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which cpu is better for gaming ?

2600k.... very few games can use more than 4 cores with any kind of efficiency
 
sure, 6 cores would be sweet to say that u have them, but unless ur running 10 WOW accounts at once, u wont need it.
 
Granted you get a decent 2600k that over clocks well I think the 2600k is the way to go for a new build specifically for gaming.

6 cores may have some very nice benefits though. All depends on the applications you will be running.


Also 2600k is priced much nicer.
 
2600K hands down. It overclocks nicely and benches as well as the 980 in games. More importantly, LGA1366 is probably on its way out.
 
Keep in mind as well from an entire system perspective, unless your other components are already top of the line (especially the video card), the price difference between the two CPUs is better spent on those areas.
 
thanks everyone i guess i won't be doing anything that needs 6 cores. maybe run a VM here and there.
 
jvilla said:
thanks everyone i guess i won't be doing anything that needs 6 cores. maybe run a VM here and there.
Click to expand...



I don't think you can run VM on P67. Not sure about X68.

X58 with I7-970 can run VM.
 
do i need VT-d? i only run vm to test operating systems nothing in the background that needs to be loaded up all day.
 
Forceman said:
I think the only issue is that the 2600K doesn't support VT-d.
Click to expand...

Intel® Virtualization Technology (VT-x)
Yes
Intel® Virtualization Technology for Directed I/O (VT-d)
No

whatever the difference is I dunno but there is VT-x.
 
Sojuuk said:
Intel® Virtualization Technology (VT-x)
Yes
Intel® Virtualization Technology for Directed I/O (VT-d)
No

whatever the difference is I dunno but there is VT-x.
Click to expand...

I believe the difference is that VT-d allows access to the device directly - so you can use the actual video card drivers instead of a generic one. Not sure how much it matters though.
 
if i had to pick and had the money i would pick the 970 any day.

upcoming games like BF3 will use more than 4 cores.
 
2600k, lots of games don't use so many cores - and the 2600k is better clock for clock - If I had the money, and the pick I'd choose the 2600k over the 970, simply because it can clock higher and doesn't require nutter cooling to do so as well. Also, the boards/ram setups are cheaper as well..lots of money saved.
 
tricky0502 said:
can you provide a link for that? i havent seen it anywhere where it says bf3 will use more then 4 cores.
Click to expand...

At this point, it's only a rumor. Wait until the game is out, then the reviews will tell us if the game gonna use more than 4 cores. Besides, it can also change with a patch ;)
 
I HIGHLY doubt BF3 is going to need more raw processing power than a 2600k is capable of. Even if it uses more than 4 threads, it doesn't matter, 2600k has HT and can handle 8. It won't be a problem.
 
i'd be more worried about pci lanes than processors.

For people like me who aim to have a dual card setup + a sound card, p67/z68 doesnt cut it, because they only have 16 pci lanes total. Need at least 8x per GPU.

So i'm sticking with x58, and my 36 pci lanes :D


But hey, if you're a single GPU, kinda person, then sandy bridge is all for you.
 
thesecond said:
i'd be more worried about pci lanes than processors.

For people like me who aim to have a dual card setup + a sound card, p67/z68 doesnt cut it, because they only have 16 pci lanes total. Need at least 8x per GPU.

So i'm sticking with x58, and my 36 pci lanes :D


But hey, if you're a single GPU, kinda person, then sandy bridge is all for you.
Click to expand...

The 16 lanes for the GPUs are off the processor, there are an additional 8 PCIe lanes off the chipset which will drive the sound card - so you still get x8x8.
 
meh, most good sound systems are external anyways. save your pci/e lanes for something else.
 
Forceman said:
The 16 lanes for the GPUs are off the processor, there are an additional 8 PCIe lanes off the chipset which will drive the sound card - so you still get x8x8.
Click to expand...

Yep, and the performance difference between 8/8 and 16/16 is typically <10%
 
hard-in-da-paint said:
sure, 6 cores would be sweet to say that u have them, but unless ur running 10 WOW accounts at once, u wont need it.
Click to expand...
I agree. Get the 2600k. It would be cool to have a six-core cpu just for the novelty of saying you have one. That's why I plan on upgrading to a six-core phenom once bulldozer comes out. I know that's in a different ballpark than these i7s, but just thought I'd mention it.

Anyway, just get the 2600k. It outperforms the i7 970 in gaming from what I've seen. I'd get the i7 2600k...if i had the money :(
 
Aaron11 said:
I agree. Get the 2600k. It would be cool to have a six-core cpu just for the novelty of saying you have one. That's why I plan on upgrading to a six-core phenom once bulldozer comes out. I know that's in a different ballpark than these i7s, but just thought I'd mention it.

Anyway, just get the 2600k. It outperforms the i7 970 in gaming from what I've seen. I'd get the i7 2600k...if i had the money :(
Click to expand...

you dont need 2600k or 970 to play WoW, lol.

next-gen gpu's will benefit more with the 970 than the 2600k.

games like bf3 will scale at least 30% more with the 970 than the 2600k in multigpu setup.
 
DualOwn said:
you dont need 2600k or 970 to play WoW, lol.

next-gen gpu's will benefit more with the 970 than the 2600k.

games like bf3 will scale at least 30% more with the 970 than the 2600k in multigpu setup.
Click to expand...

Sounds like a whole lot of guess work (BS) to me.
 
RamonGTP said:
Sounds like a whole lot of guess work (BS) to me.
Click to expand...

It's not guesswork. Look at how well this version of frostbite scales with multi core cpu's. Take that info and look at how they are adding too and refining the newest version of frostbite and you figure it out. I believe in a dev interview at some point they mentioned the newest version of frostbite would sclae to almost as many cores as you have available. I'll have to look around a bit for that information but I can almost swear I remember Dice elluding to that at some point. Bottom line is more cores can't hurt at this point. For most games the raw higher OC potential in SB will rein in a little more more performance pound for pound over the 970, at this point. However BF3 and the latest version of frostbite will probably be one of those games(engines) going foward that will definetly take advantage and show greater performance with more cores going foward. I do not believe that's a big stretch to believe going foward. Again just look at how the current version of frostbite in BC2 performs with more cores. Use that as an example and think ahead a bit.
 
Show me some benchmarks. You can't, so it's guess work, regardless of what you're basing it on. Just because an engine can scale to 6 cores doesn't necessarily mean it's going to do so efficiently.
 
RamonGTP said:
Show me some benchmarks. You can't, so it's guess work, regardless of what you're basing it on. Just because an engine can scale to 6 cores doesn't necessarily mean it's going to do so efficiently.
Click to expand...

Dude please use common sense. Look at how frostbite currently scales from 2 to 4 cores right now. Then extrapolate (if it scales as it probably will from there) how it will most likely scales to 6. No, no benchmarks of course not but we don't need them for the sake of this conversation. The bottom line is this is a tired old argument. This is the same argument we always see when a few years ago it was 2 cores aren't needed yet. Then it was well ok 2 are used now but we dont need 4. Now it's well 4 are starting to be used now so we don't need 6 or 8 etc etc. It's a silly argument. Even if the new version of frostbite doesn't use more than 4 cores something in the near term will and so on and so on. So how does it hurt to have extra cores? Now, if you wanna argue that SB will OC better than that 970 sure I'll go with that and that's why for games that don't need the extra 2 cores YET, SB is the better choice. Just like a faster single core was better UNTIL games starting using dual cores and making good use of them. At that point the little bit of extra mhz wasn't all that anymore, the extra cores were. same holds true here. You don't need benchmarks on a game that isn't out yet to see the trend and know how the industry will go. Again, common sense rules the day.;)
 
Common sense? How about simple facts instead?

"(if it scales as it probably will from there)"

Like I said, guess work. You just said it yourself. It has nothing to do with common sense. The FACT is the game isn't out and you don't know how it's going to scale. You're guessing, period.
 
While the engine may scale with more than 4 cores, I think DICE would be silly to ignore this. 6 or more cores is 1.27% of all computers surveyed. I don't think those numbers will increase that much since Intel's 6 core parts are still expensive and they move far more CPUs than AMD.
So for now, a really quick 4 core (i2600k) makes more sense for gaming over a 6 core that has lower IPC (the 970). By the time the 2600K isn't enough for games, something newer and better will be around.
 
RamonGTP said:
Common sense? How about simple facts instead?

"(if it scales as it probably will from there)"

Like I said, guess work. You just said it yourself. It has nothing to do with common sense. The FACT is the game isn't out and you don't know how it's going to scale. You're guessing, period.
Click to expand...


Whatever I'm done. Speaking to my pet rock yields more of a result.
 
Have fun. I don't feel bad for knowing the difference between a guess and a verifiable claim and that I disagree with your guess.
 
so you claiming that the 4 core is going to be better than the 6 core in BF3 is not guessing?

the irony, lol.
 
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