I5 VS. I7: Is There Really That Big a Differece?

[Nyshan]

I currently own one of the best processors in modern history, the i5 2300K. It's reliable, it's powerful, and it's cheap. I've only ever seen one i7 build and... well... it wasn't fully utilized i.e. it had a 6870. (I haven't seen benchmarks, which I will now go look at) They only seem like expensive remolds of the i5 but with slightly higher clock speeds.

Kind of ended that abruptly,
Nyshan

P.S. I mean no hate for those that adopted an i7 I just want to know if they're more than they seem.

[Zodiark1593]

The differences between the i5-2500K and the i7-2600K is cache and Hyperthreading. Both are very useful for video encoding and the like, but there's few if any games that take advantage of Hyperthreading.

[TeKraken]

they have hyperthreading, good if you need it (for video work etc), a waste of £100 if you don't.

[Aulex]

If your a gamer, barely any difference, if you render, encode music, etc. then it does.

[borg_7_of_9]

I have the I7 2600K and it shines when video encoding witch I need to do a lot bit behind atm.. Gaming no difference really with HT on or off

But even that point is stating to change with direct compute, AMD and Nvidia cards can do the job much faster than any CPU but software that uses it is still a little flaky..

[Bad_Motha]

I got a 2600K when first released and after swapping it out for a 2500K and getting pretty much the same performance in games and pretty much everything else I do, I sold the 2600K to a co-worker who needed it for his personal work/AV/VE setup. So at least he gets the benefit of it's features. In gaming, a 2500K is all you need, and it's more then enough. Considering it's price, why drop down to an i3 or even i5-2400. Plus it will still stomp anything AMD has out there.

[venomblade89]

Hyperthreading isn't worth the extra $100 if you're going to be gaming and light encoding. 2500k all the way.

[CenturyChild]

I agree, and can confirm ..

If you do alot of video encoding the 2600/2700k is the way to go, hands down.

But for gaming, they do not offer much of anything over the 2500.
And even when they do get the upper hand in gaming, its by such a small margin it could still be considered a margin of error.
Which it likely may be just that.

[zezzex]

Originally Posted by CenturyChild

I agree, and can confirm ..

If you do alot of video encoding the 2600/2700k is the way to go, hands down.

But for gaming, they do not offer much of anything over the 2500.
And even when they do get the upper hand in gaming, its by such a small margin it could still be considered a margin of error.
Which it likely may be just that.

everyone talks about video encoding...What exactly is video encoding??

[RodgerM]

Originally Posted by zezzex

everyone talks about video encoding...What exactly is video encoding??

Creating VCDs from AVIs, making them in to NTSC from PAL and stuff like that I assume.

[CenturyChild]

Correct.

Video encoding would be when you say .. Take a BluRay or DVD disc you own and shrink it down to a smaller size from its original. Good for if you use your PC as a media server and want your disc collection to be digital.

Or, Take a large 1080p video file from your Camcorder, and recode it to DVD resolutions, or crunch the size down to store on your HD as a file.
Things along that line.


Also doing things such as .. taking a DIVX file and converting it into a lower resolution MP4 file that your iPhone or portable Zune player can play or converting to DVD format.


These types of things take a lot of processing power, and can be quite time consuming depending on the project you are working on.
Wspecially when doing something like taking a 1080P source and downsizing to 720p or vise-a-versa.
So more threads = better/faster performance.


However, as others have mentioned, if this is not something you do often, its probably not worth it.

[imeem]

doesn't creating a video with programs like Sony Vegas and Adobe Premier count as video encording?

[borg_7_of_9]

Originally Posted by imeem

doesn't creating a video with programs like Sony Vegas and Adobe Premier count as video encording?

yes at some point the edited video has to be encoded for the final video format..

[Versteken]

I don't know why everyone is so hung up on video encoding. ANY multi-threaded app will take advantage of hyperthreading.

Originally Posted by Nyshan

They only seem like expensive remolds of the i5 but with slightly higher clock speeds.

They...what?

If you think this, you don't really understand how CPU's work.

There aren't many people who are going to truly stress even the weakest desktop CPU's. I've always got various apps running along with watching TV or a movie while playing games, and my CPU useage barely ever hits 25%. With all that, can you imagine how much it would take to truly load my CPU up?

Yeah, neither can I.


The i5 is not better or worse than any other CPU. It's very suitable for those people who don't/can't/won't take advantage of it's capabilities. But that does not make it the right CPU for everyone.

[Baron_Fel]

Originally Posted by Versteken

I don't know why everyone is so hung up on video encoding. ANY multi-threaded app will take advantage of hyperthreading.

Because its one of the few common use case scenarios that benefit from HT. Games are multi threaded to varying degrees, but they tend not to benefit much/at all from HT.