As 2015 goes on, will I end up needing an i7 for gaming?

[Legolas8181]

Including those games that require more power like ACU or will an i5 be suffice?

 

[Archaic59]

i5 should be good for a few more years with a good video card backing it up.

 

[VincentP]

The old Core i5 760 is starting to look a bit weak against current generation CPUs and could be a bit slow in some situations.
The low power models aren't as fast either.
Any other Core i5 should not be an issue.

 

[Legolas8181]

I have been told that for more demanding things I would need an i7 to run it

 

[bmacsys]

I have been told that for more demanding things I would need an i7 to run it

Who ever told you that is clueless. Modern i5's pack a huge punch. Most people on Steam. Like 75% are using dual core i3's and even Core2Duo's.

 

[VincentP]

I have been told that for more demanding things I would need an i7 to run it

An i7 offers about 30% improved performance over a core i5 where an application can consistently use the 8 cores seen in Windows.
They are both actually 4 cores CPUs. The i7 has some smart scheduling to shows these as 8 cores in Windows and make more efficient use of all 4 cores, but this only helps when you have more than what the 4 cores could do anyway.
Games don't push these CPUs anywhere near their limits and a current model core i5 will run any game for a number of years.

 

[KLOSENTAR]

Greater the quality, greater will be the perfomence 😀 Getting an i7 is always recommended for gaming.But not really necessary!I can run almost all new games, pretty much, smoothly on my i5

 

[KLOSENTAR]

I have been told that for more demanding things I would need an i7 to run it

That is such nonsense..Do not fall for that!

 

[synphul]

There's very little difference between an i5 and i7 (quad cores, lga1150 which is what most people are referring to). A few different instruction sets, 2mb cache, very slightly faster igpu, hyperthreading and faster speed out of the box. The speed is pretty much no different when overclocked since they both top out around the same speed and at equal speeds the i7 cores are no faster than i5 cores.

Hyperthreading is hit and miss even with content creation programs, graphics processing (photoshop) and video encoding. Most of that 30% performance increase between an i7 and i5 is comparing them out of the box since the i7 comes clocked 500mhz faster (4.0ghz vs 3.5ghz of the i5). Hyperthreading typically provides in the neighborhood of 10-15% real world performance increase in programs that make use of it. For instance handbrake is a commonly used video encoder and isn't optimized for hyperthreading so no difference in performance. In games, very little to no performance increase. Keep in mind that even though windows shows 8 cores with ht enabled, an i7 still only has 4 cores same as the i5. Hyperthreading is purely a thread scheduler in an attempt to keep those same 4 cores working more efficiently. So in essence, an i7 can offer more performance in some tasks (not all) but not by a huge margin even when it does and comes at a fairly big price premium (typically $100 price difference from 4690k to 4790k). Sort of like premium thermal paste may cost you $20 vs $8 for others and you'll shave maybe 1-3c off your temps. Whether or not it's worth the price hike for the gains is a personal decision but there are diminishing returns.