• We’re currently investigating an issue related to the forum theme and styling that is impacting page layout and visual formatting. The problem has been identified, and we are actively working on a resolution. There is no impact to user data or functionality, this is strictly a front-end display issue. We’ll post an update once the fix has been deployed. Thanks for your patience while we get this sorted.

i5 2500k or i7 2600k for BF3?

S

skipsneeky2

Diamond Member
I am currently sitting on a i3 2100+h67 combo right now.

Couple weeks from now i plan on purchasing this motherboard\/
http://usa.asus.com/Motherboards/Intel_Socket_1155/P8Z68V_PROGEN3/

Will match it up with some high speed ddr3 basically replacing my sub system but the temptation to go all out and opt for the i7 2600k just won't leave me.

Anyone with with a i7 2600k who is playing BF3 who can chime in as to if there's even the slightest difference with ht off and on or perhaps someone who owns both?

I don't have money growing out of trees but i could dish the extra coin if the difference in BF3 is there as far as i know the games highly threaded.

Screenshot's,benchmarks or any other physical proof would be very welcomed in the thread.🙂
 
Check out this CPU scaling review using a 7970. From an Athlon X4 all the way up to 2600K and Bulldozer, the difference at 1920*1200 was 1 FPS.

If all you see yourself using this rig for is BF3, a 2500K is enough. The biggest differences seen have been going from dual core to quad core. I've read that a lot of people end up having to turn off HT too because of some stuttering issues.

If you see yourself needing the multithreaded performance, though, I'd say go for the i7.
 
CPU makes a big difference in multiplayer games, particularly 64 player ones. SP it is not really important, but believe me there is a difference when it comes to multiplayer.

What I can't speak to is HT vs no HT having a benefit in large multiplayer games as I never tested that myself.


69Syz.jpg


This actually reminds me I never finished doing all these comparison benchmarks.
 
I'd like to know if MP uses HT as well, I know with my 470's cranked up my i5-2500k @ 5GHz gets taxed hard. There is barely anything left on it.

I've been thinking about the jump from SB to IB and wondering if I should get another i5 or upgrade to the i7. So far HT hasn't really done anything for gamers.

@Grooveriding since you have a quad with HT, any possibility of testing your 920 again with HT disabled?
 
BallaTheFeared said:
I'd like to know if MP uses HT as well, I know with my 470's cranked up my i5-2500k @ 5GHz gets taxed hard. There is barely anything left on it.

I've been thinking about the jump from SB to IB and wondering if I should get another i5 or upgrade to the i7. So far HT hasn't really done anything for gamers.

@Grooveriding since you have a quad with HT, any possibility of testing your 920 again with HT disabled?
Click to expand...

I don't have my 920 anymore, handed it off to a friend. I can do some runs with the 3930 with HT off/on though when I have some time. I'll have to re-create the same situation though.

Those runs were done on Caspian Border with 64 players in the game at the start of a fresh game - coming out from RU base and doing a track around the map. It's a pain to duplicate, but I can get a couple in at some point I'm sure.

It's also worth saying that the gains I saw may not be universal. I am running 3 GPUs, so it's wide open for me to have been CPU bottlenecked on my 920. There is a very good chance somebody running a single GPU would not get the gains I did from a CPU upgrade.
 
Last edited:
Grooveriding said:
CPU makes a big difference in multiplayer games, particularly 64 player ones. SP it is not really important, but believe me there is a difference when it comes to multiplayer.

What I can't speak to is HT vs no HT having a benefit in large multiplayer games as I never tested that myself.


69Syz.jpg


This actually reminds me I never finished doing all these comparison benchmarks.
Click to expand...

Yup when i had my old e8200 in the story mode it was pretty smooth but online it was pretty crappy.

That chart looks pretty interesting but def ht vs no ht benchmarks would come in handy.
 
BallaTheFeared said:
I'd like to know if MP uses HT as well, I know with my 470's cranked up my i5-2500k @ 5GHz gets taxed hard. There is barely anything left on it.

I've been thinking about the jump from SB to IB and wondering if I should get another i5 or upgrade to the i7. So far HT hasn't really done anything for gamers.

@Grooveriding since you have a quad with HT, any possibility of testing your 920 again with HT disabled?
Click to expand...

When you mean taxed do you mean like the cpu is nearly maxed out?

If there is even the slightest program when i game on this i3 2100 i tend to chug a bit and personally i am ready for some overhead which brings me to creating this thread.
 
I say buy the i5-2500K. The performance difference in gaming is almost negligible. Whats left of the money allocated for the i7 should be placed in an Ivy-ready mobo based on an enthusiast chipset. Later buy an Ivy i7 when newer games actually benefit from HT and OC it.
 
If you go in that thread and link to the OCN thread, they were bashing the 2500k like it was a bulldozer. 🙄

No matter what you upgrade, there is always going to be a bottleneck somewhere. There is no such thing as 'no bottleneck', it just takes time to find it sometimes 😉
 
Last edited:
SLK said:
If you go in that thread and link to the OCN thread, they were bashing the 2500k like it was a bulldozer. 🙄

No matter what you upgrade, there is always going to be a bottleneck somewhere. There is no such thing as 'no bottleneck', it just takes time to find it sometimes 😉
Click to expand...
Very true. In my case, the biggest bottleneck is me. Planning is everything 😀
 
i want to try that game w/ht on and off but my graphics card sucks.skyrim is a cpu hog and i still get 60fps on it but for bf3 i dont think so haha!
 
Boy they are raging all over the place.

I'll have to check again

Specifically I want to see these mins below 60... I get that sometimes, after I die.. Never noticed it while playing thou.

One of the CF 7970 users said they went from mins in the 80s to mins in the 50's with ht disabled, lol... I'm just not seeing that. I don't recall getting mins that low recently, but I had to drop AA to 2x due to vram arrrr 🙁
 
I hate to bring this up but I think I might be onto something. If you guys looked at the pic on OCN where they show both GPU usage graphs with HT on and off. If you notice when the HT is off how the graph's usage bottoms out compared to the 2600k. I noticed with the AMD cards/drivers that I get a ton of lag when I am alt tabbing out of a game. (especially borderlands and bf3). I have a feeling this may be a software issue more than hardware. I do not get those GPU load drops and lag like those graphs are showing with my 2500k with an Nvidia card. :hmm:
 
Last edited:
Today i dropped in a 2500k as i had the funds to do just that but no motherboard yet.

The swap from the i3 2100 to the 2500k for BF3 was pretty noticeable with higher minimum framerate,little better average,higher maximum framerate and pretty smooth overall game play.

Got my current motherboard to clock the chip to 3.4ghz by luck with a 34x multiplier and performance is solid enough to warrant holding off a motherboard till z77 to see about compatibility and features i am guessing z77 will support older 32nm sandy bridge chips as well?
 
skipsneeky2 said:
Today i dropped in a 2500k as i had the funds to do just that but no motherboard yet.

The swap from the i3 2100 to the 2500k for BF3 was pretty noticeable with higher minimum framerate,little better average,higher maximum framerate and pretty smooth overall game play.

Got my current motherboard to clock the chip to 3.4ghz by luck with a 34x multiplier and performance is solid enough to warrant holding off a motherboard till z77 to see about compatibility and features i am guessing z77 will support older 32nm sandy bridge chips as well?
Click to expand...

Nice to hear about the minimum frame boost, huge impact on gameplay/enjoyment which is often overlooked as people refer to average frames. Not sure if Z77 will support SB CPUs or not.

As for Z77 over Z68 it brings:
- Guaranteed Ivy Bridge CPU support
- Guaranteed PCI-e 3.0 support (although it works fine on gen3 Z68 from what I've read)
- Integrated USB3
- Thunderbolt support is possible by vendors but not part of the spec

That's about it from my research. No additional SATA3 ports, same PCI-e lanes (but double bandwidth with 3.0 devices).
 
gramboh said:
Nice to hear about the minimum frame boost, huge impact on gameplay/enjoyment which is often overlooked as people refer to average frames. Not sure if Z77 will support SB CPUs or not.

As for Z77 over Z68 it brings:
- Guaranteed Ivy Bridge CPU support
- Guaranteed PCI-e 3.0 support (although it works fine on gen3 Z68 from what I've read)
- Integrated USB3
- Thunderbolt support is possible by vendors but not part of the spec

That's about it from my research. No additional SATA3 ports, same PCI-e lanes (but double bandwidth with 3.0 devices).
Click to expand...

No doubt z68 will be discounted when everyone jumps onboard z77 if i know the hardcore folks around here and you might buy a high end z68 eventually for cheaper then a midrange z77 when its all said and done.🙂

Thunderbolt is a very interesting feature i saw this external gpu extension box that allows gpus up to 150tdp to be plugged in via thunderbolt so it might be worth waiting for but like you mentioned its not part of the spec but its as interesting as usb 2.0 was with the 800 series intel chipsets in the p4 days.
 
skipsneeky2 said:
No doubt z68 will be discounted when everyone jumps onboard z77 if i know the hardcore folks around here and you might buy a high end z68 eventually for cheaper then a midrange z77 when its all said and done.🙂

Thunderbolt is a very interesting feature i saw this external gpu extension box that allows gpus up to 150tdp to be plugged in via thunderbolt so it might be worth waiting for but like you mentioned its not part of the spec but its as interesting as usb 2.0 was with the 800 series intel chipsets in the p4 days.
Click to expand...

Thunderbolt on desktop isn't as useful as on notebooks IMO, since you already have eSATA for external storage. With notebooks, one cable to connect everything for docking is pretty sweet.

Interesting to think about getting a higher end Z68 vs. Z77 at launch, might have to think about that option.
 
I just hope they would discount Z68 enough that it would be worth it. I am betting it will get discontinued in the lineup if Z77 is backwards compatible with SB.
 
I upgrade from a E8400 to a i5 2500K and my 3Dmark06 score doubled using the same 2 GTX 460 1GB GPUs I have. I thing an i5 2500K overclocked to 4.5GHz is still overkill for now.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

TRENDING THREADS

Back
Top