2600k or 2500k strictly for gaming

[themodernlife]

i have a 5970 and a 5870 in trifire and i want to upgrade from my e8600. . .strictly for gaming. Does it even matter to get the 2600k? I'd rather spend the 100$ on my memory since i only have ddr2 right now instead of chip if it doesn't even matter.

 

[mnewsham]

Well Honestly DDR2 and DDR3 RAM have about a 1-2% performance difference

BUT i5-2500k all the way. In gaming you wont notice a difference.

 

[Dave3000]

Get the 2500k. The 2600k won't make a noticeable difference in gaming. Use that $100 for 8GB DDR3.

 

[nwo]

Difference in terms of gaming performance is minimal, so unless you are doing a lot of multi-tasking (like video encoding or compression while gaming) then you should just save $100 and get the i5.

 

[Concillian]

2500k

hyperthreading means next to nothing for gaming. Cache means something, but surprisingly little.

Also a stock speed 2500 is enough to not have any noticeable FPS dips for most games. Save the $100 and get the 2500(k)

 

[MangoX]

I gladly sold my i7 920 for a i5 750 back then. I actually ran the 920 with HT off because I noticed slower performance with it enabled. I'll take real cores over fake any day of the week, month or year or perpetually.

 

[StinkyPinky]

Just get a 2500K and then upgrade to a real 6-core in 12 months.

 

[Dice144]

Friend sold his 2500k because it only did 4.8 and in Battlefield and some other games he claim losing the HT it was not as smooth in games.

 

[mnewsham]

Friend sold his 2500k because it only did 4.8 and in Battlefield and some other games he claim losing the HT it was not as smooth in games.

he is moronic

 

[Castiel]

Friend sold his 2500k because it only did 4.8 and in Battlefield and some other games he claim losing the HT it was not as smooth in games.

Games don't take advantage of HT

 

[mnewsham]

Games don't take advantage of HT

Some do i believe on a dual core 4 thread, but on a quad core 8 thread it wont matter.

 

[nwo]

Games don't take advantage of HT

Very few of them do, but it isn't as noticeable as someone's friend claims

 

[Castiel]

Very few of them do, but it isn't as noticeable as someone's friend claims

This is news to me. List of games?

 

[Dice144]

Says, BC2 takes advantage. I have an X6 so cannot verify it first hand.

 

[mnewsham]

Says, BC2 takes advantage. I have an X6 so cannot verify it first hand.

no no it doesnt, my friends i5 setup is getting 130 FPS at 1920x1080. he had an i7-2600k for a few days and it didnt do anything when OC'd to the same clock speed.

 

[ensign_lee]

2500k definitely, especially since I don't think any P67 boards even accept DDR2 (and DDR3 slots are not backwards compatible, allowing DDR2 memory to be used).

 

[Dave3000]

Games don't take advantage of HT

On a dual core CPU with hyperthreading, hyperthreading would be useful in some games, but on a quad core it would be useless right now. I ran the benchmark in HAWX with 2 cores enabled and hyperthreading off and then hyperthreading on and got a better score with hyperthreading. However, when 4 cores were enabled, hyperthreading did nothing.

 

[nwo]

This is news to me. List of games?

There are already about a dozen or so games that can utilize more than 4 cores, so I would imagine those games would see a small boost from a quad core with HT which would not be nearly as much as mentioned in the following review:
http://www.pcgameshardware.com/aid,...already-benefit-from-six-cores-CPUs/Practice/

 

[toyota]

get the 2500k if its just for gaming. look at all benchmarks because even in games that can use more than 4 cores the 2600k has no real advantage. by the time a 2600k has a playable advantage over a 2500k, we will have much faster cpus to choose from anyway.