Any info would be greatly appreciated! 

 

Thanks!

[SirFlamenco]

Well the 6700k perform better obviously see if you can stretch your budget

[Katsunaka]

Alot of people will say 6600k for gaming only, but with the price difference being close you might as well grab the 6700k and enjoy the extra threads.

 

Id say 6700k and just enjoy the extra CPU horsepower. It might be wasted sometimes but some games benefit from the extra power. 

 

If Microcenter is close, they were selling 6700k for 260 a few days before Black Friday. 

If not, check r/buildapcsales and find the best deal.

[EunSoo]

The 6700k will perform better than te 6600k in gaming, but its probably not worth it to get a 6700k if you are only gaming. One thing you might want to consider is if you will ever use the Adobe suite on your PC, then the 6700k will be worth it because of the hyperthreading. Also, if you are considering streaming, recording, or editing your games, then the 6700k will be very useful. But since you said "strictly for gaming", the 6600k is the best cpu for that.

[Jovidah]

It depends on your upgrade schedule. Since GPUs age far faster than CPUs I tend to swap them on different time schedules. So I got a 6700k because I'm planning it to last 5-6 years, and see 2 different GPUs in that period. The rest of the components is matched to make this possible.

This might be entirely different for you though; some people prefer to have an entirely new build every few years and then it can make more sense to go with the i5.

 

Either way, if possible I'd wait 2 months and get Kaby Lake. It's not a huge upgrade, but still a bit better.

[Matias_Chambers]

For 60 Hz the i5 will be fine but if you have a high refreshrate monitor then an i7 and some fast memory would be nice to eliminate bottlenecks.

[Constant Failure]

@amac733

Running currently with zotac amp 1070 and i5 6600k @ 4.5ghz. As far as my own experience goes, I haven't had any real issues with i5 not being able to stay with my GPU while playing 2560x1440p 75Hz. Even for the more cpu heavy games like GTA V or Crysis 3 that I have in my library I can still manage to overwhelm the GPU before my CPU hits 100%. I don't have BF1 so I can't tell if that is a exception to the rule, but the 1070 can't max out everything at 1440p so you can just push the GPU harder. For most games (at least older games) you probably don't see any or a negligible difference with i5 and i7 but the games that are veary CPU heavy like Cities Skylines you see a difference.

 

Should you get i7 paired with your 1070 at 1440p? Probably not. If you money is not a deciding factor, then of course. As long as you play 1440p 60 or 75Hz you're not really gaining a lot of benefit from the i7 over the i5. In my case I didn't justify the 120€ delta for the performance boost.