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i5 vs i7


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Hi,

I'm currently thinking of buying new PC but I haven't yet decided which CPU to buy - I'm thinking about :

 

Intel Core i5-3570K

http://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=Intel+Core+i5-3570K+%40+3.40GHz

 

or

 

Intel Core i7-3770K

http://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=Intel+Core+i7-3770K+%40+3.50GHz

 

The main question of course is "Is the i7 bang worth the extra buck?". My main concern is performance in DCS, for all other things I do the i5 would quite sufficient. What do you guys think ?

 

PS: I'm going to overclock to get some extra performance from the CPU I choose in the end - both should be overclockable nicely.

 

edit: I'm thinking that the i5 might be enough since DCS right now cannot utilize multiple cores or hyperthreading. But this thing called EDGE is the back of my mind - maybe when EDGE finally comes out the extra cores and threads of the i7 would come handy.


Edited by lanmancz

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Since DCS is not really all that capable of multi-threading, HT in i7 will be useless, at least until DCS learns to utilize more than 2 cores. The bigger cache in i7 should provide a frame rate increase, however I think that the money would be better spent on a faster video card.

 

Happy upgrading :-)

 

P.S. Even if EDGE happens to work well with multi-core processors, I would still think that a better video card would provide more of a frame rate increase than an i7, though I could be wrong, since very little is known about it (EDGE).


Edited by Gloom Demon

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...

Yeah, I think you're right. As for the videocard - I have chosen Gigabyte GV-N760OC-2GD - that should do nicely.


Edited by lanmancz

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Gigabyte Aorus Z390 Elite, Intel i9 9900K, Fractal Design Kelvin S36, Zotac GTX 1070 8GB AMP Extreme, 32GB DDR4 HyperX CL15 Predator Series @ 3000 MHz, Kingston SSD 240GB (OS), Samsung 970 EVO 1TB M.2 NVMe (sim), Fractal Design Define R5 Black Window, EVGA SuperNOVA 750 G2, Win 10 Home x64, Thrustmaster Warthog HOTAS, Saitek Pro Flight Rudder Pedals, Thrustmaster MFD Cougar Pack, TrackIR (DelanClip), 3x 27" BenQ EW2740L, Oculus Rift S

 

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I agree. The additional cost for the i7 is better invested in a graphics card. Will presumably give you more fps in almost every game.

Most games don't use more than 2 cores. And if they do in two years or so, you can still upgrade to an i7 then.

 

If you use your PC for rendering videos or stuff I would highly recommend the i7 though.

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go for the I7 4770K

VERY PLEASED AFTER UPGRADING MY OLD i7 920

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Don't forget tho that just because DCS isn't or doesn't use HT doesn't mean other processes in windows won't be using them. With an i5 background processes will be taking valuable resources away from DCS.

 

BR

 

Rich

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Seems like there's no real difference between the two when it comes to DCS and most other current games. The 3770k overclocks better and gives you a bit more future proofing for once IG comes out next year - especially if the new engine can make use of HT though there's no real word on this. DCS is a CPU heavy game so any extra grunt is useful in my opinion but might not be worth the difference if you're working off a budget you have to stick to. A better GPU would probably give you a better bang for your buck right now.

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Don't forget tho that just because DCS isn't or doesn't use HT doesn't mean other processes in windows won't be using them. With an i5 background processes will be taking valuable resources away from DCS.

 

BR

 

Rich

 

The i5 is fast enough for you to not worry about background processes running. I have an i5 2500k and I haven't even overclocked it yet because there is no need to, it's fast enough. But, if you can get a i7 and you have the money.......might as well buy it.

i7-4820k @ 3.7, Windows 7 64-bit, 16GB 1866mhz EVGA GTX 970 2GB, 256GB SSD, 500GB WD, TM Warthog, TM Cougar MFD's, Saitek Combat Pedals, TrackIR 5, G15 keyboard, 55" 4K LED

 

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The i5 is fast enough for you to not worry about background processes running. I have an i5 2500k and I haven't even overclocked it yet because there is no need to, it's fast enough. But, if you can get a i7 and you have the money.......might as well buy it.

 

Anything running in the background will always take something away for what you are running, no matter how powerful your proc is.

 

BR

 

Rich

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It is a good rule of thumb not to run anything intensive in the background and even if you do - that leaves an extra core free (2 for DCS and 1 for background processes). Come to mention it - HT is not extra cores, it's just the ability to utilize certain functional blocks of a single core for different use simultaneously and that is not always feasible.

 

As you can see - the difference between the two CPU's in games is actually negligible:

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Intel/Core_i5_3570K_and_i7_3770K_Comparison/8.html

 

The extra 100 $ they ask for an i7 would mean a Geforce 760 instead of an 660 Ti with quite a bigger bang:

http://www.anandtech.com/show/7103/nvidia-geforce-gtx-760-review/10


Edited by Gloom Demon

AMD Ryzen 3600, Biostar Racing B850GT3, AMD Rx 580 8Gb, 16384 DDR4 2900, Hitachi 7K3000 2Tb, Samsung SM961 256Gb SSD, Thrustmaster T.Flight HOTAS X, Samsung S24F350 24'

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Anything running in the background will always take something away for what you are running, no matter how powerful your proc is.

 

BR

 

Rich

 

I understand that, but how much is is really gonna effect the cpu....depending on what it is?

i7-4820k @ 3.7, Windows 7 64-bit, 16GB 1866mhz EVGA GTX 970 2GB, 256GB SSD, 500GB WD, TM Warthog, TM Cougar MFD's, Saitek Combat Pedals, TrackIR 5, G15 keyboard, 55" 4K LED

 

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So I did it. Bought the i5 3570K, overclocked it to 4.2 GHz with the GTX760 as my graphics card and I can say it works like charm. I now got everything in DCS World at max settings (except civ traffic) and in A10C the framerate is absolutely smooth and stable. I didn't yet test any big mission to look how it handles large numbers of units, just one of my missions I used to play with my old Q9400 (with everything on low back then) and the result is just beautiful :-)


Edited by lanmancz

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Gigabyte Aorus Z390 Elite, Intel i9 9900K, Fractal Design Kelvin S36, Zotac GTX 1070 8GB AMP Extreme, 32GB DDR4 HyperX CL15 Predator Series @ 3000 MHz, Kingston SSD 240GB (OS), Samsung 970 EVO 1TB M.2 NVMe (sim), Fractal Design Define R5 Black Window, EVGA SuperNOVA 750 G2, Win 10 Home x64, Thrustmaster Warthog HOTAS, Saitek Pro Flight Rudder Pedals, Thrustmaster MFD Cougar Pack, TrackIR (DelanClip), 3x 27" BenQ EW2740L, Oculus Rift S

 

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If someone is now building a computer and is going to buy a CPU very soon, would you guys suggest getting an i5 or an i7 for the future? I am building a computer and I am getting a ordering on Wednesday. I have been looking at the i5-4670K. I know that DCS right now cannot make use of hyperthreading, but do you guys think the new image generator (EDGE) that seems to be in the works will make use of hyperthreading, and make the i7 a better investment? I am not sure. For budget reasons, it will either be the i5-4670K and a GTX760 video card, or a i7-4770k and a GTX660

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If someone is now building a computer and is going to buy a CPU very soon, would you guys suggest getting an i5 or an i7 for the future? I am building a computer and I am getting a ordering on Wednesday. I have been looking at the i5-4670K. I know that DCS right now cannot make use of hyperthreading, but do you guys think the new image generator (EDGE) that seems to be in the works will make use of hyperthreading, and make the i7 a better investment? I am not sure. For budget reasons, it will either be the i5-4670K and a GTX760 video card, or a i7-4770k and a GTX660

 

Well that is a question which is more difficult to answer now than it was in January. IMO for the new IG of DCS it isn't really necessary because I think we could be happy if it is going to utilise 4 cores properly. :)

 

And also in view of 2013 games the first combo is way a better solution.

 

Although from a future proofing standpoint of general gaming scenarios after new 8 core based consoles set their feet in the market the multicore utilization of the game engines going to leap forward very soon (1-2 years) and at the end of all this we can also consider that the change of video card interface standards (PCIE) is less likely to be changed than a next gen CPU architecture's interface (lga1150) and that basically means for a new video card you don't need a new motherboard.

 

In summary for DCS only I would go with the first one for general longer term gaming PC investment core i7 needs to be considered.

 

Cheers

TrailBlazer

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(envious)

 

lanmancz Happy flying :-)

 

i5 3570K, overclocked it to 4.2 GHz with the GTX760 as my graphics card and I can say it works like charm.

AMD Ryzen 3600, Biostar Racing B850GT3, AMD Rx 580 8Gb, 16384 DDR4 2900, Hitachi 7K3000 2Tb, Samsung SM961 256Gb SSD, Thrustmaster T.Flight HOTAS X, Samsung S24F350 24'

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I upgraded from an i5 (I think it was a 760 but I am not sure) to the i7-3770K, which I run at 4.5GHz.

If I had it only upgraded for better performance in DCS it wouldn't have be worth it. A better graphic card would have brought me more bang for the bucket for DCS.

On the other hand, in simluators like FSX I could notice a big performance increase with the increassed processor clock.

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Intel i7 6800k watercooled | ASUS Rampage V Edition 10 | 32 GB RAM | Asus GTX1080 watercooled

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The extra 100 $ they ask for an i7 would mean a Geforce 760 instead of an 660 Ti with quite a bigger bang:

http://www.anandtech.com/show/7103/nvidia-geforce-gtx-760-review/10

 

Well, I don't agree with you, because the answer isn't that simple.

 

If you know for sure, you will never upgrade the cpu and your budget is limited so that the additional $100 for the i7 is out of question without to compromise other things, then: yes, go for the i5.

 

But things change if you plan to upgrade at later time. Upgrading a CPU (and doing it right) consumes some time. A skilled person could do this in 20, 30 minutes - depending on case and motherboard. I have done this a few times and for me it took about an hour. And most often you need a new cooling-unit. So let's do a calculation:

 

One hour work time: $40 (my spare time is costly ;))

Cooling-Unit: $30-$50 (we won't buy cheap, if we build such a system ;))

One half hour for buying (driving to shop and back): $20

sum: $90-$120

without cooling unit: $60

 

Not included the price of the new cpu or the cost for a good cooling compound (you could use the mediocre one delivered with the cpu or buy a better one at extra costs). The (minimal) risk for breaking the cpu isn't included also.

 

A complete new system costs about $1000, so $100 is about 10%. So the performance boost justifies the extra costs. It's ridicolous to compare the price of the cpu alone (that's teh way some people do it), because you couldn't do or play anything on a cpu without other hardware. ;) The performance-price relation only makes sense for a complete system.

 

Conclusion:

 

- if you can afford the extra $100 and just not sure if you get a benefit from it, buy an i7

- if you can't afford the extra $100 go for a cheaper CPU but don't complain afterwards

- if you can afford the extra $100 and are absolutely sure you don't need the extra power - well it's up to you, to waste money. ;)

 

I would choose the first of the three cases most of the time.

 

BTW: I have very bad experiences with point 3 of the list. Done it sometimes to save money with big regrets a few months later.

DCS:A-10C / DCS:Ka-50 / DCS:UH-1H / DCS:Mig21bis / DCS:P-51D / DCS:Mi-8MTV2 / DCS:Fw190D9 / DCS:Bf109K4 / DCS:C-101EB / DCS:L-39C / DCS:F-5E / DCS:Spitfire LF Mk. IX / DCS:AJS37

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Video card and RAM memory are the most important pieces to look for. The video card, we all know what is it for and a thing not many people know is the RAM memory which allows you to fill your scene with many objects(in this case aircraft). So the more memory you have, the more aircraft or any static objects you can load in your game.

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Video card and RAM memory are the most important pieces to look for. The video card, we all know what is it for and a thing not many people know is the RAM memory which allows you to fill your scene with many objects(in this case aircraft). So the more memory you have, the more aircraft or any static objects you can load in your game.

 

Well, nobody will build a system with less than 8GB nowadays. So it gets down to the question, if 12GB or 16GB boost the performance of the system. For DCS... maybe (I'm using a SSD-drive for DCS and I don't get any stutter because of I/O). For most other games applications this is rarely the case - at the moment.

 

But yes, if someone could afford 16GB, he should spend the extra $70. I would do it in any case - even without any performance benefits today. RAM is cheap so just buy it. But if I had to choose between 16GB and an i5 or 8GB and an i7, I would go for the i7. If the system is well build it's very easy to upgrade to 16GB later. A cpu change is a whole other story.

 

It's also way easier to upgrade a graphics card than a cpu, so some compromises for the graphics card are ok too, if you can't spend $800 for the best graphics card alone. Just a few months later the now top notch grafics cards are only half of the price of today...

 

Unfortunetely after 18 to 24 months some components of the system get obsolete... so we have to upgrade anyway some day. For me it's a new PC every 24 to 36 months. Just the case get's recycled and some hardisks are reused...

DCS:A-10C / DCS:Ka-50 / DCS:UH-1H / DCS:Mig21bis / DCS:P-51D / DCS:Mi-8MTV2 / DCS:Fw190D9 / DCS:Bf109K4 / DCS:C-101EB / DCS:L-39C / DCS:F-5E / DCS:Spitfire LF Mk. IX / DCS:AJS37

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