Gaming - 2600k vs 3930k

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Nirad9er

2[H]4U
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Feb 18, 2004
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What's the difference in gaming between a 1155 2600k with low latency memory vs a 2011 3930k 6 core with quad channel high latency / speed memory? I'm trying to figure out the best upgrade path. I know the reviews on newegg show the 3930k screams but is it that much faster in games.

For mainly gaming should I go.
1. 1155 sandy bridge to ivy bridge
2. 2011 sandy bridge-e to ivy bridge-e

Any reviews that best compare these platforms for gaming or anyone know based on personal experience?

Thanks
 
i7 is usually for video editing, but it will give more of an upgrade path.
 
I don't think there's going to be any difference. In fact I think the i7 2600k is better since it's a lot easier to go into the 5GHz range. Get the 2011 if you like playing games while watching a movie, encoding a video, and playing with W8 dev.

I don't see any reason for you to get it though.
 
This particular discussion seems to happen a lot. I don't know why as a simple search would reveal the answer in only a few seconds. But I'll reiterate for those who can't use the feature.

LGA2011 Pros
  • Available 6c/12t CPUs
  • Increased Memory Bandwidth
  • More PCIe lanes
  • PCIe 3.0 support today
  • Future options planned for 8c/16t CPUs.
LGA2011 Cons
  • Substantially increased cost compared to LGA1155.
  • Memory bandwidth does not translate into greatly increased performance in real-world applications and games.
  • Additional PCIe lanes are rarely taken advantage of. Even in multiGPU configurations this is rarely a real-world benefit.
  • PCIe 3.0 support is virtually useless as we are not saturating PCIe 2.0 slots today.
  • Does not overclock as well as LGA1155 based systems do.
  • Increased TDP compared to LGA1155 systems.
LGA1155 Pros
  • Lower cost vs. LGA2011
  • Generally better overclocking
  • Performs as well as LGA2011 or better 99% of the time.
  • Lower TDP compared to LGA2011.
  • Has onboard graphics options for lower cost systems. (Not necessarily an advantage in all cases.)
LGA1155 Cons
  • No PCIe 3.0 support today. (Though this is of limited importance.)
  • Fewer PCIe 3.0 lanes. (This can result in less connectivity options for expansion cards. Again this is usually of limited importance.)
  • No 6c/12t CPU options.

For high end workstations I think LGA2011 is the clear winner by a large margin. For home / gaming computers I think LGA2011 is slightly better in some ways, but the cost / performance ratio isn't as good. LGA1155 is 95%+ as good as LGA2011 for a lot less money. It seems like a no brainer to me, but only you can decide which is right for you.
 
In gaming there are a few games that see a benefit from the two extra cores, but not enough to warrant spending 100% more for the CPU. For example BF3 MP can hit up to 8 cores, but, its important to note that the load isn't even and few cores are pushed to 100%, which means a lot of the difference for example a 2500k to 3930k can be made up by the HT "cores" of lets say a 2600k. There is still a difference between the 3930 and the 2600 but by this point its probably less then a 2% difference.

If all you will ever do is one major task at a time and its not rendering or something along that line. Then there is almost no difference and you are more likely going to lose out more on the 3930k by not getting quite the overclock of a 4 core SB.
 
For gaming today there is almost no question go with the Intel® Core™ i5-2500K. Why? Simple almost no games out use more than 4 threads and those that do have very little performance gain for them. So why pay for hyper-threading and extra cores that you wouldn't use. Match that up with the fact that if you went SLI or Xfire you would see at most a couple frames increase in performance it doesnt seem to be with the extra of moving up to a higher end board or socket for gaming.
 
I went with a 2600k and 16GB of RAM a couple of months ago and hit 4.8GHz with this thing. Not bad for a setup that was considerably cheaper than a socket 2011.
 
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