Intel core i3 vs i5 vs i7

[Flojo]

http://www.techspot.com/review/972-intel-core-i3-vs-i5-vs-i7/

TLDR;

The Core i3 absolutely offers the best value for PC gamers, which is terrific news, though we would insist in recommending a Core i5 to enthusiasts and gamers with a less tight budget. Gamers opting for a GTX 960 or slower will get away happily with the Core i3, while it would make more sense to invest in a Core i5 with any GPU faster than that.

When it comes to Intel's integrated HD Graphics performance, all three series are virtually useless for gaming. In short, if you want to game without a discrete graphics card then get an AMD APU -- they're cheaper and carry considerably faster integrated graphics.

As a closing note, there's not much to talk about in terms of power consumption as all Haswell CPUs are efficient, however, given how much faster the Core i7-4790 is in some productivity applications, the fact that it consumes less than 40% more power is amazing.

 

[HideInLight]

Thanks for this, they using realistic hardware to test.
Can actually see how the i3-4160 performs with a GTX 960 on Tomb Raider and how going above an i3 makes no difference at all.

 

[Hamster]

/waits

 

[.QQ.]

if you want to game without a discrete graphics card

 

[ponder]

/waits

Well there are games where you will see a big difference which makes one wonder wether they cherry picked the games.

 

[CataclysmZA]

Can actually see how the i3-4160 performs with a GTX 960 on Tomb Raider and how going above an i3 makes no difference at all.

That's because a fair amount of the games tested, including Tomb Raider, are GPU-limited. Their qualifying statement that pairing anything stronger than a Core i3 to a GTX 960 is correct, because the bottleneck there is still the GPU. If they had included results for a Pentium G3258, it would have offered more background into how the CPUs differ.

That's why their scores are also effectively useless in the gaming benchmarks. If they had included WoW, there would be a big difference in how the game handles a hyper-threaded dual-core as opposed to a quad. At no point is there an obvious CPU limitation because they're also using FPS averages, so without FCAT results looking at the frame time variances when using different CPUs, the data is pretty much lying to you.

 

[HideInLight]

That's because a fair amount of the games tested, including Tomb Raider, are GPU-limited. Their qualifying statement that pairing anything stronger than a Core i3 to a GTX 960 is correct, because the bottleneck there is still the GPU. If they had included results for a Pentium G3258, it would have offered more background into how the CPUs differ.

That's why their scores are also effectively useless in the gaming benchmarks. If they had included WoW, there would be a big difference in how the game handles a hyper-threaded dual-core as opposed to a quad. At no point is there an obvious CPU limitation because they're also using FPS averages, so without FCAT results looking at the frame time variances when using different CPUs, the data is pretty much lying to you.

There's been enough tests done to offer how the cpus differ. With those tests they run SLI, but the average person will be more interested in how their build would perform.

Thinking about it, if your GPU limited, you might get better results with a CPU Oc'ed to give a higher single threaded rating than getting extra cores. That would explain the vanilla Fx6300 getting consistently beaten by the i3 in terms of fps even though it scores higher overall.

G3258 results would of been nice though.
The lack of hyper threading though results in a type of micro-stutter though.

 

[HideInLight]

Just did my own little test with Hitman Absolution on Ultra with my i5-3470 and R9 270x

@3.0Ghz (1670 Single thread) -> 44.5 fps
@3.6Ghz (1970 single thread) -> 48.5 fps

 

[Rickster]

PC gaming is all about future proofing, if you going to buy the cheapest thing on the block, you going to regret it when you need to upgrade.

 

[sybertiger]

i actuly want to upgrade to a i7 3770 from a i5 2400

is it worth it,i can get the cpu for faily cheap

and i can still use the old cpu for the pc in the other room as it still use a c2d

is it worth the upgrade
does HT affect games that badly?

also i played a gta and and cpu load went to 100% 95 85 90 like that
and gpu load at 95%

i know gta 4 is **** but is it normal for that high load on the cpu side

also i will love to have a i7

i payed 2.5k not so long ago for a z68 so i dont want to upgrade to a 4770k or so
im stuck at 3770k ,maby in 2years i will upgrade the whole package again

also the i7 is 22nm so will get full use of my ram speed
and it support pci 3.0

 

[CataclysmZA]

It really depends on the settings you're using in your games, your resolution, your GPU and what games you play. Z68 boards can do some overclocking of locked CPUs by altering the turbo boost ratios, though moving to a i7-3770K would bring you increases in the clock speed, core count, L3 cache allotment and overall performance. Any of the recent i7 chips from Sandy Bridge onwards will remain relevant for quite some time, especially if they have an unlocked multiplier for overclocking. There still really isn't anything out there to bog down a Core i5-2500K at 4.5GHz, for example, if we're strictly looking at game performance.

As for GTA IV, when you're playing next time, if you have a second monitor, open up Task Manager and see how the game is loading up on your individual cores. You can also disable core parking if you're using Windows 7, which may help with overall CPU usage.

 

[HideInLight]

i actuly want to upgrade to a i7 3770 from a i5 2400

is it worth it,i can get the cpu for faily cheap

and i can still use the old cpu for the pc in the other room as it still use a c2d

is it worth the upgrade
does HT affect games that badly?

also i played a gta and and cpu load went to 100% 95 85 90 like that
and gpu load at 95%

i know gta 4 is **** but is it normal for that high load on the cpu side

also i will love to have a i7

i payed 2.5k not so long ago for a z68 so i dont want to upgrade to a 4770k or so
im stuck at 3770k ,maby in 2years i will upgrade the whole package again

also the i7 is 22nm so will get full use of my ram speed
and it support pci 3.0

What GPU?
Yeah I guess one could say it'll be worth it especially if you can run it at it's turbo speed.
You'll probably get like +10 fps max on ultra type settings.

You'll also be ready for whatever they can still throw at us including VR.

 

[sybertiger]

i got a evga 970

as it use pci 3.0 and i got 1866 ram

where the 2400 dont support 3.0 and only takes 1333 ram

10+ fps thats good

so its worth getting it then

and i want to max out games at max fps i can get

 

[CataclysmZA]

The Z68 chipset doesn't support PCI-Express 3.0, you're stuck with 2.0-speed lanes unless you move to Z77 and the Ivy Bridge processors. It doesn't matter, though, a single GTX 970 is never going to bottleneck PCI-E 2.0.

 

[sybertiger]

The Z68 chipset doesn't support PCI-Express 3.0, you're stuck with 2.0-speed lanes unless you move to Z77 and the Ivy Bridge processors. It doesn't matter, though, a single GTX 970 is never going to bottleneck PCI-E 2.0.

wel mine does

http://www.asrock.com/mb/Intel/Z68 Extreme7 Gen3/

Premium Gold Caps (2.5 x longer life time), 100% Japan made high quality conductive polymer capacitors
Digi Power, Advanced V8 + 4 Power Phase Design
NVIDIA® NF200 Chip Onboard (Dual VGA cards at PCI-E x16/x16; three VGA cards at x16 / x8 / x8)
Integrated PLX PEX8608 chip onboard to offer sufficient PCI-E lanes
1x PCIe 3.0 x16 Slot, 4 PCIe 2.0 x16 Slots, Supports AMD 3-Way CrossFireX™ and NVIDIA® 3-Way SLI™
Supports Intel® HD Graphics Built-in Visuals
Graphics Output Options : D-Sub, DVI-D, HDMI, DisplayPort
Supports Dual LAN with Teaming function
Dr. Debug, Smart Switch Design: Power/Reset/Clear CMOS Switch with LED
Support Intel® Smart Response, Lucid Virtu Switchable Graphics
Supports ASRock XFast RAM, XFast LAN, XFast USB, XFast Charger Technologies
Supports ASRock On/Off Play, Dehumidifier, graphical UEFI, ASRock Extreme Tuning Utility (AXTU)
Combo Cooler Option (C.C.O.)
7.1 CH HD Audio with Content Protection (Realtek ALC892 Audio Codec)
Free Bundle : 1 x Front USB 3.0 Panel, 1 x Rear USB 3.0 Bracket, 1 x 3.5mm Audio Cable, CyberLink MediaEspresso 6.5 Trial, ASRock MAGIX Multimedia Suite Trial

 

[CataclysmZA]

wel mine does

http://www.asrock.com/mb/Intel/Z68 Extreme7 Gen3/

Huh, what do you know, they must be using a PLX chip somewhere to keep SLI as a feature, then.

 

[sybertiger]

yup its just above the battery