Do "gaming" PCs require i5 procs?

[Easy Rhino]

Modern i3 procs are very powerful. Coupled with something like a 770GTX, will today's PC games play just fine?

 

[Nordic]

Definitely not. I have an ivy bridge 2.7ghz celeron here and all but certain cpu heavy games were just fine, paired with a 7870 tahiti. Bigger gpu is more beneficial to fps than cpu most games.

 

[WhiteLotus]

No they do not NEED anything above an i3.
Only if you are one of those desperate to have the highest amount of FPS possible even though there isn't a shred bit of evidence that it will make any difference to your game play experience.
Heck I'm sure some people here are still happy with the quad core2 chips.

 

[erocker]

If i3's are still limited to 2 cores, no. With games using more cores, more often an i3 just won't cut it sometimes. It's not just lower FPS overall (that isn't a big deal IMO) but getting things like bad stuttering and slowdown when there's more action on screen.

 

[Blue-Knight]

will today's PC games play just fine?

Please, define fine. I consider fine 20 FPS and above, 15-20 FPS is playable, <10 FPS is a patience test.

 

[Kaynar]

Got a friend with then the latest 4th gen i3 (the fastest i3 available). He had a GTX560. With that system he averaged 30FPS in Path of exile, and had a lot of spikes. He very recently bought a used GTX670. Now he averages 40fps and has fewer spikes.

I myself had an i7 930 and an HD7970 few months ago, the game was running 60fps flawlessly. That GTX670 has no reason not to run the game at higher fps, the cpu is holding back the performance.

So yea the i3 just couldn't cope with an F2P game.

 

[TheMailMan78]

i7 2600k minimum requirement for everything IMHO.

 

[digibucc]

i7 2600k minimum requirement for everything IMHO.

duh.

 

[newtekie1]

Thanks to Hyperthreading, I'd say an i3 would be capable of playing most games with a single graphics card. I probably wouldn't pair an i3 with a GTX780 or R9 290, but I think an i3 would be fine with a GTX760 or an R9 280.

I kind of wish the i3's were still overclockable, then I would say for sure an i3 would be fine for gaming. I was hopeful when I saw BCLK straps implemented in 1150 that lower end processors would be overclockable again using them, but then Intel limited BCLK straps to only work with K-Series processors, which makes the feature basically totally useless. A 4.5GHz i3-4340 would be awesome.

 

[Chetkigaming]

idk, but, the better your pc, the bigger your balls is.

 

[FordGT90Concept]

If you're trying to cheap out on the CPU in a gaming system, I'd recommend an AMD processor before going with an i3. You can get a tri-module, six-thread FX processor for the same or less than all the dual-core, four-thread i3s.

 

[thebluebumblebee]

My son uses an i-5 650 (dual core with HT @ stock) with 2 GTX 560 Ti's. The only place we see an issue is when we run benchmarking programs. The Batman games run just fine.

 

[TheMailMan78]

What?! The standards are very high ($) these days, $650 CPU is not for everyone...

2600K is needed as a bare minimum if you want 60 FPS on all AAA games combined with a decent GPU. Anything below is trash for gaming.

 

[Frick]

2600K is needed as a bare minimum if you want 60 FPS on all AAA games combined with a decent GPU. Anything below is trash for gaming.

Eh, for a given value of "trash", and "gaming". 1280x800 is a lovely resolution.

 

[Blue-Knight]

TheMailMan78, post #13.

That quote doesn't exist, please remove it. LOL!

 

[thebluebumblebee]

....However, I do wonder if we are at the (tipping) point where more cores will become more important/necessary.
These questions are always interesting because the answer depends on what the respondent considers "good enough", as MailMan just proved.

...I kind of wish the i3's were still overclockable, then I would say for sure an i3 would be fine for gaming. I was hopeful when I saw BCLK straps implemented in 1150 that lower end processors would be overclockable again using them, but then Intel limited BCLK straps to only work with K-Series processors, which makes the feature basically totally useless. A 4.5GHz i3-4340 would be awesome.

I don't think Intel liked it when people took their $100 i3-5xx and OC'd them to 5GHz.

 

[...PACMAN...]

Its not so much that i3's can't run everything , it's how they run and as erocker stated I found with an i3 that some games just couldn't handle the CPU intensive games without a fair bit of stalling and stuttering.

Great chips for a budget system with a single card but at that point I'd probably look at AMD.

 

[Blue-Knight]

2600K is needed as a bare minimum if you want 60 FPS on all AAA games combined with a decent GPU.

And not even consoles can keep that frame rate anymore... I hope they fixed this with PS4 and XBOXONE, otherwise what a shame.

 

[Chetkigaming]

If i play my favorite games, i can do it only with 120 fps and with 1-2 ms gtg response. I consider this is very much better than a few extra settings on ultra, if i`d had a lower gpu i`d go lower settings to get 120fps anyway, i made my decision about that. But in all cases i can`t lower a texture quality/resolution settings its very important of course.

 

[Blue-Knight]

i can do it only with 120 fps.

That's overkill in my opinion. I can be more than happy at 60.

 

[v12dock]

4770K overclocked to 4.6 minimum now days

 

[Kaynar]

4770K overclocked to 4.6 minimum now days

Don't forget the new 4K display too, bare minimum! And to hell with the 30Hz!

 

[johnspack]

I'm running games that make my i7 at 4ghz cry.... I see all 8 threads going.... yes if you want a proper gaming rig you need an i7, not an i5. BF4 uses 6 threads by itself, the os certainly can use the last 2.

 

[MxPhenom 216]

2600K is needed as a bare minimum if you want 60 FPS on all AAA games combined with a decent GPU. Anything below is trash for gaming.

Psh, no its not. GPU will matter far more then CPU.

 

[KainXS]

i5 minimum, definitely not for games, heck up until last year I was running a core2quad 4ghz and that ran most games with no problem at all but I upgraded to a 3770k because I needed one to do my work, most of the time it was gpu limited even then.