CPU consideration: i5 6600 vs i7 6700
- Thread starter Fallow
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The 6700 benchmarks at about 30% more powerful and costs around 40% more than the 6600. The K variants of each are about 10% more powerful than the non-K versions and cost just over 10% more. Whether you want to pay for the extra power and longevity is entirely up to you. Regardless, if you're interested in gaming any of them would be sufficient...whats more important is your choice of GPU.
For gaming I would say that the i5-6600 has the best value and the performance gain you would see with an i7 is rarely noticed with most games. Unless you're planning to have two monster GPUs its unlikely that you'll get some bottle necking. My usual advice for when i hear this conundrum is "if its just for gaming then take the 100$ bucks you save and put it towards a better graphics card or an ssd or something".
PS. I've got an i5-6600k and couldn't be happier (well I could be if my graphics card i ordered 3 weeks ago would arrive)
PS. I've got an i5-6600k and couldn't be happier (well I could be if my graphics card i ordered 3 weeks ago would arrive)
That's a really good line of thinking for this sort of thing. An i7 is more build for media, 3D or video rendering, and hyper-threading applications. The main question would by what GPU you have. Depending on if it's a good one or not, it might be worth investing in a better GPU to add to it.oggebogge91 said:
The i7 is absolutely superior. But you might not notice much gain in real world performance with just gaming and browsing. Unless you're using applications and doing more intensive stuff that use its benefits, then the i5 is fine. Gaming is more centered around the GPU. While bottlenecking is indeed a thing, getting a GPU that matches the processor will go miles beyond just getting a better processor and keeping the old GPU.
So, please do tell us which GPU it is you own, and that'll open more ways of giving advice
Perhaps I should add in that money is not an issue.
The graphics card will be a GTX 1070, single configuration. I already have an SSD as well as a mirrored HDD RAID for data. I'll get some new memory, probably the Corsair Vengeance DDR4 LPX, not sure which frequency yet. The mobo will be a Gigabyte GA-H170-D3SP or whatever the code was.
I do want to spend my money wisely, which begs the question of the CPUs. It seems 6600 has stronger cores for single threaded applications while 6700 instead benefits from hyperthreading. The 6700 runs arond 103W at full load (which is 8 above the TDP!) while the 660 runs at somewhere 80 (15 below!). There are some games, primarily heavy-AI, that need a lot of computing power, so it's not an easy call. At the same time, the price difference is pretty stark...
The graphics card will be a GTX 1070, single configuration. I already have an SSD as well as a mirrored HDD RAID for data. I'll get some new memory, probably the Corsair Vengeance DDR4 LPX, not sure which frequency yet. The mobo will be a Gigabyte GA-H170-D3SP or whatever the code was.
I do want to spend my money wisely, which begs the question of the CPUs. It seems 6600 has stronger cores for single threaded applications while 6700 instead benefits from hyperthreading. The 6700 runs arond 103W at full load (which is 8 above the TDP!) while the 660 runs at somewhere 80 (15 below!). There are some games, primarily heavy-AI, that need a lot of computing power, so it's not an easy call. At the same time, the price difference is pretty stark...
If money is no issue, just go for the i7 6700K as it is clearly the superior CPU without being priced ridiculously higher than the i5 6600K. Processing power will be important in some upcoming big name PC games like Star Citizen, as well as more serious VR experiences. It has been predicted that Ultra settings for Star Citizen might recommend a "Core i7-5960X 8-Core 3.0GHz", which is actually more powerful than a i7 6700K. Who knows if this is true (it doesn't really make sense to me why CPU horsepower requirements would increase so much between recommended and ultra specs, but what do I know..). CPU intensive games will eventually need the extra oomph of an i7 six-core at least. When this will be is anyone's guess but it could be sooner than you think.Fallow said:
http://www.game-debate.com/news/15185/star-citizen-predicted-system-requirements
The only real differences in gaming you're going to see between these two chips is the slightly higher clock speed and slightly larger cache in the i7. It has been talked about and proved time and again that hyper-threading, which is the main advantage that the i7 has over the i5 is useless in gaming and it's only really useful if you're doing a fair amount of video encoding, rendering, file compression/decompression, etc.Fallow said:
A thread was made a few months back, testing a 6700K with hyperthreading on and off. You can find it here [http://www.techpowerup.com/forums/threads/gaming-benchmarks-core-i7-6700k-hyperthreading-test.219417/]. As you can see it does bugger all for gaming performance and can even hurt performance in some less well coded games. Fact of the matter is games just don't know what to do with more than four cores.
As for the power consumption, the i5 may use slightly less power as it has no hyperthreading but the difference is minuscule.
Jadwick said:
Money is not an issue, but as I explicitly stated, I want to spend my money wisely. Buying a Lamborghini is not a wise investment, buying a 1080 is not a wise investment. There is a pretty harsh penalty outside the "sweet spot" for performace/price in the hardware world, and I would have to be a fool to buy things there since I know better. Hence, no 1080 or dual-card configuration.
Good thinkingFallow said:
Honestly, I highly recommend going with the i7. A good CPU+mobo+RAM base something that can last you a very long time with your PC build through various other upgrades. My gaming rig is still using an OC'd i7 2600K since 2011 and I have no plans to upgrade it.
Also a lot of newer games are also making good advantage of hyperthreading.
This video suggests, for gaming, there is no difference.
On many games, the video quality comes from the GPU. The question is, can the CPU provide data fast enough for the best GPU, or is the GPU waiting while data is bottle necked at the CPU. This works in reverse too. You have a $1,500 CPU and a $50 GPU, the CPU will have data to send to the GPU but it will not be ready for it. In this case, the I5 is fast enough to not be the bottle neck to the most powerful of GPUs. My question: going forward as GPUs get much more powerful, or your using multiple cards, would that change? The I7 might be future proofing your system (which is often thought not worth doing: when the future tech will be better and cost less).
On many games, the video quality comes from the GPU. The question is, can the CPU provide data fast enough for the best GPU, or is the GPU waiting while data is bottle necked at the CPU. This works in reverse too. You have a $1,500 CPU and a $50 GPU, the CPU will have data to send to the GPU but it will not be ready for it. In this case, the I5 is fast enough to not be the bottle neck to the most powerful of GPUs. My question: going forward as GPUs get much more powerful, or your using multiple cards, would that change? The I7 might be future proofing your system (which is often thought not worth doing: when the future tech will be better and cost less).