I know this question has been asked before (I'm a lurker, not many posts in 9+ years here) but I'd like to hear some fresh opinions. What would be a better upgrade for someone who doesn't upgrade every year, a 3570k or 3770k? I live near a Micro Center so the price difference is only $40 USD. I mostly play games and every now and then do some video encoding. What would be better for processor for the next 2-3 years? Or should I hold out for Haswell? Thanks.
3770k, the MC price is sweet I have 1 in nj. video encoding should take advantage of HT. get a good cpu cooler as they tend to run hot
Just got me wondering how a 3770K with HT disabled would compare with a 3570k. Would they run the same? or would a performance difference exist?
100mhz and 2M cache. http://ark.intel.com/compare/65523,65520 On daily use and gaming you will see none to ~1% difference.
Thanks for the opinions all. I guess it seemed like a no-brainer but I haven't bought a new CPU in 3 years. I'm pretty much out of the loop on the newer stuff.
for US$ 85 price diference, would the 3770K still be worth over the 3570K? I'm in this situation now, since I don't live in the US, that's the price diference that I need to deal with. (about cooling, I got an NH-D14, so I'm covered)
No, an $85 price different wouldn't justify the i7-3770K over the i5-3570K. Actually around $40-$50 is the justification 'cutoff' as far as I see it! Don't expect massive overclocks from Ivy Bridge. Around 4.4Ghz is a safe overclock, any more than that and the temperatures rise to unsafe levels. Many overclock the CPU beyond this, and have the CPU temp rise to 60C+, which I see as completely unsafe. It is unsafe due to the fact the CPU temp is much lower than the individual core temps. Some temperature reading programs read the temperatures of one of the cores (or even averages the core temps). The core temps are actually different to the CPU temp, such that you can have core temps of 65C-70C, and have a CPU temp of 40C. The big difference is partly due to the crappy TIM intel put between the CPU die and the IHS.
Yeah, I read about it. I don't want to unlid it and risk loosing warranty, so I would have to live with it. I wanted to do OC, buy even in stock I would be happy to use. My situtation now is that I got the mobo and I'm searching for the CPU. I don't do only games, so other people comented that it would be interesting to have an i7.(I'm a MSc. student in physics, and when I can't acess the computer at the university, I ran my simulations at home) I do have the money for either, and I already have the rest of the computer, it would be the question of wheter the i7 is or not worth by itself. I have never had a intel desktop, so,
If the simulation programs are properly multithreaded (such that they can utilise 8 threads efficiently) then the i7 would be advantageous. If not, the i5-3570K is probably the way to go since the price difference for you is $85. An i5-3570K overclocked to 4.4Ghz (or even 4.2 or 4.3) will be faster than an i7-3770k at stock, even with hyperthreading.
I obviously need a new motherboard with the new CPU. I know at Micro Center that if you bundle a mobo with a 3570K, you can save $40. So basically the price difference between the 3570k and 3770k becomes $80. I think I'd rather put my extra money towards more memory or something. I'd say 95% time my machine is used to play games and the other 5% for video encoding or CPU intensive programs. I usually fire up an encode before I head to work or overnight so I'm not sure if the 3770k is worth the extra $80. I guess if I were to go SLI/Crossfire in future the 3770k could be worth it? Decisions...
I don't think it is even worth it for SLI/Crossfire. You would probably be far better off getting faster other components, like 1866 RAM (which doesn't really cost much more), or even 2133 RAM 2x8GB worth, and a better video card. Even if it isn't a higher end card (as in a HD7950 over a HD7870) due to the price difference, it might be a HD7870 with better cooling or something . DDR3-2133 is the sweet spot in terms of performance and price, I would recommend getting that .
I would still buy the 3770k. You can disable and enable ht from the bios. Its more future proof than just a plain quad core. Video encoding will benefit from a 4 core 8 thread cpu
The 3770k is more future proof, apart from the fact it's perhaps the best cpu for gaming on the planet currently.
But in the case of the person making that inquiry, it was what, an $85 difference in the price? That is a little too much in my opinion to justify it over the i5-3570K. Whatever small gains you could get in games running an i7-3770K could easily be overcome by spending the $85 elsewhere, whether it is on a better graphics card, faster/more memory etc. If the person was doing very large amounts of encoding, the i7-3770K could be justifiable, but even then that's under the assumption that other processes in the encode path aren't limiting. The x264 benchmark tests x264 only (it decodes, and encodes the video). If doing encoding through a program, or through avisynth, you have another decoder to decode the video, filters (such as resize, sharpen., deinterlace etc) and so on. These can actually limit the performance of x264 depending on their threadability. Basically what I'm saying is the i7-3770K may not even represent a great improvement, if at all, for encoding. So the simple answer is, for $85 less, the i5-3570K and spend the extra $85 if it is budgeted, on better memory and graphics card. If you hadn't planned getting a SSD it would cover most of the price of a SSD.
