i5 2500K vs i7 2600K for gaming

[Reaper 392]

as far as i know, the i52500K is the one you want to go for if your going to be gaming.

however, the person who is getting this gaming computer spoke to a computer repair man, who was adamant that he should go for i7. i was under the impression that the i7 offered virtually no benefit for gamers, but i really dont want to go against a person who should know his stuff

considering that this computer will almost certainly be used for 4 years or more, what would be the best processor to go with for a gaming machine. i5 or i7?

 

[Reaper 392]

If you want to keep your machine for the next 4 years I would go for I7. The hyper threading will help in multithreaded apps.

As for gaming you wont be able to tell any difference. If your after gaming performance throw money at your GPU.

thats pretty much what i thought. i just need to find out if my mate is going to be doing anything that needs hyperthreading

 

[Reaper 392]

Slightly vague and anecdotal tales of i7s having a little more overclocking headroom. Also the possibility of future games offering greater threaded support (I think it will become clearer when BF3 gets benched later this year as that claims to offer multi-thread optimisation). But as things stand, no truly compelling reason to go 2600k for just gaming.

thanks. i think that settles it. i'll tell my friend to avoid the i7.

first reason is, he certainly isnt going to be doing his own overclocking, and will be having it overclocked for him. second reason is, it was the decision between two incredibly similar prebuilt PC's, and the i5 was about £190 cheaper

 

[Reaper 392]

Go for the i5...plenty CPU grunt for current and upcoming games well into the future. Most games rely more on graphics card power than CPU.

Save the £190, go for the i5 and spend the savings on beer.

sorry, make that £110

it was the difference between two prebuilt PC's (one slightly modified) clever me put the wrong OS on the more expensive PC. The difference in price also includes a hard drive size increase, and a better CPU cooler, and a nicer case.

my mate is also going to have to wait for a few weeks because his laptop needed a £100 repair, and he is also waiting for a quite from his local computer shop to see if they can beat overclockers. i doubt they will, but its worth a look