Upgrading a Q6600, i5 or i7?

starmanwarz · 6 Oct 2013 at 14:32

I decided to upgrade my system with some parts from this decade and I want to settle on a CPU first before choosing my other parts.

I haven't been following the hardware scene all these years so I am completely lost. After some research I can tell that the most popular chips are the i5 and i7 but there are like a million different chips.

I want to buy a CPU that will be as much future-proof as possible, be a good overclocker and offer best performance to price ratio. I don't have plans for SLI/crossifire atm as I am not a big fan of dual cards but you never know.

So, what is the best CPU for a gaming PC (no rendering editing etc)? Budget is ~£260.

Also, I will be obviously buying a cooler too (~£90 budget) so any recommendations on this are welcome too

Hades · 6 Oct 2013 at 14:36

The 4770k i7 is on offer this weekend and I'd recommend that. Pesonally I would avoid the i5 if you want a processor for many years because some of the newer games appear to run better with more than 4 cores. If you were only looking for a short term cpu then I would say i5.

You will of course need a new motherboard and RAM.

starmanwarz · 6 Oct 2013 at 14:39

Hades said:
The 4770k i7 is on offer this weekend and I'd recommend that. Pesonally I would avoid the i5 if you want a processor for many years because some of the newer games appear to run better with more than 4 cores. If you were only looking for a short term cpu then I would say i5.

You will of course need a new motherboard and RAM.

Yep the 4770k looks solid, but unfortunately I can't order just yet so I am going to miss on that offer.

I will be getting a board and Ram as well, need to decide on the CPU first

swiftmetal · 6 Oct 2013 at 14:39

these are some options and included and i& which would be the best choice if you want it to be future proof.

YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i7-4770K 3.50GHz (Haswell) Socket LGA1150 Processor - Retail £239.99
1 x OcUK Tech Labs Fathom All in One Custom Cooler 240mm £112.97
1 x XSPC EX240 120mm Radiator - Black £41.99
1 x Mayhems Ultra Pure H20 Watercooling Fluid 1L £4.99
1 x Corsair Hydro H100i High Performance Liquid CPU Cooler (CW-9060009-WW) £94.94
1 x Noctua NH-D14 Dual Radiator CPU Cooler £65.99
Total : £572.87 (includes shipping : £10.00).

starmanwarz · 6 Oct 2013 at 14:44

Another vote towards the 4770k, awesome

I forgot to ask about AMD's series, anything worth looking at? I always had Intel CPU's and I would prefer to stick with them

~>Dg<~ · 6 Oct 2013 at 14:46

Hades said:
The 4770k i7 is on offer this weekend and I'd recommend that. Pesonally I would avoid the i5 if you want a processor for many years because some of the newer games appear to run better with more than 4 cores. If you were only looking for a short term cpu then I would say i5.

You will of course need a new motherboard and RAM.

total false hood and not one game has been proven to show this !

only reason for a i7 over a i5 is either budget or more than one card !

bf4 exact same performance with one card. i suggest before you make your mind up read articles and not just take peoples generalizations.

benchmark here check a i5 vs i7 http://www.hardwarepal.com/battlefield-4-cpu-gpu-benchmarks/#_

also remember that there is a bug in bf4 at the moment which is causing stuttering and nothing related to i5 cpus just people are assuming that its because they cant handle the game when they can

real funny thing about it is the i5 often beats the i7 4770k in the benchmarks lol !

starmanwarz · 6 Oct 2013 at 14:55

I will be playing BF4 but I won't make my mind judging from Beta benchmarks, it currently has terrible optimization.

Hades · 6 Oct 2013 at 16:21

~>Dg<~ said:
total false hood and not one game has been proven to show this !

only reason for a i7 over a i5 is either budget or more than one card !

bf4 exact same performance with one card. i suggest before you make your mind up read articles and not just take peoples generalizations.

benchmark here check a i5 vs i7 http://www.hardwarepal.com/battlefield-4-cpu-gpu-benchmarks/#_

also remember that there is a bug in bf4 at the moment which is causing stuttering and nothing related to i5 cpus just people are assuming that its because they cant handle the game when they can

real funny thing about it is the i5 often beats the i7 4770k in the benchmarks lol !

It will be interesting to see how good i5 is in a few years time. I guess it wont be too disimilar to using a dual core today for current games. It's not entirely surprising that an i5 can handle games as well as an i7 because and i7 is essentially the same processor but with hyperthreading. If I understand hyperthreading correctly then
it's simply using unused CPU cycles to present additional threads. So a game needing no more than four threads should run equally well on either. If a game is maxing out four cores then I don't know whether HT will be useful because there are no spare cycles to dedicate to HT.

My view is:

Only ever using up to 4 threads... get an i5
Using more than 4 threads but maxing 4 out... get an i5 because HT wont be effective.
Using more than 4 threads but never maxing them out... get an i7 or consider a lower performance AMD octacore
Using dual GPU... get an i7.

One thing we do know is that the next gen consoles have 8 lower strength cores/threads.

starmanwarz · 6 Oct 2013 at 16:27

Hmm, looks like the 4670k is the wisest choice then... 4770k is an overkill for gaming on a single GPU. Will probably order a 4670k, should be enough for 3-4 years? My loveley Q6600 lasted almost 7 years and is still working perfectly

What about the 3xxx series? Are these older models?

Hades · 6 Oct 2013 at 16:33

Yes 3 series is older.

Martini1991 · 6 Oct 2013 at 16:35

You can get some stellar 3770K second hand bundles though on socket 1155.
Price/performance they're up there.

starmanwarz · 6 Oct 2013 at 16:40

I generally avoid second hand parts, I like buying new stuff

Martini1991 · 6 Oct 2013 at 16:56

Best CPU at 260 is the 4770K in that case then.

starmanwarz · 6 Oct 2013 at 17:10

Martini1991 said:
Best CPU at 260 is the 4770K in that case then.

Yeah. I'm not sure if I can justify the extra cost over the 4670k though, saving some money here means more money towards a GPU (probably the new ATI 290X or a 780)

starmanwarz · 6 Oct 2013 at 22:08

I'm set on the 4670k, will order in the next couple of days

I checked some benchmarks and it looks like the performance gain of the 4770k is very small for gaming.

Hopefully I won't change my mind again. Now I have to find a nice board to go with it .. Also, the Corsair H100i is a very popular choice but I am unsure if it will fit in my case? The radiator goes on top but the PSU is placed there, am I missing something?

gpuerrilla · 6 Oct 2013 at 22:18

starmanwarz said:
The radiator goes on top but the PSU is placed there, am I missing something?

New cases the PSU is on the bottom. You could always put the H100 on another area of the case that can accommodate it.

starmanwarz · 6 Oct 2013 at 22:21

Th0nt said:
New cases the PSU is on the bottom. You could always put the H100 on another area of the case that can accommodate it.

Ah I see. I already have the radiator which came with my case, and it is placed in the front of the case, at the bottom. Would it fit there?

From Corsair's website: Have a PC case that supports a top-mounted 240mm radiator? I guess I can't buy one?

gpuerrilla · 6 Oct 2013 at 22:24

Can you provide a picture?

Martini1991 · 6 Oct 2013 at 22:31

Do you have any part of your case that has 2 12cm fan spaces together?

starmanwarz · 6 Oct 2013 at 22:48

Th0nt said:
Can you provide a picture?

Is this good enough?

It was taken when I was building it back in 2007. Not pictured is the PSU which is on the top left of the pic and the radiator at the bottom right.

Edit: Damn I'm sorry, pic is huge lol, no idea how to resize it