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I5 or I7 gaming?

i5 is good as are ryzens, i7 is theoretically best but generally not worth the extra money unless you're both running a very high end GPU and on a low resolution.
 
Unless having current PC hopelessly falling in pieces to floor better wait couple weeks for release of Zen+/Ryzen2 CPUs and assess the situation then.

Mostly because of higher clocks Intel has advantage in most games, but it's not major.
Zen+ gives little more clocks over current Ryzen and improvements to cache/memory latency should help to decrease Intel's advantage in games.
And while Intel gives us buyers mid finger by swapping CPU sockets without actual advance in CPU, AMD gives chance to upgrade CPU in couple years.
 
David Bisset said:
i5 is good as are ryzens, i7 is theoretically best but generally not worth the extra money unless you're both running a very high end GPU and on a low resolution.
Click to expand...

Considering my 4970k@4,7ghz bottlenecks in some games at 1440p max settings on my 1080ti i would say that last part is simply not true. I would never ever consider an i5 as they loss their edge a whole lot faster than the i7s does unless i had to be real budget conscious and for some reason wont be picking ryzen.
 
So you're running a very high end GPU at... medium Resolution. On a slower CPU than the i5. You got a point? Sounds like you're demonstrating the same limitation I reference (also worth remembering the 8700k can also hit many of the same limits as the i5)

Personally I'd go Ryzen right now but the i5s are still good chips.
 
Your choices are
AMD - 8 core Ryzen refresh due in 2 weeks or less
INTEL - 6 core as a minimum but really should be looking at the incoming Intel 8 core if you're wanting to future proof yourself.

With more and more developers seeing the multi cores available, they will be using more and more cores as time goes on. 8 cores is the future proof sweet spot if you're wanting to keep the hardware for a few years.
 
David Bisset said:
So you're running a very high end GPU at... medium Resolution. On a slower CPU than the i5. You got a point? Sounds like you're demonstrating the same limitation I reference (also worth remembering the 8700k can also hit many of the same limits as the i5)

Personally I'd go Ryzen right now but the i5s are still good chips.
Click to expand...

1440p is not medium resolution and certainly requires a good amount of raw power if you want to push that resolution above 100fps with all the eye candy on and if you reply with a "1080ti is a 4k card" i'm going to reach through the infinite spacetime and slap you silly with a white glove :). The OP didn't specify what i5 or i7 he talked about but lets for arguments sake say its only the 8600k and 8700k then the point i wanted across still stands.

If i had bought the 4690k(or 4670k) instead of my i7 i would be having not so great a result right now which leads to my point all along. I5 may be just fine right when they come out, the 8600k is certainly faster than my aging 4790k, but it wont be long before you wish you had that hyperthreading to help you out simply because core count requirements are going up. Its not a fast change but if you plan to keep your system as it is for a long time it certainly makes sense to spend that little bit extra and then be able to skip another 1-2 generations(going by the last few years). We already right now have games(yes multiple) that will max out a 6 core 6 thread cpu, sure would be nice if budget allows to have those extra 6 threads in such a situation.
 
for gaming i7 offers no measurable value over i5 in my view. Logical cores dont really help gaming much and can actually be a hindrance.

Ryzen vs i5? depends on the game. A 6 core ryzen wont be as good as a CL i5, but a 8 core ryzen might be if the game is optimised for heavy core usage.
 
If you are going Ryzen for gaming only then the smart money would be on the 6 core R5 model. At the moment the 1600X is capable of the highest clock speeds and that's gonna be the biggest advantage in current games over having 8 cores.

As games become more multi-thread capable then an 8 core Ryzen CPU will start to show it's worth, even at slightly lower clock speeds. With AMD you can buy a 6 core chip today and in a year or 2 swap that out for an 8 core if you choose without stripping the whole motherboard out.

Intel will give you the fastest CPU today but you will be tied to that motherboard. Changing the processor means changing the board as well. If you don't mind taking the hit and flogging them off used then it will be the best option for the absolute fastest performance.

Don't worry about future proofing. It can never be done, there will always be something that comes out that makes your parts obsolete. You just have to decide if what you have is still good enough when that happens
 
chrcoluk said:
for gaming i7 offers no measurable value over i5 in my view. Logical cores dont really help gaming much and can actually be a hindrance.
Click to expand...
Six cores of Coffee Lake is now surely improvement, but all i5's before that have had awfully little threads for enthusiast use.

Review PCs simply never have all the stuff in them that's installed in normal PC.
(already because those would wreck repeatability of tests)
More threads from cores/HT helps in avoiding/minimizing hiccups from all that background stuff running in normal PC.

Having web browser with lots of tabs (and other software) open in background during gaming is no problem when having more than enough for game cores/threads.
But try same with PC with just enough cores to run games and you're bound to have those hiccups.
That's why people switching from higher clocked Intel desktop platform quad cores to lower clocked HEDT hexacore have had smoother gaming experience.
 
Phixsator said:
1440p is not medium resolution and certainly requires a good amount of raw power if you want to push that resolution above 100fps with all the eye candy on and if you reply with a "1080ti is a 4k card" i'm going to reach through the infinite spacetime and slap you silly with a white glove :). The OP didn't specify what i5 or i7 he talked about but lets for arguments sake say its only the 8600k and 8700k then the point i wanted across still stands.

If i had bought the 4690k(or 4670k) instead of my i7 i would be having not so great a result right now which leads to my point all along. I5 may be just fine right when they come out, the 8600k is certainly faster than my aging 4790k, but it wont be long before you wish you had that hyperthreading to help you out simply because core count requirements are going up. Its not a fast change but if you plan to keep your system as it is for a long time it certainly makes sense to spend that little bit extra and then be able to skip another 1-2 generations(going by the last few years). We already right now have games(yes multiple) that will max out a 6 core 6 thread cpu, sure would be nice if budget allows to have those extra 6 threads in such a situation.
Click to expand...
But but 4k card ;) just cause that white glove trick sounds awesome.

Honestly in some ways I agree but it's always a question of what else the money gets - if you're getting a 1080ti anyway then you'll not get a faster card with the CPU savings. On most budgets I think you can gain more by spending less on the CPU and going harder on GPU. Future proofing is always a shot in the dark and often has little effect e.g. I still use an i5 750 and one of my mates has the 860 and they both handle modern games similarly well/badly - for games that need lots of CPU grunt his runs out of steam on the primary threads as fast as mine does so his extra thread count seldom helps in games. Most games we're both GPU limited (had we upgraded to high-end GPUs though there may be many more games that show a difference)

The OP doesn't say which i5 and i7 yeah so I was also assuming 8700k and 8600k though I'd be more likely to get an 8400 personally (or, realistically, a refreshed ryzens) to free up budget for better other stuff.
 
EsaT said:
Six cores of Coffee Lake is now surely improvement, but all i5's before that have had awfully little threads for enthusiast use.
Click to expand...

Hyper-threading is only of benefit in certain edge cases as is the extra cache. They're fake threads, it's not like the i7 suddenly sprouted double the cores. For gaming, i5 is the sweet spot with the £100+ it frees up better invested elsewhere in the rig.
 
subbytna said:
Your choices are
AMD - 8 core Ryzen refresh due in 2 weeks or less
INTEL - 6 core as a minimum but really should be looking at the incoming Intel 8 core if you're wanting to future proof yourself.

With more and more developers seeing the multi cores available, they will be using more and more cores as time goes on. 8 cores is the future proof sweet spot if you're wanting to keep the hardware for a few years.
Click to expand...

I haven't heard of the intel 8 core I know the I9 is out at silly monies. Any idea's on when the new chip is due?
 
to cut through the chaff it goes ingaming only i7/i5/ryzens.in that order.you cut put the i9 in front of them all but you are mentioning i5s/i7s so that doesnt seem to be your budget.the newest i5s beat any ryzen ingames and thats the £150 version nevermind anything quicker.
 
~>Dg<~ said:
to cut through the chaff it goes ingaming only i7/i5/ryzens.in that order.you cut put the i9 in front of them all but you are mentioning i5s/i7s so that doesnt seem to be your budget.the newest i5s beat any ryzen ingames and thats the £150 version nevermind anything quicker.
Click to expand...

Thanks Dg :)
 
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