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Is anything more than i3 really needed for your average gamer?

frogzila

frogzila

frogzila

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I'm curious to gather opinions on the price-performance relationships of i5 and i7 processors over i3 processors. Given that price increments between processors being within the region of £100-£200. And taking into account longevity and whether the delay of upgrading an i3 in x years could be offset by investing in an i5/i7 and upgrading in x+n years.

I'm having difficulty as I can now afford to build an i7 spec system but having trouble determining if I need an i7 and being ~£300 better off.

Thanks
 
frogzila said:
I'm curious to gather opinions on the price-performance relationships of i5 and i7 processors over i3 processors. Given that price increments between processors being within the region of £100-£200. And taking into account longevity and whether the delay of upgrading an i3 in x years could be offset by investing in an i5/i7 and upgrading in x+n years.

I'm having difficulty as I can now afford to build an i7 spec system but having trouble determining if I need an i7 and being ~£300 better off.

Thanks
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Have you considered that at this price range you could get a Ryzen 5 & 7 CPU, far superior to the i3? There is even a 1700 8 core 16 thread CPU in this range, let alone 2*** series 6 core 12 thread ones. Why you are looking for i3 specifically?
 
Depends what res your playing at, people on here will swear by you needing an Intel CPU to get the most possible fps for 1080p gaming if your above that then it doesn't matter as much.

With current pricing AMD are a strong contender for most builds and the extra cores on either side are useful when your doing more than running just a game i.e browser, discord open at same time.
 
No reason other than not being familiar with AMD - Thank you though, I'll look into it.

Does this also apply for comparisons between i7 and an AMD equivalent in the upper price range?
 
Distracted said:
The first thing you need to do for a question like this is define what you mean by average gamer.
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So for example Assasin's Creed Odyssey. I just like being able to play latest titles comfortably. Nothing really competitive - not looking for high FPS or anything.

I'm looking to go 4k - So 4k where possible.

With opting for a 4k build it's already looking pretty pricey, so I'm considering where else the fat could be trimmed.

FPS doesn't matter a great deal to me, as long it's comfortable to play.
 
frogzila said:
So for example Assasin's Creed Odyssey.

I'm looking to go 4k - So 4k where possible.

With opting for a 4k build it's already looking pretty pricey, so I'm considering where else the fat could be trimmed.

FPS doesn't matter a great deal to me, as long it's comfortable to play.
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For 4k you want to spend on the gpu which will be the limiting factor. Cpu wise, the best value for money right now is AMD.

At 4k the cpu matters less than at any other resolution for gaming. The gpu will be doing the heavy lifting, this is where you should be looking to put the bulk of your budget.
 
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frogzila said:
No reason other than not being familiar with AMD - Thank you though, I'll look into it.

Does this also apply for comparisons between i7 and an AMD equivalent in the upper price range?
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Do what i did, i hadn't looked at technology since i got my i5 3570k system 5 years ago, so get up to speed with where technology is at these days, look at benchmarks, reviews etc and then you'll get a feel of what is relevant to your needs.

Ryzen is worth looking into, more so with the price hikes of Intel CPU's.

Edit: I would definitely say a 6 core minimum these days, i don't see the point in getting a quad core.
 
Realistically you want atleast a 1080ti to play it comfortably. then you have the monitor. out of the people who play at 4k who actually uses a i3 ? 0.000000000001 .

your better off with maybe 2k and higher fps and a better monitor. than struggling at 4k and decent fps.

the easiest way to answer your question is say how much you spending. its the most important thing in working out what to suggest. 4k isnt cheap.

tbh as sad as it is to say if you have a 4k tv. get a console. you say fps isnt a issue. that would be the best bang for buck for you.
 
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~>Dg<~ said:
Realistically you want atleast a 1080ti to play it comfortably. then you have the monitor. out of the people who play at 4k who actually uses a i3 ? 0.000000000001 .

your better off with maybe 2k and higher fps and a better monitor. than struggling at 4k and decent fps.

the easiest way to answer your question is say how much you spending. its the most important thing in working out what to suggest. 4k isnt cheap.

tbh as sad as it is to say if you have a 4k tv. get a console. you say fps isnt a issue. that would be the best bang for buck for you.
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I managed perfectly fine at 4k with a 980Ti, and 1600x CPU. I dropped settings a little, and ended up with 60fps in most games, or I had a choice to go 30fps if I wanted extra eye candy on games where I used a controller.

Yes an Xbox One X/PS4 Pro would be the cheapest option to get upto 4k/30fps for games alone, but if you're wanting to do stuff other than game, or play games that aren't on console, then you'll need a PC
 
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To answer the question, if you want any kind of future proofing, the answer is yes. You only need to look at the CPU use in the latest AC games to see why. Various multiplayer games can show up low core/thread count also.
 
if you playing console type games mainly like assassins creed tombraider. not much difference. once you venture into mp games especially big ones the bottom falls out of lower end cpus. even at high resolutions.
 
String said:
What is your current spec? A lot of these questions can be answered by using your current system to demonstrate the requirements and shortfalls.
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i3 4330 with a gtx 960 which has served me very well. However, it's having trouble running some of the latest titles smoothly. And I'm really keen to go 4K.

With regards to budget, I haven't yet established one. I could afford to go all out and buy 'the best of everything' but that seems wasteful - What I'm aiming to do is establish the best price-performance ratio. I could technically say I'm willing to spend £3000 but I wouldn't see that as a goal to find the best of everything for within £3000. If that makes sense? I don't want a bull doing a mouses work.

My main concerns are longevity with regards to future proofing and having a system which handles everything I play well.

@'Wez - I certainly need to take the time to look in to Ryzen - I've always had intel systems and so I guess I've just become a bit of a creature of habit.
 
For solo gaming the latest i3's are probably good enough - any huge multiplayer games will test the limits of this CPU though. Average frame rates probably won't suffer too much but stuttering and reduced minimums will become more prevalent. It will bottle neck the more powerful GPUs (1070 and up).
 
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