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Need to replace my gaming rig - which CPU?

Arterion

Arterion

Arterion

Associate
Joined
14 Jan 2004
Posts
921
Location
Reading, UK
Hi all,

It seems building a new machine these days is a bit of a can-of-worms, when it comes to deciding on specific components. I'm coming from an i5-2500K, and I'm not especially bothered about overclockability. This new rig will primarily be for gaming, with an R9 390 and I'm torn between the following CPUs:

i5-6600 3.3GHz @ £169.99
i5-6600K 3.9GHz @ £229.99
i7-6700 3.4GHz @ £249.99

There's larger leap in price from the 6600 to the 6600K, but unsure what the performance difference is like?

Would appreciate any advice!
 
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There's about 7% power difference between the two 6600 chips, but the K series is unlocked so will allow you to overclock; where the non-K is not.

I certainly wouldn't bother with the 6700 series chip. the 6600 is more than enough.

Especially with a single GPU, if you're looking at multi-gpu then the 5930 is probably a better option.
 
Deathjester said:
There's about 7% power difference between the two 6600 chips, but the K series is unlocked so will allow you to overclock; where the non-K is not.
Click to expand...

To what extent will that ~7% difference be felt in games, do you think?

Might end up going multi-gpu somewhere along the line, but certainly no plans in the short-medium term.
 
Im gonna be in the market for skylake next week when the green sniper board hopefully comes in stock.

Reading this thread to help myself out too. I think the 6600k is the chip to go for then? £230 seems a lot higher price than a number of places which surprises me.
 
At this point I would go 4690k/4790k or 5820k. Skylake is just pointless cost right now. Haswell performs just as well and overclocks as well.
Single GPU, go 4690k.
Multi GPU, go 4790k.
Want more features than Z97 (for some strange reason?) 5820k.
 
+1 for going the x99 / 5820k or above route. not that many applications or games are utilising the extra cores at the moment but in the coming years they will and these chips seem like the only real future facing desktop cpus around right now. Until the skylake 6+ core chips come out at least
 
Arterion said:
I'm coming from an i5-2500K
...
Would appreciate any advice!
Click to expand...


Stick with it and just get the GPU? You have a legendarily overclockable CPU, and apart from a few very heavy scenarios, that thing running at 4.5 will still handle admirably :)
 
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Grab a new board for the 2500k for £60 overclock it and enjoy it for another couple of years until AMD catch up and force Intel to release the performance gains they have been sitting on.
 
The plus with Skylake is it overclockes likes a beast compared to any 4770k or 4790k and runs much cooler. Oh and DDR4. I've had both haswell chips and they are very hot chips.

If your a gamer 6 cores is usless.
 
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I'm wanting to go skylake purely because I want a new build to look pretty. I want a green sniper board and new cpu. I don't need it as I have a 2500k at 4.5ghz but I just feel like a treat of the new build.

Can't believe how well sandy still holds up. It makes things so much trickier.
 
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