"Just buy an i5 its the best for games at the moment".. short sighted?

Im due to upgrade in the upcoming weeks, and was considering an i7 or 8 Core Bulldozer (depending on prices/performance), I come here to read quite often and read that you dont need to buy an i7/BD because "i5 does just as well for games as the i7".... and it reminds me of the whole E6800 vs Q6600 malarky that went on 3-4 years ago.

I went with the Q6600 ... I figured that £80 difference would be worth it in the long run. turns out that it was, despite its bad OC ability I notice people struggeling in the last year or 2 with quite a few games on a core 2 Duo regardless of speed and some games just run like crap withouthe Quad (in comparison).

Is this a similar story? I mean sure we dont see any/many games now that support more than 4 threads.... does Battlefield or any upcoming games? surly with the Wii U release next year we are going to need to prepare for 8 cores?

I have a handful of games that use all 6 of my cores, Battlefield BC2 and BF3 can support up to 8. Quads I think will have a lot more lasting power than dual cores though. These days we've got much better architechture and other tech than can mean more than just cores.

Apparently Bulldozer will be about the same price so I don't see why not.

The thing is that i5 and i7 are both quad core's and with the E6800 vs Q6600 its a dual vs quad. So there will not be similar story, Personally, I would wait until the price wars start between the icore's and Bulldozer's then pick the one thast gives best bang for your buck. As it looks now the Bulldozer is roughly 20% faster then i5 2500, plus having another 4 cores for future use. Your Q6600 still has some life, it will easily last until 2012

The thing is that i5 and i7 are both quad core's and with the E6800 vs Q6600 its a dual vs quad. So there will not be similar story, Personally, I would wait until the price wars start between the icore's and Bulldozer's then pick the one thast gives best bang for your buck. As it looks now the Bulldozer is roughly 20% faster then i5 2500, plus having another 4 cores for future use. Your Q6600 still has some life, it will easily last until 2012

04dcarraher

[QUOTE="04dcarraher"]

The thing is that i5 and i7 are both quad core's and with the E6800 vs Q6600 its a dual vs quad. So there will not be similar story, Personally, I would wait until the price wars start between the icore's and Bulldozer's then pick the one thast gives best bang for your buck. As it looks now the Bulldozer is roughly 20% faster then i5 2500, plus having another 4 cores for future use. Your Q6600 still has some life, it will easily last until 2012

mitu123

[QUOTE="mitu123"]

[QUOTE="04dcarraher"]

The thing is that i5 and i7 are both quad core's and with the E6800 vs Q6600 its a dual vs quad. So there will not be similar story, Personally, I would wait until the price wars start between the icore's and Bulldozer's then pick the one thast gives best bang for your buck. As it looks now the Bulldozer is roughly 20% faster then i5 2500, plus having another 4 cores for future use. Your Q6600 still has some life, it will easily last until 2012

04dcarraher

Some times playing the waiting game is bad.

This is one of those times that it is good.

New tech is around the corner, wait a little more, your computer is completely fine.

[QUOTE="04dcarraher"][QUOTE="Birdy09"]I thought the Q6600 was 2 duo cores? Im getting impatient I heard the new ATI cards and AMD bulldoze was out in May-jun-july ... then september..... now october? argh ..... when are they coming!? :P so now is a bad time to upgrade? I have a Q6600 at 3GHZ and 4gb DDR2 ... and a ATI 5770. upgrading the gpu would be more beneficial no doubt, but I'd hate investing in a ATI 6950 or 6970 then 2 weeks later the next series comes out.... Im lost....blurguy6

Hyper threading only adds 10% in applications that take advantage of it. It is only really 4 cores that pretend to act like 8. So by the time that the i5 has run its course maybe the 10% would make the difference between 30 fps and 33 fps. It really isn't worth it.

[QUOTE="blurguy6"][QUOTE="04dcarraher"] The 7000's series is just a revised of the 6000's overall so your not going to be gaining a whole lot from 6000 to 7000, so you might as well pick up a 6950. Also If your Q6600 is at 3 ghz your still in good shape for games for another year at least. 04dcarraher

most likely AMD will also boost tessellation performance with the 7xxx series which was a major reason why alot of TWIMTBP titles performed much better on nvidia cards over AMD ones.

[QUOTE="04dcarraher"]

The thing is that i5 and i7 are both quad core's and with the E6800 vs Q6600 its a dual vs quad. So there will not be similar story, Personally, I would wait until the price wars start between the icore's and Bulldozer's then pick the one thast gives best bang for your buck. As it looks now the Bulldozer is roughly 20% faster then i5 2500, plus having another 4 cores for future use. Your Q6600 still has some life, it will easily last until 2012

mitu123

[QUOTE="mitu123"]

[QUOTE="04dcarraher"]

The thing is that i5 and i7 are both quad core's and with the E6800 vs Q6600 its a dual vs quad. So there will not be similar story, Personally, I would wait until the price wars start between the icore's and Bulldozer's then pick the one thast gives best bang for your buck. As it looks now the Bulldozer is roughly 20% faster then i5 2500, plus having another 4 cores for future use. Your Q6600 still has some life, it will easily last until 2012

MrGrimFandango

I have a handful of games that use all 6 of my cores, Battlefield BC2 and BF3 can support up to 8. Quads I think will have a lot more lasting power than dual cores though. These days we've got much better architechture and other tech than can mean more than just cores.

wis3boi

[QUOTE="blurguy6"][QUOTE="04dcarraher"] The 7000's series is just a revised of the 6000's overall so your not going to be gaining a whole lot from 6000 to 7000, so you might as well pick up a 6950. Also If your Q6600 is at 3 ghz your still in good shape for games for another year at least. 04dcarraher

A quad at 3 GHz or over should be good for another year or so. I agree with the posters to play the waiting game for a while.

I7 2600k is more future proof. It's got 2MB more L3 Cache and 4 more paths. It also can use the processor more effectively because of HT.

You either pay more or you don't. It's not a gigantic leap, i5 vs i7... But anyone that is gonna dedicate a good board and RAM to it should look to squeeze as much out of them with a good processor.

When I built my rig a few Weeks ago... I knew I could save a $100 by going i5. But I kept thinking back to the E8400 vs Q6600 debate. Now or future... The choice is really up to you and your budget.

A quad at 3 GHz or over should be good for another year or so. I agree with the posters to play the waiting game for a while.

entropyecho

Not the core 2 quads, its still struggling in BC2 and I'm not sure it will do that well in BF3, not sure how it is on the phenom 2 side of things, but its really a stretch in the legs now.

Edit: Specifically the Q6600, not sure how the Q8xxx and Q9xxx are fairing.

[QUOTE="entropyecho"]

A quad at 3 GHz or over should be good for another year or so. I agree with the posters to play the waiting game for a while.

GTR12

Not the core 2 quads, its still struggling in BC2 and I'm not sure it will do that well in BF3, not sure how it is on the phenom 2 side of things, but its really a stretch in the legs now.

Edit: Specifically the Q6600, not sure how the Q8xxx and Q9xxx are fairing.

[QUOTE="entropyecho"]

A quad at 3 GHz or over should be good for another year or so. I agree with the posters to play the waiting game for a while.

GTR12

Not the core 2 quads, its still struggling in BC2 and I'm not sure it will do that well in BF3, not sure how it is on the phenom 2 side of things, but its really a stretch in the legs now.

Edit: Specifically the Q6600, not sure how the Q8xxx and Q9xxx are fairing.

[QUOTE="GTR12"]

[QUOTE="entropyecho"]

A quad at 3 GHz or over should be good for another year or so. I agree with the posters to play the waiting game for a while.

gmaster456

Not the core 2 quads, its still struggling in BC2 and I'm not sure it will do that well in BF3, not sure how it is on the phenom 2 side of things, but its really a stretch in the legs now.

Edit: Specifically the Q6600, not sure how the Q8xxx and Q9xxx are fairing.

i7 2600k is a quad core that pretends to be an 8 core CPU.

[QUOTE="gmaster456"]

atm, Phenom lls are ripping games up. Even the lower end ones like the 925. We'll see if thats still true ones BF3 comes out though.

04dcarraher

Probably not the best example, but any other quad-core game that uses all the cores.

Hyperthreading isn't a significant feature for gaming. It actually hurts gaming performance in some cases. That's the only significant feature advantage that the 2600k has over the 2500k. In gaming it is no advantage. There you have it. There will never be a time when a 2600k is good for gaming and a 2500k isn't.

AMD ? lolol ... releasing new cpus ? lolol

how many delivery to market dates have they missed with Bulldozer ? lololol

just get SB and be done with it !

DeViLzzz