i7-6700k+RX480 vs. i5-6600k+GTX1070 upgrade

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nurturedhate

Golden Member
Aug 27, 2011
1,738
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Could also be a horrible person and get the wife the i5+480 and you buy an i7+1070.... no one has to know.
 

cfenton

Senior member
Jul 27, 2015
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If these computers are primarily for games, then get the best GPU you can. Games are almost always GPU limited. The i7 will give you a few more frames, but nothing close to the difference between a 480 and a 1070.

I've had my i5 3570k for over three years now and it still runs everything fine. I'm bottlenecked by my GTX970 way more often than my 3570K.

To put it simply, the i5 will almost certainly be fine in three years, but the 480 and the 1070 will be showing their age. Since the 1070 is quite a bit faster, it should hold up better, so I'd go with that.
 

railven

Diamond Member
Mar 25, 2010
6,604
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My personal vote: if possible up the budget. So many times I've had to compromise on her build to either give my build a little extra budget or end up with two mediocre builds. I've decided to just slide extra money into the budgets when possible. Skip one planned dinner and make dinner at home for her, brings the budget up.

But that's just me. GL with whatever you decide.
 

someEEguy

Member
Jun 5, 2013
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Thanks for all the replies. Everyone keeps suggesting I go big on the CPU now and upgrade the GPU later, but I think everyone is missing that I said I will absolutely not be changing out any hardware at all for the next 3 years. That was the agreement I made with my wife for her to be OK with spending around $2000 for both computers is that I will not spend any more money for the next several years on computer upgrades.

I've read and can see there is a big shortage of GTX1070's and RX480's but I think by the time October rolls around the shortage will be gone. Also, I assume that in 3 years if I want to upgrade again, I don't think the motherboard I'm buying in 2016 will be compatible with new CPU's coming out in 2019.

So with all that said, for the next 3 years is an i5+GTX1070 for $60 more going to continue to be noticeably better than an i7+RX480? The games we bought recently and want to buy soon don't run well with our current systems (Witcher 3, Doom, and Mirror's Edge Catalyst) but according to Anandtech the GTX1070 is way faster than RX480 with Witcher 3. Would an i5-6600k slow down the GTX1070 that much?

The following should give you some idea of what to expect.

However, the average frame-rate results suggest that the advantages of the i7's hyper-threading are minimal, its stock performance often overcome with an i5 overclock - but it's a different situation on when we look at the lowest recorded frame-rates, where the i5 is disadvantaged in several titles, and there are occasions where even 4.5GHz performance can't match the i7's stock stability. We should remember that our tests here are designed to propel CPU limitations to the forefront, and our contention is that in most titles where GPU is the bottleneck, the difference will be harder to detect. But the bottom line is this - in many-core games that hit CPU hard, the i7 6700K offers a level of stability in excess of what the equivalent i5 is capable of.
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-2015-intel-skylake-core-i7-6700k-review
https://youtu.be/EhaB1dqYv_I?t=107
 
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monkeydelmagico

Diamond Member
Nov 16, 2011
3,961
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Hyper threading usually shows no gains in games at this time. Everybody keeps saying "eventually" the lack of hyperthreading will hurt us four core gamers. They've been saying that since 2010. They will still be saying that in 2020. No way I'd suffer for three years with a mediocre GPU. Once you have 4 fast cores buy as much GPU as you can get.
 

Thinker_145

Senior member
Apr 19, 2016
609
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Hyper threading DOES make a MASSIVE difference but currently only with dual core CPUs. Eventually it will make a big difference with quad core as well. It already makes a substantial difference with minimum framerates.

Anyways OP now that I think about it you should definitely bite the bullet with i7+1070.

The i7 is absolutely without a doubt worth $100 over the i5. In 2016 an i5 build only makes sense if you are buying a $200 CPU with a $60 motherboard. If you are spending $100+ on the mobo and $30-50 on a third party CPU cooler then you really should only be getting i7.

Sent from my HTC One M9