i5 6500 vs i7 6700 for Virtualbox and Bluestacks

qc56

Junior Member
May 21, 2016
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0
hi,

I am wondering if I would be okay with i5 6500 instead of the i7 6700 (it's about 150$can cheaper) the following virtualization tasks:

- I will need to run XP in a VirtualBox VM. I have a particular voice recording software for work and it only runs on XP. (I am dual-booting XP on my current system). The VM can't have any lag at all, because that creates problems in the recording. This is a deal breaker.

- I would like to play some android games with Bluestacks (android emulator).

The context:
I need to upgrade my computer. I have a 10-year old custom build with a core2duo E6400. Before you start laughing, I want to say it served me really well as I am not a power user or big gamer (although I did waste countless hours playing Civ 5).

I was suggested the following system:
INTEL® CORE™ I7-6700 Processor 8M Cache 3.4GHZ
ASUS H170-PRO ATX LGA1151 DDR4 4PCI-E16 Motherboard
Kingston HyperX Fury Black 16G 2X8GB 2133MHZ DDR4 Memory
ASUS GeForce GTX 950 Strix OC 1355MHZ 2GB GDDR5 Video Card
Seagate Barracuda 2TB 7200RPM SATA3 (I will likely swap this for an SSD)
LG GH24NSC0 DVD-RW 24X
Cooler Master HAF 912 Black Mid Tower ATX Case
Corsair CX Series CX650M 650W ATX 12V 80

Will I see a difference between the i5 and the i7 in VirtualBox and Bluestacks?

Hopefully, it's okay to ask this question here.

Thanks for your advice. I search over the web, but could not see any relevant info on virtualization performance for those cpus.
 
Last edited:
Feb 25, 2011
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The i7 would do a better job of handling a lot of VMs. But for your use (sounds like mostly light office stuff), they're a wash IMO.
 

qc56

Junior Member
May 21, 2016
3
0
0
It would only be one VM at a time. And yes, in the XP VM, it would be light stuff. Basically, I would only be running that voice recording software in it, while I have my documents open and do the web research in the main system (Win7 or 10).

The Bluestacks gaming would not take place at the same time.
 

TheRyuu

Diamond Member
Dec 3, 2005
5,479
14
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I would argue it's not a matter of what you're looking to run on it but what you can afford. If you can afford the i7 then just get it. You're almost always better off in the long run getting the i7 vs an i5.

Although they both have the same virtualization support the i7 does clock higher than the i5 (higher base and boost clock) so even for single threaded stuff it'll be faster. You're always going to get worse latency in a VM than from native but you can hopefully minimize the impact as to not affect it. You may have to try different VM implementations such has VMWare or Window's own Hyper-V.
 
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