i3 6100 vs i5 4460 for autocad ineventor

[frozentundra123456]

It is a tough choice between those two. You are getting only around 10 percent faster clockspeed with the i3, and maybe a small ipc increase on top of that. Personally, i think I would go with the i5 for better overall performance if you want to run other multithreaded programs or in case the program you use adds moire multithreaded support in the future.

 

[DrMrLordX]

CAD programs won't be adding significant multithreaded support in the future. Nature of the beast.

 

[crashtech]

The i3 can always be swapped out for a quad core if the use case changes. There's little reason to go with the older Haswell platform now that a wider range of Skylake CPUs is becoming available.

 

[frozentundra123456]

No reason other than lousy availability for Skylake, the need for fast DDR4 for optimal performance (which isn't even officially supported and may require an overclocking motherboard), and still too expensive prices.

 

[DrMrLordX]

The i3 will still be faster for most CAD work, even with DDR4-2133, which is what the OP was looking to purchase anyway.

 

[crashtech]

No reason other than lousy availability for Skylake, the need for fast DDR4 for optimal performance (which isn't even officially supported and may require an overclocking motherboard), and still too expensive prices.

Availability is good on all but the two higher-end unlocked parts. You are absolutely correct that Skylake carries a price premium at the low end, since the 6 or 7% performance advantage is less than the difference in price between the two low-end solutions. So if the OP asked which one was the best bang for the buck, Haswell is probably better, but that's not what he asked for anyway. The difference between the two becomes much less significant percentage-wise when we get into the midrange, though.

Skylake i5-6600 system, $393: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/bdPWHx

Haswell i5-4690 system, $367: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/rgkYmG

The 7% price increase in that case will net at least that much better performance, note that decent RAM is chosen for Skylake as not to make it look too cheap.

Of course, for users that will BCLK OC, the value proposition for Skylake is dramatically increased to the point where it's no contest, really.

 

[DrMrLordX]

OP isn't looking at the 6600 or the 4690. He's picking between an i3-6100 and an i5-4460. The i3 is defintely better "bang for the buck" given that the only applications he's mentioned are predominantly single-threaded CAD programs. Availability on the i3 is good, and it's cheap for what you get.

 

[crashtech]

I didn't mean to imply the OP was looking for those, sorry for the OT digression. I was just responding to some generalizations by frozentundra that were only partly true.

The i3-6100 is pretty obviously the best choice.

 

[Headfoot]

Thank you. I may not keep it for 10 years! But for several years ahead it will not be upgraded. Your statement make sense. What do you think of i5-6400? It's almost the same price as i5-4460 here, $176 (i5-4460: $167).

Yes. Step up to the Skylake i5-6400. Faster RAM will be hardly any more money at all, maybe $10. It is worth the small increase in price to go from DDR4-2133 to DDR4-2666. For a small total increase in budget you can get your cake and eat it too, you won't have to wrestle with trade offs between i5-4xxx and i3-6xxx

 

[VirtualLarry]

Yes. Step up to the Skylake i5-6400. Faster RAM will be hardly any more money at all, maybe $10. It is worth the small increase in price to go from DDR4-2133 to DDR4-2666. For a small total increase in budget you can get your cake and eat it too, you won't have to wrestle with trade offs between i5-4xxx and i3-6xxx

Have to step up to Z170 chipset board, if you plan to run faster than 2133 RAM.

 

[DrMrLordX]

Yes. Step up to the Skylake i5-6400. Faster RAM will be hardly any more money at all, maybe $10. It is worth the small increase in price to go from DDR4-2133 to DDR4-2666. For a small total increase in budget you can get your cake and eat it too, you won't have to wrestle with trade offs between i5-4xxx and i3-6xxx

wat

He already said he can't afford Z170, and the i5-6400 has significantly lower base clockspeeds than the i5-4460. The 6400 is 2.7 GHz base, 3.3 GHz turbo. The i3-6100 will still be faster for CAD work. And it'll cost him less.