i5 vs i7 for Gaming

[Dalkamyr]

I know this is an age old question but a friend of mine put some doubt in my mind recently.

I've read opposing statements on the Internet about the subject. Some say an i5 is better for Gaming because it doesn't have hyper threading and can overclock generally better.

Others say an i7 will do better when it comes to min frame rate and frame time resulting in a less stuttery experience.

If we forget the cost of those processors, is an i7 really better for Gaming than an i5?

 

[MxPhenom 216]

If you have the cash to spare. i7. If not i5. The first game to come out that has tapped my 4770k out is BF1. Each thread runs at constant 80-99% load. That is the most ive seen from any game.

 

[P4-630]

When I started buying parts last year for my current build I was looking at i5 processors because of my budget, if the budget didn't matter much I would have bought an i7.

On the other hand, I have an i5 6500 paired with a GTX1070, it works really well and I'm not disappointed.

I play GTA V mostly.

 

[EarthDog]

Always get the best you can afford. If you are keeping this for a few years, I would surely go with HT.

 

[Dalkamyr]

I forgot to mention the most important thing I read about the i7s

Something about how their hyperthreading hurts the game performance for most game titles out there. So basically if I get an i7 I will get better stability and frame time performance but I'll have to turn off hyperthreading?

 

[P4-630]

If I had an i7 I wouldn't cripple it by disabling HT!!

 

[Kursah]

I forgot to mention the most important thing I read about the i7s

Something about how their hyperthreading hurts the game performance for most game titles out there. So basically if I get an i7 I will get better stability and frame time performance but I'll have to turn off hyperthreading?

I wouldn't split too many hairs here...odds are without measuring by benchmarks, you wouldn't notice.

An i7 will last longer because of the extra power utilized from those extra threads. Otherwise if you disable HT, you have a faster i5.

I have been using Haswell i7's for almost 4 years now, and have gamed a lot in those years...never have I disabled HT for any reason, let alone gaming. I don't have gaming performance issues.

Frankly it isn't worth worrying about...get the best you can afford or that best suits your upgrade plans/pattern and enjoy.

 

[EarthDog]

I forgot to mention the most important thing I read about the i7s

Something about how their hyperthreading hurts the game performance for most game titles out there. So basically if I get an i7 I will get better stability and frame time performance but I'll have to turn off hyperthreading?

Like Kurash said.. stop splittnig hairs...

 

[thebluebumblebee]

I wouldn't split too many hairs here...odds are without measuring by benchmarks, you wouldn't notice.

+1
If people could separate benchmarks from reality, we'd have nothing to discuss around here.

 

[MagnyCours]

It's not like you're going to lose performance on games that don't benefit from HT. It's better to keep it on like Kursah said.

 

[Dalkamyr]

Ok. Dully noted

 

[DRDNA]

Like stated already if you can afford an i7 then do get one as they are better than i5 thats why they cost more. GL

 

[jboydgolfer]

Ok. Dully noted

HT'ing wont detract from gaming Performance.(not to mention it can be disabled, along with physical cores too in the Bios) so that false worry would be moot either way.

regarding i5 VS i7 (or any 4c8T+ CPU)
I used to run an i5 4690k, then i put it in my daughter PC, and ordered myself a Xeon 1231V3 (4C/8T) , the increase in gaming was non exsistant. Im not saying NO game would benefit from more threads/Cores, but Many dont.
years ago, when BF3 was fresh, I used to disable Cores on my 2500k, just to see how it handled it in Benching, etc, and all the way down to 2 Cores, the game was perfectly playable.

the point being, unless the game/program calls for more threads, the CPU doesnt NEED , but Having them sure is NOICE .

 

[newtekie1]

I forgot to mention the most important thing I read about the i7s

Something about how their hyperthreading hurts the game performance for most game titles out there. So basically if I get an i7 I will get better stability and frame time performance but I'll have to turn off hyperthreading?

Here is where this myth came from, the old Pentium 4 days. Back when Hyperthreading first came out, Intel put it on Pentium 4s. The problem was that the Pentium 4 core was not powerful enough to handle Hyperthreading, it wasn't designed for Hyperthreading from the beginning. So at that time, when HT was enabled, it would actually greatly hurt single threaded performance, and could cause a performance loss in games.

This isn't 2005. The current Intel processors were designed with HT in mind from the beginning, the cores are way more powerful as well. So HT has no real affect on single threaded performance anymore. So there is no need to disable HT. You will not notice the difference with it on or off.

For gaming, an i5 and an i7 are pretty equal. HT doesn't play a role one way or the other.

 

[r9]

https://www.techpowerup.com/forums/...rks-core-i7-6700k-hyperthreading-test.219417/.
According to this HT would definitely won't help with games it might actually hurt the performance on some games, but most of the time doesn't affect the performance.

 

[CAPSLOCKSTUCK]

GTA V H/T on and off. As you can see, it uses the threads.

 

[Sasqui]

Here is where this myth came from, the old Pentium 4 days. Back when Hyperthreading first came out, Intel put it on Pentium 4s. The problem was that the Pentium 4 core was not powerful enough to handle Hyperthreading, it wasn't designed for Hyperthreading from the beginning.

Back in the day I ran some benchmark tests with and without HT on. There was roughly a 5% hit on a single core from the HT "overhead".

 

[Folterknecht]

In most games HT on/off doesn't make a noticable difference, but there are some games were you have a slight drop in FPS and then there are games (sadly not many) were more than 4 cores/threads will bring an improvement. Now looking forward with consoles having 8 physical cores nowdays, we might see more games in the future that will profit from 4+ threads.

 

[CAPSLOCKSTUCK]

Back in the day I ran some benchmark tests with and without HT on. There was roughly a 5% hit on a single core from the HT "overhead".

No neglible difference here.


ON

OFF

 

[newtekie1]

GTA V H/T on and off. As you can see, it uses the threads.



View attachment 83121


View attachment 83122

That doesn't really show that is uses the threads all at the same time. Seeing that it runs just fine and the extra threads likely don't give any performance improvement, I'm guessing it doesn't use all the extra threads at the same time, it's just Windows spreading the load out across the threads like it likes to do.

 

[Outback Bronze]

At this point in time I say i5, the money you save goes into a more powerful GPU!

 

[Sasqui]

No neglible difference here.


ON
View attachment 83124


OFF
View attachment 83125

1.01% hooge!

 

[CAPSLOCKSTUCK]

That doesn't really show that is uses the threads all at the same time. Seeing that it runs just fine and the extra threads likely don't give any performance improvement, I'm guessing it doesn't use all the extra threads at the same time, it's just Windows spreading the load out across the threads like it likes to do.

Project Cars....for comparison

 

[alucasa]

Depends on your budget.

If ya can, i7.

If you can't or don't wanna, i5.

People seem to game on i3 fine even. It's just a matter of your own standards.