What platform would you use for a Budget build Core i5/i7 PC?

[cbn]

New Z97 plus used i7 4770K (about the price of a new i5 6600K)
New Z170 plus new i5 6600K
New Pre-built with i7 6700

Please also factor in RAM selection (if you want).

 

[cbn]

Some Pros and Cons beyond CPU that I thought of:

1. Only the Z170 would have PCIe 3.0 x 4 for M.2 SSD (Most Z97 have only PCIe 2.0 x 2 for the M key M.2 SSD and budget Skylake i7 Pre-builts like this one don't have any M.2 slots for PCIe NVMe SSD....only SATA M.2 SSD. )
2. Only the Z170 would be able to use RAM speeds over 2400 (the Z97 would be limited to DDR3 2400 and the Skylake i7 budget Pre-built DDR4 2133) EDIT: Z97 Can also use memory speeds over 2400 (Eg, DDR3 2600 to DDR3 2800). Sorry for some reason I was thinking about AMD's limitation when I wrote this.

 

[frozentundra123456]

What is the use case, and what do you mean by a "budget" build. I would not consider any of those budget builds really. More like lower midrange.

 

[VirtualLarry]

What kind of "budget" are talking about? For $300-ish builds, I still spec out a G3258 and H81 (overclocking) board.

For $500, a Skylake i3-6100 build, and for $600, a Skylake i3-6100 and an overclocking board, or maybe an i5-6400/6500, and no overclocking.

 

[cbn]

I changed the title from "What platform would you use for a Budget build PC?" to "What platform would you use for a Budget build Core i5/i7 PC?

As far as budget goes, (for the sake of argument) lets make it the same as the Core i7 Skylake Pre-built I linked in post #2....so ~$625 shipped with 16GB RAM, 1TB HDD, Windows 10 Home, keyboard and mouse. (or some amount lower than $625 shipped if it doesn't have the keyboard and mouse, etc).

 

[Valantar]

What will this be used for?

 

[cbn]

What is the use case

What will this be used for?

Gaming,Video editing, Blender and Photoshop.

 

[Ken g6]

Hmm.

Gaming: any.
Video editing: any but i7 is better.
Blender: not sure, probably the same.
PS: Skylake is better. i5 is fine.

 

[cbn]

Skylake Core i5 scaling with faster memory:

 

[cbn]

So with that Memory scaling noted, lets assume the Core i5 6600K gets DDR4 3000 which is pretty cheap at this time......

How does a Core i7 4770K with either DDR3 1600 or DDR3 2400 compare to that?

How does a Core i7 6700 with DDR4 2133 compare to a Core i7 4770K with DDR3 1600?

Some additional info:

Core i7 6700 is rated at 3.4 Ghz base, but its four core turbo is actually 3.7 Ghz
Skylake has approximately 5.5% to 6% higher IPC than Haswell.

 

[cbn]

Some Pros and Cons beyond CPU that I thought of:

1. Only the Z170 would have PCIe 3.0 x 4 for M.2 SSD (Most Z97 have only PCIe 2.0 x 2 for the M key M.2 SSD and budget Skylake i7 Pre-builts like this one don't have any M.2 slots for PCIe NVMe SSD....only SATA M.2 SSD. )
2. Only the Z170 would be able to use RAM speeds over 2400 (the Z97 would be limited to DDR3 2400 and the Skylake i7 budget Pre-built DDR4 2133) EDIT: Z97 Can also use memory speeds over 2400 (Eg, DDR3 2600 to DDR3 2800). Sorry for some reason I was thinking about AMD's limitation when I wrote this.

Fixed the above mistake in post #2.

Z97 boards like this one can , in fact, support DDR3 memory speeds over 2400.

Although looking at the the list below, the selection of DDR3 >2400 RAM is becoming more rare:

http://pcpartpicker.com/products/memory/#s=302500,302600,302666,302800&sort=a10

(Looks like the only reasonably priced stuff left is the Klevv Urbane)