Best Intel cpu with GTX 980 ti ?

[Hieronymos2]

Want to build a gaming system around the new GTX 980 ti.
What's the appropriate Intel cpu to ensure no bottlenecks--without being overkill?

Have noticed most market prebuilt rigs with the GTX 980 ti using mainly:
i7 6700K 4.0GHz
i5 6600K 3.5GHz

Pretty substantial ~$140 price point between these 2 options. Do both make sense? If so, why?

 

[bignastyid]

The i5 would be fine. Currently the vast majority of games use 4 or less cores.

 

[ak47jar3d]

I have a 980ti with i5 4670k and experience no gpu bottlenecks. I5 6600k would perform better than i5 4670k so there is little incentive to get i7 for just gaming.

 

[Hieronymos2]

Thanks guys! Will go with the i5 6600K as per your advice.

Another question if I may: what amount of DDR4 RAM would you reccommend: 8GB or 16GB?

 

[Karadjgne]

Depends on what you do with the build. If you use it to do 3d rendering, video editing etc etc, that benefits from multi core cpus, then you'd be better off with the i7. If you are just a casual gamer who happens to want the best picture then an i5 is fine. Hard core gamer pushing a 4k monitor? The i7 can get better fps in games like BF4 multi-player or WoW that can take advantage of all 8 possible threads, so is sometimes better especially in 4k setups.

I5-4690k or i7 4790k, kinda depends, but considering you are pitching out for a 980ti, the extra $100 for the i7 over the i5 isn't gonna really be an issue.

 

[Hieronymos2]

The i7 6700K is also a quad (not 8) core like its' smaller Skylake cousin--and it's $135 more. So it may not make much difference with 4k monitor tech.

But both Skylake cpu's support DX12--along with Win10), so that's something. And the benchmarks on the 980 ti are pretty impressive--even over the GTX 980. So it seemed a pretty good gpu to create a system around.

Now I just need to figure out how much RAM to add--to avoid another potential bottleneck.

 

[ak47jar3d]

Another question if I may: what amount of DDR4 RAM would you reccommend: 8GB or 16GB?

I also have 16 gb of ram and its very overkill. The mosti have seen get used in the 40 + games I have on steam was witcher 3 and call of duty AW which both used 6 gb of ram at 4k resolution.

 

[Karadjgne]

I have 16Gb and have seen over 90% usage quite a few times, but my pc is multi use, not built for just gaming.