Differences Between i7-3770 and i5-3570K

Meehael

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Nov 15, 2011
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Do the 8 threads in 3770 really mean much? Furthermore, if I understand correctly, 3570K is unlocked, so it can even be overclocked?

I've got a i7-3770 a few days ago, but maybe I should've got a i5-3570K, especially if I plan to overclock?

Thanks!
 

ShintaiDK

Lifer
Apr 22, 2012
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K models can overclock. i7 3770K, i5 3570K for IB.

Else the i7 supports hyperthreading, 100Mhz higher stock clocks and 2MB more cache.
 

Ventanni

Golden Member
Jul 25, 2011
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It's really going to be dependent on the program you use. If you're just gaming, then you're probably not going to notice the difference between the two, although the Battlefield series games do take advantage of Intel's HT pretty well.

I personally went with the 3770k over the 3570k, because 7-8 years ago I purchased a Core 2 Duo over a Core 2 Quad thinking nothing would ever utilize the power of a quad core within the computer's lifetime. Although the Core 2 Duo is still a mighty fine processor for what I have it doing, I sure wish I would have invested the extra money in that quad core!

So it was a gamble for me. Right now, the games I play don't even use hyperthreading (Planetside 2), or play fast enough where it doesn't even matter (like Diablo 3 or Path of Exile). Maybe I wasted my money, maybe I didn't, but if I ever play a game that starts taxing that extra processing capability, at least I have it this time around.
 

Meehael

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Nov 15, 2011
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I use my PC for gaming only!

Guild Wars 2, Borderlands 2, Counter-Strike: GO...
 
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DigDog

Lifer
Jun 3, 2011
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well, can you return the chip? probably not, but if you can, you should consider it as an option.
You will also need a Z77 motherboard if you want to overclock.. Z77 and thats it. B and H series have no OC options.

tbh you are not doing that bad anyway, and restock fee + new mobo might not be worth it. 3770 is still a very reasonable chip.
 

SOFTengCOMPelec

Platinum Member
May 9, 2013
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It's probably better to check out what you plan on buying, e.g. If it can overclock or not, etc, BEFORE you buy.

The 3770 does let you overclock it a bit (but I'm not sure if you can do that with YOUR motherboard, it may need a better chipset, Z77?).

Your non-over-clocked 3770 is probably going to be just fine with the graphics card you have in your signature.

http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/275748-29-overclocking-3770

http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/answers/id-1633705/overclock-intel-core-3770.html
 

Meehael

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Nov 15, 2011
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It's probably better to check out what you plan on buying, e.g. If it can overclock or not, etc, BEFORE you buy.

The 3770 does let you overclock it a bit (but I'm not sure if you can do that with YOUR motherboard, it may need a better chipset, Z77?).

Your non-over-clocked 3770 is probably going to be just fine with the graphics card you have in your signature.

http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/275748-29-overclocking-3770

http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/answers/id-1633705/overclock-intel-core-3770.html

Thanks for the links.

Didn't even occur to me that I couldn't OC the 3770. It didn't say anything on Intel's web. The only difference I saw when comparing the 3770 and 3770K was 100 MHz difference in speed.
DigDog said:
tbh you are not doing that bad anyway, and restock fee + new mobo might not be worth it. 3770 is still a very reasonable chip.
Perhaps keeping the 3770, after all, will save me more money, because I won't need to buy a new mobo and cooler, if you think the chip is good as it is (at stock speed).


BTW, should I always keep HyperThreading enabled in BIOS?
 
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SOFTengCOMPelec

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May 9, 2013
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Didn't even occur to me that I couldn't OC the 3770. It didn't say anything on Intel's web. The only difference I saw when comparing the 3770 and 3770K was 100 MHz difference in speed.

Perhaps keeping the 3770, after all, will save me more money, because I won't need to buy a new mobo and cooler, if you think the chip is good as it is (at stock speed).

Should I always keep HyperThreading enabled in BIOS?

Don't worry, I'm sure lots of people make the same mistake. Intel have succeeded in creating a highly confusing naming scheme, and the fact that even if you had got the 3770K, you would still have NOT been able to overclock it properly, because it was NOT a Z77 motherboard, makes it a real technical mine field.

Even if you had got the 3770K AND a Z77 motherboard, Intel stopped using soldered thermal interface material in the cpus construction (to save money, or something), which potentially limits the overclockability (as it limits the amount of potential cooling, available) of the chip, unless you delid the chip (NOT easy, or for the NON-brave), which many people are reluctant to do.

Usually it is best to leave hyperthreading on, which may give you speed boosts, as later games are published, which may use it more frequently.
 
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OCGuy

Lifer
Jul 12, 2000
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Don't worry, I'm sure lots of people make the same mistake. Intel have succeeded in creating a highly confusing naming scheme, and the fact that even if you had got the 3770K, you would still have NOT been able to overclock it properly, because it was NOT a Z77 motherboard, makes it a real technical mine field.

Even if you had got the 3770K AND a Z77 motherboard, Intel stopped using soldered thermal interface material in the cpus construction (to save money, or something), which potentially limits the overclockability (as it limits the amount of potential cooling, available) of the chip, unless you delid the chip (NOT easy, or for the NON-brave), which many people are reluctant to do.

Usually it is best to leave hyperthreading on, which may give you speed boosts, as later games are published, which may use it more frequently.


Everything in bold = :rolleyes:
 

DigDog

Lifer
Jun 3, 2011
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Hey meehael, do you want a REALLY good advice??
(forget about OC, about new mobos, even about buying a new GPU)

Buy a SSD.

Even if you are poor, and all you can afford is a measly 60Gb .. buy a SSD.

1) Buy a SSD
2) Buy a SSD.
3) and finally, buy a SSD.

You will be amaze-bawls-mind-blown!-omfgbbq. guaranteed. Ask anyone here.
 

nwo

Platinum Member
Jun 21, 2005
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Although an SSD won't help you any with your gaming performance, it will help make your PC seem about 50 times faster in just about everything else.

If you don't have a Z77 motherboard, then stick with the 3770. You can still OC the 3770, but you would have to do it the old fashioned way by raising the BCLK frequency which often times can lead to instability and frustration rather than a performance increase.

Also, if you can return the 3770, I'd still trade it in for a 3570k. If you are gaming, then you don't really need the 3770. You will save $$, and also the unlocked (k) models are much easier to sell once you decide to upgrade.
 

SPBHM

Diamond Member
Sep 12, 2012
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if you have a Z motherboard you can overclock the 3770 to 4GHz or a little more (this is no Haswell, it still have the small "turbo OC" available for non K i5/i7), the 3570k can go higher, but it lacks HT, and really, over 4GHz is when things start to get really complicated for cooling
 

Rhezuss

Diamond Member
Jan 31, 2006
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MY last upgrade was last year and I convinced myself to buy something powerful that would last at least 2 years, more if possible.

I got the 3770K and don't look back. I too use my PC mostly for gaming and I know if I had gone the 3570K way i'd merely see the difference.

I'm not a huge CPU OCer but I did OCed it using the BIOS premade OC option and called it a day. Been runniong my 3770K at 4.4GHz since day one and it's a great CPU.

My brother bought a 3570 non-K since he doesn't OC at all and he's running all games he wants with the CPU and a HD 7870 GHz edition so i'd not worry AT ALL with a 3770 non-K, it's a beast even at stock.

And like others said, a SSD is so effing great! I never wanted to buy one since I was too sceptical that it would make any difference. Oh boy was I wrong. It's been the best upgrade I made in a long time and won't go back. I still use a HDD for my games and my SSD is Boot+Drivers and damn it's fast. Love it!
 
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Meehael

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Nov 15, 2011
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Hmmm, I'll keep my eye on SSD. Although, I was thinking of getting WD Velociraptor, because of the limited number of read-writes of SSDs.
 

Revolution 11

Senior member
Jun 2, 2011
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I would not worry about SSD endurance. Most SSDs will last a couple of terabytes. You will upgrade your CPU and GPU long before the SSD will die from write cycles.
 

OCGuy

Lifer
Jul 12, 2000
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Booting off a mech drive on a home PC at this point is like going to an adult store to rent movies.
 

nwo

Platinum Member
Jun 21, 2005
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Booting off a mech drive on a home PC at this point is like going to an adult store to rent movies.

Even with a fairly decent performance modern SATA 6 HDD vs a refurb SATA II SSD, the difference between booting a fresh installation of Windows 7 (on HDD) and Windows 7 with lots of startup apps (on SSD) is night and day. Not to mention overall performance (multi-tasking, launching apps/load times) and responsiveness of the system is so much smoother and faster with the boot SSD + HD combo.
 

Meehael

Member
Nov 15, 2011
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Now I'll definitely give some hard thought about getting an SSD over Velociraptor. You got me drooling. Hopefully, my mobo will support it.
 

ShintaiDK

Lifer
Apr 22, 2012
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Hmmm, I'll keep my eye on SSD. Although, I was thinking of getting WD Velociraptor, because of the limited number of read-writes of SSDs.

SSDs will outlast a velociraptor easily. Its a common misconception to think HDs are any better. Its simply about beign able to more directly calculate SSD garanteed reliability.
 

JumBie

Golden Member
May 2, 2011
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I would not worry about SSD endurance. Most SSDs will last a couple of terabytes. You will upgrade your CPU and GPU long before the SSD will die from write cycles.
A couple of terabytes implies 2tb. I can write that on an ssd in a few months...I constantly uninstall and reinstall and write new stuff the the HDD on a daily basis.
 

BSim500

Golden Member
Jun 5, 2013
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A couple of terabytes implies 2tb. I can write that on an ssd in a few months...I constantly uninstall and reinstall and write new stuff the the HDD on a daily basis.
Most SSD's last far longer than that. Eg, a 256GB SSD with 1,000-3,000 PE cycles = 256-768TB's. And that's theoretical - in practise, search for "SSD torture test" and you'll see some measured in the petabytes.

"The first SSD, the one you could follow live on the stream, had its first re-allocated sector on May 22, after 2,945 program/erase cycles and 707 TiB of written data according to the S.M.A.R.T. data. That's quite remarkable, as Samsung guarantees a lifespan of 1,000 cycles, while in reality their SSD last three times longer.

If we take the 764 TiB and an average of 10 GiB of writes per day, we arrive at a lifespan of 214 years. Keep in mind that we sequentially write and fill the SSD which gives us write amplification factor of only 1.04 or 1.05. That's the difference between the write commands sent to the SSD and the writes executed by the SSD internally. The general assumption is a WAF of around 3.0 for normal consumer use with SSDs that don't employ compression tricks. That translates to a lifespan of 75 years. Even when you push an SSD to the max by downloading lots of movies everyday up to an average of 30 GiB per day, the SSD will still last you 24 years."
http://uk.hardware.info/reviews/417...-with-final-conclusion-final-update-20-6-2013

If it takes you "a few months" to write 2TB, then it's going to be quite a number of years before you hit the 700TB real-world endurance limits...

PS: To OP, if you swap your motherboard out for a Z77 board, you can actually OC your i7-3770 to 4.1-4.3GHz. It "Turbo's up to 3.7GHz (4T load) / 3.8GHz (3T load) / 3.9GHz (1-2T load) plus Sandy & Ivy Bridge's have +400MHz "limited OC" feature on Z77 boards which take it to 4.1GHz (4T load) / 4.2GHz (3T load) / 4.3GHz (1-2T load). With MCE (Multi-Core Enhancement) it could potentially run at 4.3GHz under all loads.

I have a "locked" i5-3570 (non-K) which quite comfortably flies along at 4.2GHz under all loads on a Z77 board. It's only the newest Haswell's that have been nerfed and lost this "free" 400Mhz OC for non-K chips.
 
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Meehael

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Nov 15, 2011
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PS: To OP, if you swap your motherboard out for a Z77 board, you can actually OC your i7-3770 to 4.1-4.3GHz. It "Turbo's up to 3.7GHz (4T load) / 3.8GHz (3T load) / 3.9GHz (1-2T load) plus Sandy & Ivy Bridge's have +400MHz "limited OC" feature on Z77 boards which take it to 4.1GHz (4T load) / 4.2GHz (3T load) / 4.3GHz (1-2T load). With MCE (Multi-Core Enhancement) it could potentially run at 4.3GHz under all loads.

I have a "locked" i5-3570 (non-K) which quite comfortably flies along at 4.2GHz under all loads on a Z77 board. It's only the newest Haswell's that have been nerfed and lost this "free" 400Mhz OC for non-K chips.

I've turned Turbo Key II on (it's a physical switch on the mobo), enabled both, the Intel SpeedStep Technology and Turbo Mode in BIOS. That's how I can get the 3.9 GHz Turbo Boost speed when needed, if I'm not mistaken?

But, it's good to know that I can OC the 3770, if I get the Z77. Thx

PS: I ordered a Kingston V300 60GB SSD today :D I have Sata III, so I should be able to get the most out of it! I was planning on using it for games like Guild Wars 2, because the game loads real slow currently. My windows 7 loads fast enough on my 7200RPM HDD, so I don't plan to use it for OS.
 
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BSim500

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Jun 5, 2013
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Hi Meehael. Yes, it should be automatic & completely transparent. With Turbo on you should see your CPU hover between 3.7-3.9Ghz with utilities like CPU-Z or CoreTemp depending on load. If you do change your motherboard to a Z77, again it should be as simple as setting your multiplier to 43x in the BIOS, and it'll hover between 41-43x depending on load (or stay at 43x if you have MCE).

Wise choice getting an SSD. Although they're like 3x faster than HDD's for sequential access, when it comes to random access they can be in excess of +100x faster. The difference is like night & day. Personally, I think it's definitely worth putting the OS on there even on a 64GB one. Cold boot times are often sub 15s. Every feels silky smooth. If you have enough RAM (8-16GB) then disable the swap file, disable hibernation file, etc, will usually free up a few GB space too.