The 6700/6700k are neglected CPUs for budget builds and the 6600k is a farce.

[Thinker_145]

Can you do better for the money than a 6700 paired with a $50 Skylake board? Total cost $350 for motherboard, CPU and cooler. Then a 6700k with the same motherboard and a decent cooler around $410?

A 6600k running at 4.5Ghz will cost around $400 and yes you get a bigger motherboard with more features but what is a budget gamer really gonna do with it? Now we could argue between 6600k at 4.5 vs 6700 but there is no argument between 6600k at 4.5 vs 6700k at stock.

So why buy a 6600k at all? I feel budget gamers just spend way too much on motherboards. Given how close 6700k's stock single threaded performance is to max Skylake single threaded performance, a Z170 board and\or premium cooling cannot be justified unless you actually buy the 6700k.

i3 6100 build = $170
i5 6500 build = $250
i7 6700 build = $350
i7 6700k build = $410

Once your budget exceeds $410 you can look into Z170 boards and then further into premium cooling/higher end boards. There is literally no room for a 6600k build anywhere.

 

[Yuriman]

I generally feel the same way. Overclocking is fun, but it doesn't offer a lot of value until you're done climbing up the CPU foodchain.

 

[EXCellR8]

Okay, thanks...

Oh, and I love my 6600k btw

 

[IllogicalGlory]

I agree. For a high performance build you really want those extra threads, but in truth, the best value is the Haswell Refresh Xeon E3-1231 V3. It's nothing less than a 4770 without integrated graphics.

$244 for the CPU, $37 for a cheapo Gigabyte H81 board. $281 in total for a 4C/8T 3.4/3.8GHz Haswell Refresh CPU.

Although if it were me, I would pair it with an $80 Z97 board and DDR3-2400.

 

[nerp]

Agreed. See sig. Though I kinda am not the model of one who builds budget rigs. :/

 

[VirtualLarry]

Overclocking is fun, but it doesn't offer a lot of value until you're done climbing up the CPU foodchain.

Suit yourself, but I think that there is still room for "Budget overclocking". Maybe not for gaming purposes, as modern games seem to love 4+ threads, but for other things, like web browsing with Firefox and friends. (A Browser that is notoriously single-threaded, though that's changing in the next few versions.)

I'm currently posting this from a Skylake Celeron G3900 overclocked past 4.2Ghz. It's pretty darn "snappy" browsing in Waterfox, in Windows 10, on a Radeon R3 120GB SSD, with a Radeon R7 250X 2GB GDDR5 video card. (Actually, I'd have to check, it may be a DDR3 version.)

Edit: I checked the Crimson control panel, just says "Memory Type: HyperMemory". Strange. Won't tell me if I have DDR3 or GDDR5. Does say I have 2048MB of it though, and it's clocked at 667Mhz.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

Suit yourself, but I think that there is still room for "Budget overclocking". Maybe not for gaming purposes, as modern games seem to love 4+ threads, but for other things, like web browsing with Firefox and friends. (A Browser that is notoriously single-threaded, though that's changing in the next few versions.)

I'm currently posting this from a Skylake Celeron G3900 overclocked past 4.2Ghz. It's pretty darn "snappy" browsing in Waterfox, in Windows 10, on a Radeon R3 120GB SSD, with a Radeon R7 250X 2GB GDDR5 video card. (Actually, I'd have to check, it may be a DDR3 version.)

Edit: I checked the Crimson control panel, just says "Memory Type: HyperMemory". Strange. Won't tell me if I have DDR3 or GDDR5. Does say I have 2048MB of it though, and it's clocked at 667Mhz.

I'd been through the "cycle" of upgrade-ability enough over the last 20+ years to embrace that idea at least in theory. But by the time I started to seriously overclock my systems, I could see that buying a 2nd-tier K processor one year would lead to replacing it either with 1st tier a year later, or simply waiting for the "Tock" that fit the same socket and chipset.

Some ideas of economy could be "false economy." The difference in price isn't that much, unless the user is seriously pressed for funds and wants his computer sooner than later. But I've built some great systems using non-K and i3 processors with lower-tier motherboards.

 

[Thinker_145]

Okay, thanks...

Oh, and I love my 6600k btw

No offence but your motherboard is more expensive than your CPU which is something I don't really have much words for.

 

[LTC8K6]

Suit yourself, but I think that there is still room for "Budget overclocking". Maybe not for gaming purposes, as modern games seem to love 4+ threads, but for other things, like web browsing with Firefox and friends. (A Browser that is notoriously single-threaded, though that's changing in the next few versions.)

I'm currently posting this from a Skylake Celeron G3900 overclocked past 4.2Ghz. It's pretty darn "snappy" browsing in Waterfox, in Windows 10, on a Radeon R3 120GB SSD, with a Radeon R7 250X 2GB GDDR5 video card. (Actually, I'd have to check, it may be a DDR3 version.)

Edit: I checked the Crimson control panel, just says "Memory Type: HyperMemory". Strange. Won't tell me if I have DDR3 or GDDR5. Does say I have 2048MB of it though, and it's clocked at 667Mhz.

Try GPU-Z, but I'm pretty sure 250X was not offered with DDR3.
EDIT:Yes it was.

HyperMemory is a term from way back:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HyperMemory

 

[coercitiv]

The 6700/6700k are neglected CPUs for budget builds

Something feels wrong with the statement above, but can't really put my finger on it... I mean why would the most expensive mainstream CPU be neglected in budget builds?

A 6600k running at 4.5Ghz will cost around $400

$350, and the overclock is 4.5Ghz+

Now we could argue between 6600k at 4.5 vs 6700 but there is no argument between 6600k at 4.5 vs 6700k at stock.

So in your budget oriented view, the $350 i7 6700 @ 4Ghz is not quite as good as the $410 i7 6700k @ 4.2Ghz (since one is arguably better than 6600k, while the other is downright superior). You do realize by doing this you just advised budget gamers to spend $60 for a measly 5% improved CPU performance, with probably no perceivable impact in gaming performance.

for budget builds and the 6600k is a farce

You want a good argument in favor of 6600k? It offers the best ST performance at the lowest price. Whether that is convincing or needed by a budget gamer is indeed debatable, but the 6600k is hardly a farce.

 

[Shmee]

Keep in mind skylake non K skus can be OCed on certain boards. If one wants a fast chip at ~4.5 GHz, all they need is the 6400 as a quad core, or a 6700 if they want HT. All other skus are now irrelevant.

 

[coercitiv]

Keep in mind skylake non K skus can be OCed on certain boards. If one wants a fast chip at ~4.5 GHz, all they need is the 6400 as a quad core, or a 6700 if they want HT. All other skus are now irrelevant.

What do you mean by certain boards? Is it 100% guaranteed overclock with no downsides?

Some people were very happy with the new BCLK overclock until BIOS update came and ruined the party on non-Z boards. The rest was silence.

 

[Phynaz]

Agree except for the cheap board part. $50 boards are garbage.

 

[PliotronX]

I beg to differ on the 6600k. 85-98% of the performance clock-for-clock for 2/3 the cost makes more sense to me. The HT tax is ridiculous.

 

[The Stilt]

Keep in mind skylake non K skus can be OCed on certain boards. If one wants a fast chip at ~4.5 GHz, all they need is the 6400 as a quad core, or a 6700 if they want HT. All other skus are now irrelevant.

Overclocking the non-K SKUs comes with a pretty heavy price, if you ask me. Disabling the PCU (which is what the OC microcode does) will neuter the AVX/AVX2 performance, since half of the resources will stay powered off even when they would be required (and normally be powered on).

 

[hojnikb]

Agree except for the cheap board part. $50 boards are garbage.

They are just fine for basic builds. Nothing wrong with cheap boards.

 

[PingSpike]

If you look through whole lines of motherboards from a manufacturer, it seems there's the cheap board. And then they just add weird gamer plastic, extra headsinks and probably beefed up power and finally they start integrating some extra stuff like higher end sound, extra sata controllers, different NICs on the top end. If you're running at stock, I don't think there's a compelling case to pay for any of that stuff. And even if you're not running at stock, I'm not sure there's a compelling case to pay for most of it.

 

[Phynaz]

It is my belief that higher priced boards use higher quality components and are built to higher standards. It's not worth it to me to save 25 cents a week over the lifetime of the system to make the sacrifice of quality.

 

[whm1974]

It is my belief that higher priced boards use higher quality components and are built to higher standards. It's not worth it to me to save 25 cents a week over the lifetime of the system to make the sacrifice of quality.

I agree. I'll spend the extra $20 to $30 to make I'll get a board that will last.

 

[PingSpike]

I usually buy a better board because
1) Replacing a motherboard with a different one is a pain in the ass, so I'd rather just be all set
2) Selling a higher end board on the other end is easy and you'll get at least part of your extra outlay back, whereas low end boards become nearly worthless

That said...I have two low end Biostar boards and a $20 ECS board, all of which had pretty significant use and they haven't ever given me any problems. I don't think spending more money means something will necessarily last better. Its a nice idea, but I just don't buy MSI motherboards anymore and now I don't have any problems.

 

[freeskier93]

It is my belief that higher priced boards use higher quality components and are built to higher standards. It's not worth it to me to save 25 cents a week over the lifetime of the system to make the sacrifice of quality.

Gotta love some random amortized cost metric to make something seem cheaper then it is...

For me ~$100 is the sweet spot for motherboards.

It was fun overclocking my old AMD APU but I would take higher core/thread count over overclocking.

 

[freeskier93]

I agree. For a high performance build you really want those extra threads, but in truth, the best value is the Haswell Refresh Xeon E3-1231 V3. It's nothing less than a 4770 without integrated graphics.

$244 for the CPU, $37 for a cheapo Gigabyte H81 board. $281 in total for a 4C/8T 3.4/3.8GHz Haswell Refresh CPU.

Although if it were me, I would pair it with an $80 Z97 board and DDR3-2400.

Yeah, to me it was worth it to bump up to a Z97 board for faster memory. I also wanted an Intel NIC so I settled on the Asus Z97-E for right at $100. I was also pleasantly surprised to learn the Asus board will force sync all the cores on the E3 allowing all 4 cores to run at full turbo boost multiplier (x38). With a cheap hyper 212 it will run at 3.8GHz all day long under load.

I also only payed about $215 for the E3 at Microcenter, so for about $350 (CPU+MB+Cooler) it's hard to beat 4C/8T at 3.8GHz.

 

[monkeydelmagico]

I feel budget gamers just spend way too much on motherboards.

Agree on the mobo thing but budget gamer and i7 also does not compute. Lemme give you the budget gamer recipe:
Cheap box, psu, SSD, and mobo
4 fast intel cores
then spend everything else on the best GPU the budget allows

https://forums.anandtech.com/threads/attention-low-end-midrange-gaming-system-builders.2389797/

Using the true budget build and subbing in an i5 6500 with a RX 480 or a 1060 gets you a decent gaming rig for around $800.-. Spending the extra $100.- on the i7 6700 doesn't really do anything for a pure gaming rig. Yes, it will perform better in heavily threaded work applications but that is not what you are saying is it?

 

[daxzy]

So lets break down the math

i7-6700, $300
Cooler, $0, included in box
Cheap, but ok H110 motherboard (Asus/MSI/Gigabyte), $60
Total = $360 for a 4C/8T @ 4GHz Turbo

i7-6700K, $340
Cooler, $10, Stock Intel HS/F
Cheap, but ok H110 motherboard (Asus/MSI/Gigabyte), $60
Total = $410 for a 4C/8T @ 4.2 GHz Turbo

i7-6600K, $240
Heatsink+Fan, $30
Cheap, but ok Z170 motherboard (Asus/MSI/Gigabyte), $100
Total = $370
You can probably get low 4GHz with a $30 cooler. Which at this point, you're still slightly behind the i7's. If you want to get it to 4.5 GHz or so, you'd probably have to get a >$50 cooler, so you're around the $400 mark. At which point you'd be pulling ahead in ST, but still lagging behind in MT.

As for motherboard quality, you probably won't notice a difference unless there are specific features you want (more USB 3.0, USB Type C, better Audio/LAN, etc). You're not going to hit a O/C wall unless you're going for some exotic (>$100 cooling) overclocks.

So I think from a practical perspective, spending the extra money on a mild i5-6600K overclock isn't really worth it, compared to going for a i7-6700 stock build. If you do more exotic solutions, the marginal increase in price compared to the i7-6700K is less as well. I guess some people just want the experience.

 

[coercitiv]

i7-6700K, $340
Cooler, $10, Stock Intel HS/F
Cheap, but ok H110 motherboard (Asus/MSI/Gigabyte), $60
Total = $410 for a 4C/8T @ 4.2 GHz Turbo

i7-6600K, $240
Heatsink+Fan, $30
Cheap, but ok Z170 motherboard (Asus/MSI/Gigabyte), $100
Total = $370
You can probably get low 4GHz with a $30 cooler. Which at this point, you're still slightly behind the i7's. If you want to get it to 4.5 GHz or so, you'd probably have to get a >$50 cooler, so you're around the $400 mark. At which point you'd be pulling ahead in ST, but still lagging behind in MT.

Please help me understand how 6700K with $10 cooler can run at 4.2Ghz with HT but 6600K with a $30 cooler can only run low 4Ghz without HT.

Let's be fair here - if we put the $10 cooler on 6700K in good faith, let's do the same for 6600k and consider the i5 can clock at least 200Mhz higher for same power dissipation since it lacks HT. Hence the total goes down to $350. (or better yet, leave the cooler out of the equation since both CPUs require decent cooling even in a budget gaming system)

Later edit: Here's how power usage looks like between 6600K and 6700K at stock, though the difference is a bit much and may have been affected by poor BIOS settings on the early platform.