What CPU should I buy?

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Bdonedge

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Jun 10, 2010
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I'm not in the loop with intel but I am making the switch. I heard ivy bridge isn't as good as sandy bridge because it's not unlocked? Excuse the ignorance, I don't know much about the model numbers.

I am using this to play games on, keep in mind. Is there a place I can check the top 5 intel CPU's right now? Or someone list the ones that seem to be a gamer's dream? Thanks
 
Ivy Bridge has unlocked CPU's.
3770K, 3570K. The "K" signifies that its unlocked.

As far as gaming CPU's, it depends if you will be overclocking or not. The 2500K and the 3570K are both good if you plan on overclocking, not sure on locked CPU's as I dont really pay attention to them. i7's are not a wise choice for gaming, its not that they are bad but they do not provide any benefit for the additional price.

There have been quite a few deals lately for 3570K's at ~$180, which is a phenominal deal and the best bang for the buck.
 
leeleatherwood said:
Ivy Bridge has unlocked CPU's.
3770K, 3570K. The "K" signifies that its unlocked.

As far as gaming CPU's, it depends if you will be overclocking or not. The 2500K and the 3570K are both good if you plan on overclocking, not sure on locked CPU's as I dont really pay attention to them. i7's are not a wise choice for gaming, its not that they are bad but they do not provide any benefit for the additional price.

There have been quite a few deals lately for 3570K's at ~$180, which is a phenominal deal and the best bang for the buck.
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Thank you! And absolutely will be overclocking
 
One of the big reasons (maybe the big reason) that the i5 CPUs like the 2500K and 3570K are considered gamer's CPUs is that they lack hyperthreading. HT, which is found on the i7 CPUs like the 2600K and 3770K, is great for servers and video encoding and the like, but for gaming it has no benefit and can cause stuttering. Meanwhile, if you're overclocking, you can overclock the i5 CPUs to well beyond what is needed for most games that haven't made terrible design choices that will bog down any CPU. You can turn off HT on the i7 CPUs, but if you're just gaming, there's no point to spending the extra cash.
 
evilsofa said:
One of the big reasons (maybe the big reason) that the i5 CPUs like the 2500K and 3570K are considered gamer's CPUs is that they lack hyperthreading. HT, which is found on the i7 CPUs like the 2600K and 3770K, is great for servers and video encoding and the like, but for gaming it has no benefit and can cause stuttering. Meanwhile, if you're overclocking, you can overclock the i5 CPUs to well beyond what is needed for most games that haven't made terrible design choices that will bog down any CPU. You can turn off HT on the i7 CPUs, but if you're just gaming, there's no point to spending the extra cash.
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Agree on this HT causes some Stutter here and there, and is quite annoying for gaming.
Turning it off will help but you spend the extra cash for the HT ... which is useless.
 
Cillie said:
Agree on this HT causes some Stutter here and there, and is quite annoying for gaming.
Turning it off will help but you spend the extra cash for the HT ... which is useless.
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I have seen this complaint many times but having run a 2600k for the last year I have not noticed it myself. Maybe there are additional factors?
 
So, the 3770K is the top tier ivy bridge unlocked CPU and then 3570K is the next step "down" in terms of cores or whatever? I get the HT thing, thanks for explaining that
 
Bdonedge said:
double post: why does HT cause stuttering in games?
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Not all games properly compensate for it and it can keep a thread from using an entire core. When you run the GTAIV benchmark on an IV and it says it used 55% of your cpu that is why.
 
Go with a 3570k or 2500k, as others have suggested if you're mostly just gaming on the rig.
 
ZodaEX said:
Not all games properly compensate for it and it can keep a thread from using an entire core. When you run the GTAIV benchmark on an IV and it says it used 55% of your cpu that is why.
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But, on the flipside newer games will be more likely to handle HT gracefully. From what I've read the BF3 strutter problem was patched some time ago, and no new games I've seen have the same issues.

Also, it's been shown that certain games DO benefit from HT, although it's a lot less common than other applications. Here are two results showing HT speedup in Battlefield 3:

Core i3 sees a performance improvement:

http://en.inpai.com.cn/doc/enshowcont.asp?id=7986&pageid=8156

And when the i5 and i7 are GPU-limited (Ultra settings), performance is similar. But if you increase your GPU performance, only the chips with HT have room to grow!

http://www.sweclockers.com/artikel/14650-prestandaanalys-battlefield-3/5#pagehead

So it has potential to add performance, but I would not bet the farm on it :D
 
defaultluser said:
But, on the flipside newer games will be more likely to handle HT gracefully. From what I've read the BF3 strutter problem was patched some time ago, and no new games I've seen have the same issues.


.
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That may not be true. HT has been around for YEARS and most games still, to this day, don't take enough advantage of it to justify the costs.
 
Skillz said:
Go with a 3570k or 2500k, as others have suggested if you're mostly just gaming on the rig.
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the 3570k is only a little bit more and gains a lot more from overclocking.



not to mention pci express 3.0 support
 
The top consumer CPUs are i7 3960X, i7 3930K, i7 3820/3770K, i7 2700K/2600K, i5 3570K, i5 2500K.
 
Since this is for a gaming system I would go with the Intel® Core™ i5-2500K or the Intel Core i5-3570K. I like the Intel Core i5-3570K a little more due to the fact that it is has the improved graphics, faster, IPC and PCI-E 3.0 support. The reason these processors are the best for gaming has to do with the fact that so few games will take advantage of more than 4 threads. For this reason the hyper-threading on the Intel Core i7s has minimal value in a gaming system. So you can save the money to use on something else that will make a bigger difference on performance like a better video card or a SSD.

Here is a nice piece on hyper-threading in games.
 
dremic said:
the 3570k is only a little bit more and gains a lot more from overclocking.



not to mention pci express 3.0 support
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It doesn't "gain a lot more" from overclocking, it's gains are about the same. ~0x%+ Sandy Bridge, clock for clock. Usually this rate is around 5% better.

As for PCI-e 3.0, no GPU saturates the 2.0 standard, so it's a moot point to have that ability unless you're running 4 GPUs.

What is a key advantage that is probably worth it to some is the fact that IB uses about 25% less power than SB.

Do I think it's worth the small price difference for an IB CPU. Yes I do. However, if the price margin is any more than a few dollars, it's nor worth it IMHO.
 
Skillz said:
That may not be true. HT has been around for YEARS and most games still, to this day, don't take enough advantage of it to justify the costs.
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Yeah Hyperthreading has been around since the 3.06 Pentium 4B if I recall correctly. It's been around probably as long as Windows XP has. Even to this day very few games have support for it.
 
I ended up picking up a 3570k with z77 mobo, upgrading from thurban 1100t .. lets see how big of a difference it will be, I also am planning to OC and game. I did like my little 1100t though Was planning on keeping it to see if windows 8 could utilize any of the additional cores.
 
Uh... Windows 7 handles multiple cores just fine, what makes you think Windows 8 wouldn't?
 
No, 1333 or 1600. However due to the prices difference between 1333 and 1600, it's usually best to just buy 1600 if the price is only a couple dollars more than 1333. If it's a few dollars more, then its not really worth it.
 
DjProvoker said:
I ended up picking up a 3570k with z77 mobo, upgrading from thurban 1100t .. lets see how big of a difference it will be, I also am planning to OC and game. I did like my little 1100t though Was planning on keeping it to see if windows 8 could utilize any of the additional cores.
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any updates on this? I would be upgrading from an AMD Phenom II X4 965. Noticeable performance?
 
I just upgraded from an AMD X6 1045t that didn't overclock that well. Bought a $100 2500k and $45 refurb Z68 Asus motherboard from Microcenter. Hit "autotune" in the Asus software and got an immediate 40% overclock. I was definitely impressed with that. I wasn't expecting a huge increase in speed, but the desktop definitely feels smoother and loads apps faster. The big thing I noticed was lack of heat from the computer compared to the AMD chips I used until now.

Games don't seem "faster" but there do seem to be fewer hitches or slowdowns during extreme fight sequences compared to before. Nothing major but there is a minor improvement there. I haven't found a game yet that is very CPU limited with my 6950 2GB.

I was planning on either keeping the AMD chip until a game needed something faster but the upgrade to the 2500k made good financial sense due to sell in the AMD chip and motherboard.
 
quiktake said:
I just upgraded from an AMD X6 1045t that didn't overclock that well. Bought a $100 2500k and $45 refurb Z68 Asus motherboard from Microcenter. Hit "autotune" in the Asus software and got an immediate 40% overclock. I was definitely impressed with that. I wasn't expecting a huge increase in speed, but the desktop definitely feels smoother and loads apps faster. The big thing I noticed was lack of heat from the computer compared to the AMD chips I used until now.

Games don't seem "faster" but there do seem to be fewer hitches or slowdowns during extreme fight sequences compared to before. Nothing major but there is a minor improvement there. I haven't found a game yet that is very CPU limited with my 6950 2GB.

I was planning on either keeping the AMD chip until a game needed something faster but the upgrade to the 2500k made good financial sense due to sell in the AMD chip and motherboard.
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how much u selling the amd chip for?
 
Bdonedge said:
any updates on this? I would be upgrading from an AMD Phenom II X4 965. Noticeable performance?
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I went from a Phenom X4 960 on a 880 board to an i5 3570k Z77 setup and notice little real world usage difference. It does make less heat and use less power.
 
1911Shootist said:
I went from a Phenom X4 960 on a 880 board to an i5 3570k Z77 setup and notice little real world usage difference. It does make less heat and use less power.
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So what do you think you should have upgraded first if the CPU+Mobo didn't give you the performance jump you wanted? GPU, SSD, more Memory or moar Cores for multitasking?
 
Hard to say... I was already running a SSD, decent enough GPU for me, 8 gigs o RAM. If you're not running a SSD, definitely pick one up, they make a massive improvement. GPU's should be selected based on what quality and FPS you want to get during gaming, and any modern quad core should be adequate for most tasks - if you're doing a ton of ripping, go for more cores if budget allows.
 
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