Which gaming rig is better?

[Patrickn29]

Hey I am building a pc and have two in mind and i want to know peoples opinion of which one is better for. I want you to focus on the sole performance only and not worry about the price. They are very similar in must parts and a little bit different so i need help determining which one is better if you can please reply it would be very helpful because i spent a long time on this.

The first gaming rig is a Z170 its parts are :

Processor - Intel® Core™ i5-6600K Processor
Processor Cooling - Corsair Hydro Series H60 120mm Liquid CPU Cooler
Memory - 8 GB DDR4-2800
Video Card - NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970 - 4GB
Motherboard - MSI Z170A Gaming Pro
Power Supply - 600 Watt - Corsair CX600 V2 - 80 PLUS Bronze
Primary Hard Drive - 128 GB SanDisk Z400S SSD + 1 TB 7200RPM Hard Drive
Optical Drive - LG Blu-ray Re-Writer
OS - Windows 10

The second gaming rig is a Z97 its parts are :
Processor - Intel® Core™ i5-4690K Processor
Processor Cooling - Corsair Hydro Series H60 120mm Liquid CPU Cooler
Memory - 8 GB DDR3-2133
Video Card - NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970 - 4GB
Motherboard - Gigabyte GA-Z97X-Gaming 3
Power Supply - 600 Watt - Corsair CX600 V2 - 80 PLUS Bronze
Primary Hard Drive - 128GB SanDisk Z400S SSD + 1TB 7200RPM Hard Drive
Optical Drive - LG Blu-ray Re-Writer
OS - Windows 10

 

[MustISO]

Outside of benchmarks I doubt you'd notice much difference in daily use. In the reviews I've seen the difference in FPS was small between the two processors. With very fast DDR4 Z170 performance can improve.

 

[Gryz]

Most important component for a gaming PC: the videocard. Those 2 PCs use the same one, so there's no difference.

Second most important component for a gaming PC: the CPU. Here we have two CPUs that are fairly simular. The 6600K is just a bit newer. You are lucky, Anandtech has compared both CPUs in their benchmarks. You can see the result here:
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/product/1544?vs=1261

As you can see, the 6600K is slightly faster in most benchmarks. Unfortunately there are no benchmarked games. That is probably because the differences will be tiny. The videocard is much more important. I'd chose the 6600K if I were you, because it's a bit newer and a bit faster. But if it'd cost you 50 euro/dollars more, you could just as well buy the 4690K. The difference in framerates would be in the order of < 1% I guess.

Motherboards are different. Motherboards hardly have an impact on speed. More expensive motherboards are only useful if you want to attach a lot of disks, or need many RAM-modules, need BlueTooth, or other weird stuff. Usually you should never buy the most expensive motherboard as a gamer. I believe the motherboard that comes with the 6600K has a slightly newer chipset. But it hardly matters.

Rest is the same. Memory is slightly different. Might make <1% difference in framerates.

So my advice: buy the first PC (6600K). Unless it's 50+ dollars/euros more. In that case, I'd buy the second PC.

 

[Blue_Max]

If you're not re-using your old RAM, etc, you might as well get the latest platform and all the benefits and longevity of it. Go with the 6600k unless there's a critical price difference that allows you to get a faster video card with the 4690k.

Remember, gaming is 95% all about the video card.

 

[frozentundra123456]

Most important component for a gaming PC: the videocard. Those 2 PCs use the same one, so there's no difference.

Second most important component for a gaming PC: the CPU. Here we have two CPUs that are fairly simular. The 6600K is just a bit newer. You are lucky, Anandtech has compared both CPUs in their benchmarks. You can see the result here:
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/product/1544?vs=1261

As you can see, the 6600K is slightly faster in most benchmarks. Unfortunately there are no benchmarked games. That is probably because the differences will be tiny. The videocard is much more important. I'd chose the 6600K if I were you, because it's a bit newer and a bit faster. But if it'd cost you 50 euro/dollars more, you could just as well buy the 4690K. The difference in framerates would be in the order of < 1% I guess.

Motherboards are different. Motherboards hardly have an impact on speed. More expensive motherboards are only useful if you want to attach a lot of disks, or need many RAM-modules, need BlueTooth, or other weird stuff. Usually you should never buy the most expensive motherboard as a gamer. I believe the motherboard that comes with the 6600K has a slightly newer chipset. But it hardly matters.

Rest is the same. Memory is slightly different. Might make <1% difference in framerates.

So my advice: buy the first PC (6600K). Unless it's 50+ dollars/euros more. In that case, I'd buy the second PC.

Anand Techs reviews have gone terribly downhill since Anand himself left, and their Skylake review was particularly poor because they gimped the platform with slow ram. Other sites have shown up to 10%, plus or minus a bit, improvement in cpu limited games vs Haswell. But with a 970, even though it is a good card, most games are going to be gpu limited. I would say it comes down to price. If the Skylake system costs the same, then I would go with it for slightly better performance and perhaps a bit lower power usage. If the Haswell system is significantly cheaper, or you have DDR3 ram you can use, then go with Haswell.

If you are not too concerned with budget, I would also consider moving up to an i7 instead of the i5. Conventional wisdom has always been that hyperthreading has little benefit in gaming, but that is starting to change, as some games are showing a 20 to 30 percent faster performance with hyperthreading. Also if you move up to 4790k or 6700k you get a higher stock clock. I know for sure that if they came out to the same total system cost, I would choose a Haswell 4790k over the Skylake 6600k.

 

[Blue_Max]

I know for sure that if they came out to the same total system cost, I would choose a Haswell 4790k over the Skylake 6600k.

Agreed. We're starting to see more benefit now, so who knows what we'll see in 12-18 months.

 

[Denithor]

What resolution do you intend to play your games? For 1080p I say setup #1 or a Z97/4790K would be best. If higher, you're going to want more GPU - go with setup #2 (which should be cheaper) and step up to a 980/Ti.

 

[futurefields]

Remember, gaming is 95% all about the video card.

Eh, it's not quite that simple.

For your standard, offline, level-based 1st/3rd person games, sure. But for large open-world, 32-64 player online or MMO with lots of interactive "stuff" the CPU starts to become a lot more important.

 

[BTRY B 529th FA BN]

6600k