[TechSpot] i3 vs i5 vs i7

[escrow4]

http://www.techspot.com/review/972-intel-core-i3-vs-i5-vs-i7/

Conclusions:

"For example, the Core i3 delivered virtually the same performance as the Core i7 in applications such as Adobe Illustrator CC and InDesign CC. However, Photoshop CC and heavy workloads in 7-zip and Excel 2013 favored the Core i7 over the Core i5 by a mile, while the Core i3 was crushed."

"So to recap briefly, the Core i5 is a must over the Core i3 for encoding, while the Core i7 is more of a luxury unless you'll be spending a ton of time in Photoshop and/or Excel (even so, the i5 will suffice for the most part)."

"The Core i3 absolutely offers the best value for PC gamers, which is terrific news, though we would insist in recommending a Core i5 to enthusiasts and gamers with a less tight budget. Gamers opting for a GTX 960 or slower will get away happily with the Core i3, while it would make more sense to invest in a Core i5 with any GPU faster than that."

Have at it!

 

[erunion]

Seems reasonable. i3s tend to get dumped on more than is deserved.

 

[Blue_Max]

Seems reasonable. i3s tend to get dumped on more than is deserved.

Agreed - especially considering the i5 is ~double the cost of the i3. The i7 is about triple!

The performance increases exist, but not nearly to the same scale as the price.

 

[TurtleCrusher]

The problem with benchmarking and scientific method is that it often isn't replicated in the real world. When you're working and you're encoding/Photoshop/modeling, wouldn't you be performing multiple tasks at once? Of course an i3 will match that of an i7 if nothing else is going on. Why not encode and browse the web with internet radio going? I suspect the more threads available would net some serious gains.

 

[Achtung!]

Agreed - especially considering the i5 is ~double the cost of the i3. The i7 is about triple!

The performance increases exist, but not nearly to the same scale as the price.

If you want to do video editing or play the most recent games, then an i5 or better is needed, period.

 

[BSim500]

Good article. I have an i3 in my HTPC and an i5 for my main rig and it's surprising how many games "the little guy" can handle (to the extent there's only about 2-4 out of 300 games where there's any perceivable difference on a mid-range dGPU). Shadowplay also narrows the gap vs traditional gaming + FRAPS. As does GPU acceleration in photo / video editing software, etc. Obviously the dual-core is noticeably slower for software x264 encoding, but even then for casual encodes both rigs are finished by the time I've eaten dinner, taken the dog for a walk, etc, so in a "usability" sense, there's no real "I'm sitting here waiting for it to take 20mins instead of 12mins whilst I'm away from the PC for 45mins" difference. For "quick & dirty" non archival encodes / video conferencing, Quicksync is the same speed on dual's rather than quads and benefits i3's relatively more than i5's. In fact given Youtube's continuing decline in quality due to excessive re-compression, fixed function encoders are probably good enough for most uploads. Likewise web browsing will typically be sped up 10x more in any perceptual sense by decr*pifying the web with Adblock / Flashblock / Disconnect / Noscript / Redirect Remover style plugins than moving from 2 to 1024 cores and trying to 'brute-force' through Flash plugin locks.

When you're working and you're encoding/Photoshop/modeling, wouldn't you be performing multiple tasks at once?

For a heavy workload (where you sound like you'd be using Photoshop / modelling professionally all day), then a quad or more would be better. But the average casual user (most of whom own a dual-core 2-3GHz laptop) doesn't model 3D and use complex radial blurs in 200-layer Photoshop files and browse the web all at the same time. Intelligent time management goes a long way to narrowing the gap (see above example of making more use of your PC when you're away from it by batch encoding video when eating dinner, overnight, etc). People used to do that anyway back when single cores were the only option. Remember ripping DVD's to CD-R Divx? After ripping a dozen or so DVD's to HDD in MPEG2 format, people didn't encode them whilst shaking their fist at the screen for the "slowness", then simply encoded them overnight and set the software to shut off the PC when finished. Or forced the encoding software to use "Idle" priority so it wouldn't slow down web browsing, etc. Just because a quad, hex, octo core alleviates the need doesn't mean it's suddenly more intelligent to not make the most of your "away time" / stop using common sense time management.

It often ends up one of those trendy "in things" for geeks with many core CPU's to often spend 3-4hrs per week arguing over how slow it must be for the average person, when the average person typically encodes less than an hour or two per week (often using Quicksync for laptops or Shadowplay for gaming footage uploads) and whose video encode finishes 3-4x faster than "the argument" typically rages on.

 

[Flapdrol1337]

If you want to do video editing or play the most recent games, then an i5 or better is needed, period.

Yeah, that's what your gut says, but tests show otherwise.

 

[coercitiv]

When you're working and you're encoding/Photoshop/modeling, wouldn't you be performing multiple tasks at once? Of course an i3 will match that of an i7 if nothing else is going on. Why not encode and browse the web with internet radio going? I suspect the more threads available would net some serious gains.

My main tool at work is Photoshop, and while most of the time a dual core CPU is enough for my needs, there are enough occasions when a quad can come in handy.

The most common example nowadays is cloud storage, since desktop clients tend to consume quite a bit of computing power when indexing/synchronizing files. Add some file compression or video encoding to the mix and a quad core is almost mandatory.

I wouldn't use a dual core CPU for Photoshop work unless the machine was meant to be portable (ultrabook etc).

 

[StrangerGuy]

Yeah, that's what your gut says, but tests show otherwise.

Yeah because we know one review that shows only average frame rate is conclusive enough. :whiste:

 

[Yuriman]

I went with an i3 for my wife's PC. We game together occasionally, and although there are a handful of games that run better on my overclocked i5, for the most part her system is indistinguishable from mine.

I do some scientific computing, but she does not, and an i3 is plenty and then some for web browsing, M$ Word, Spotify and casual to moderate gaming.

 

[crashtech]

Well, I agree with StrangerGuy that the tests needed to include minimums. Also conspicuously absent was any plain dual core, like a G3220, to be able to better gauge the benefits of HT in regards to dual core CPUs.

I'm in the camp that knows the i3 to be a good all-round CPU, but unfortunately the linked tests are not clearly probative.

 

[tential]

Well, I agree with StrangerGuy that the tests needed to include minimums. Also conspicuously absent was any plain dual core, like a G3220, to be able to better gauge the benefits of HT in regards to dual core CPUs.

I'm in the camp that knows the i3 to be a good all-round CPU, but unfortunately the linked tests are not clearly probative.

Yup, wish they had included the G3220

 

[coolpurplefan]

If you want to do video editing or play the most recent games, then an i5 or better is needed, period.

I agree with this but I'd like to add that I find a quad-core for whatever reason seems so much more fluid than a dual-core. I can run a game with an anti-virus running on "real-time protection" in the background with several Chrome windows etc. open at the same time. I do have 8GB of RAM on my motherboard and a regular hard drive but still, I find my new machine (with i5-4570 in signature) really amazing.

 

[Leyawiin]

I kind of went back an forth recently when building a secondary PC between an i3 and an i5. The GPU is a GTX 960 and the monitor is 1680x1050. I ended up going with an i5-4590. The extra $30-60 (depending on which i3 its compared to) just seemed a good investment long term.

 

[Ketchup]

I don't see anything in the abstract or in the article that most (all?) of us didn't already know. On the contrary, they didn't compare them to anything else (AMD chip, Celeron, etc) so this strikes me as an article written by Captain Obvious.

 

[SPBHM]

the difference can be huge for the IGP

looking at the specs the only difference between the 4350 and 4690 IGP is 1150 vs 1200MHz max turbo clock

 

[Ketchup]

the difference can be huge for the IGP

looking at the specs the only difference between the 4350 and 4690 IGP is 1150 vs 1200MHz max turbo clock

How about twice the number of cores and higher CPU frequency? This was covered almost a year ago right here at AT:
http://www.anandtech.com/show/7963/...iew-core-i7-4790-i5-4690-and-i3-4360-tested/7

http://ark.intel.com/products/80810/Intel-Core-i5-4690-Processor-6M-Cache-up-to-3_90-GHz
http://ark.intel.com/products/77491/Intel-Core-i3-4350-Processor-4M-Cache-3_60-GHz

 

[Ken g6]

Yup, wish they had included the G3220

I also wish they'd included the i7 5820k, so we could solve [thread=2424749]this 4790k/5820k debate[/thread].

I do quite a bit of video encoding, so this helps eliminate i5s for me. But I can't decide between those two processors (or Skylake). And I can't decide between micro-ATX or mini-ITX. (For any of them!)

 

[SPBHM]

How about twice the number of cores and higher CPU frequency? This was covered almost a year ago right here at AT:
http://www.anandtech.com/show/7963/...iew-core-i7-4790-i5-4690-and-i3-4360-tested/7

http://ark.intel.com/products/80810/Intel-Core-i5-4690-Processor-6M-Cache-up-to-3_90-GHz
http://ark.intel.com/products/77491/Intel-Core-i3-4350-Processor-4M-Cache-3_60-GHz

the test you linked doesn't show the same kind of difference in performance,

I would assume techspot used the built in benchamrk, which shouldn't be CPU limited at this framerate/CPU speed/settings with this kind of performance from the GPU

 

[SteveGrabowski]

One really big problem I see with this test is when you save $70 by buying an i3-4150 over an i5-4440, you're essentially marrying yourself to an overpriced Nvidia GPU like a GTX 750 Ti or GTX 960, thanks to AMD cards not performing that well with Core i3s thanks to driver overhead (source). For instance, you'll need a $192 GTX 960 instead of a $164 R9 280 for a lower midrange card. If you buy the i5 for the price of the cheapest GTX 960 you could get an R9 280x that smashes the 960 in gaming performance if you have an i5 or better. Or you could go up to $250 and get an R9 290 and have a high-end gaming machine. If you want that with Nvidia you're going up to $320 for a GTX 970 and you'll still need the $70 more expensive i5 anyways. I'm calling BS on their Crysis 3 benchmark, that game always uses all 8 threads of my Xeon E3-1231v3 on Very High system spec. And Dragon Age Inquisition is always using at least 6 when I play.

 

[Leyawiin]

If you want that with Nvidia you're going up to $320 for a GTX 970 and you'll still need the $70 more expensive i5 anyways.

With the lower driver overhead for Nvidia drivers vs. AMD (according to the video), wouldn't a GTX 970 paired with an i3 match an R9 290 paired with an i5 for the most part?

Anyway, the cheapest R9 280 on Newegg is $190 - same as the cheapest GTX 960. There is a very good Sapphire Vapor-X R9 280X for $210. That's the card to get if you have the CPU to support it fully. If you don't you might as well get the GTX 960 and save the power and heat - performance isn't going to be any worse.

 

[2is]

I have an i7 but I've been using QuickSync since handbrake started supporting it and haven't looked back.

 

[escrow4]

I only use i7's/hexa cores in my desktops but that i3 is impressive. I wouldn't drop any lower - a Pentium and Celeron are below the minimum I set for a fluid all rounder.

 

[toyota]

the Crysis 3 results are bizarre. for the i7 to be slower than the i5 or i3 makes no sense as Crysis 3 loves having more than 4 threads. in fact the game will fully peg my cpu at times if I disable HT and the framerate will drop compared to having it on. digital foundry review found that even with a 4690k overclocked it was still a little slower than the stock 4790k.

 

[Magic Carpet]

@toyota

Yeah, the Crysis bench looks improbable to me as well. Had this been the case, we all would have had i3's. Maybe the bench session wasn't heavy on cpu.