Choosing a gaming processor

[Nelo6]

Hello community, I have a question for any gamer/expert in the field of CPU's. I am a gamer, and I usually game at 1080 and maybe 1152 resoloution. I want to purchase an i5 or an i7 but i'm not sure which one would be more beneficial towards me. I dont want ot be throwing away unnecesary cash that I'm not gonna use. I am not an overclocker, I just enjoy gaming and want a PC that will be able to do so for a while.

I have two choices right now, The i7 920/860 or the i5 750. I play alot of the newer gen games, but I want to understand how it affects gaming performance. Should I really use 200+ more dollars and buy an i7 rig just for gaming? How much does it realy matter?

OS: 64bit home premium
ram: 4gb
v card: Nvidia Gts 250
motherboard: p55

What should I get? I like computer performance, and I like gaming. Which one would be more beneficial to me?

 

[Nelo6]

Hello community, I have a question for any gamer/expert in the field of CPU's. I am a gamer, and I usually game at 1080 and maybe 1152 resoloution. I want to purchase an i5 or an i7 but i'm not sure which one would be more beneficial towards me. I dont want ot be throwing away unnecesary cash that I'm not gonna use. I am not an overclocker, I just enjoy gaming and want a PC that will be able to do so for a while.

I have two choices right now, The i7 920/860 or the i5 750. I play alot of the newer gen games, but I want to understand how it affects gaming performance. Should I really use 200+ more dollars and buy an i7 rig just for gaming? How much does it realy matter?

OS: 64bit home premium
ram: 4gb
v card: Nvidia Gts 250
motherboard: p55

What should I get? I like computer performance, and I like gaming. Which one would be more beneficial to me?

bump

 

[jimishtar]

i5 750

 

[logainofhades]

i5 750 or, depending on current cpu, a new graphics card.

 

[has22fas]

Intel i5 750 no doubt best bang for buck. its on par with a i7 920, and 920 costs more

 

[hunter315]

Most games arent very cpu limited once you get up to an i5, even when they are its well above the point where it matters. For gaming alone an i5 is a better decision as it would let you save, or get a more powerful GPU which would help out.

 

[logainofhades]

I would look at getting a better gpu than what you have chosen. The gts 250 is really nothing more than a rebadged 9800gtx+

 

[Kewlx25]

Bad Company 2 has my CPU spiking up to 45% for 5-10 seconds at a time when lots of *** is going on around me. <-- stock i7 920

that would mean a 2.66ghz i5 would be at least hitting 90%

 

[werxen]

Bad Company 2 has my CPU spiking up to 45% for 5-10 seconds at a time when lots of *** is going on around me. <-- stock i7 920

that would mean a 2.66ghz i5 would be at least hitting 90%

Yes but those other 'cores' are logical cores which are not even used nor benefit multitasking.

 

[Nelo6]

Well all teh stuff comes in the kit, Im not building it, its an ordered system. I figure that the GTS 250 is a great card for me because I dont play on really high resoloutions, as my monitor does not support and i do/do not care much for high resoloution gaming. From my point of view, GTS 250 is a great card, It can handle all games on full usually with a great stable FPS. I dont play over 1152 resoloution most of the time, so It'll be fine.

And thank you for the i5 Suggestions, let me provide a link to the system I was going to buy. If anyone has anythign else for a 1000-1100 price ranged computer (not barebone kit) that you have found on the site let me know!

:
http://www.tigerdirect.ca/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=5395929&csid=ITD&body=MAIN#detailspecs

 

[Kewlx25]

Yes but those other 'cores' are logical cores which are not even used nor benefit multitasking.

BC2 does seem to be hyper-thread aware, so it only runs on 1 virtual-cpu per core, but those extra virtual cpus do help multi tasking.

the i7 can do 1 double precision floating point per cycle per thread and same for 64bit ints. That means if you only use one virtual cpu per core, then you can only do 1 flop/cycle and 1 int/cycle, but you can double that if you use both CPUs. There are a few "shared" execution units which means only one thread may access those units at a time, but most of the more commonly used basic units are duplicated, unlike the crappy P4 and HT.

It's hard to get max theoretical performance *all* the time because of contention of sharing some of the resources, but clock-for-clock a quad core i7 still out performs a 6-core AMD of current architecture.

Hyper-threading is so good that AMD's new Bulldozer is doing pretty much the same thing.

 

[werxen]

BC2 does seem to be hyper-thread aware, so it only runs on 1 virtual-cpu per core, but those extra virtual cpus do help multi tasking.

the i7 can do 1 double precision floating point per cycle per thread and same for 64bit ints. That means if you only use one virtual cpu per core, then you can only do 1 flop/cycle and 1 int/cycle, but you can double that if you use both CPUs. There are a few "shared" execution units which means only one thread may access those units at a time, but most of the more commonly used basic units are duplicated, unlike the crappy P4 and HT.

It's hard to get max theoretical performance *all* the time because of contention of sharing some of the resources, but clock-for-clock a quad core i7 still out performs a 6-core AMD of current architecture.

Hyper-threading is so good that AMD's new Bulldozer is doing pretty much the same thing.

No.

 

[Kewlx25]

No.

"no" what?

"No, I don't understand"? <-- that what you mean?

My response was about as sarcastic as yours. If you could elaborate on what "no" means.

 

[Raidur]

+1 i5 750. If you ever feel its holding you back it has a TON of OC headroom. i5 will run ANY gpu setup out today to its max capabilities (especially with a little OC). That is what they mean by the i7 is on par with the i5. We really can't tell any difference in gaming (yet).

If you mean 1152x864 then the GTS 250 should be alright. If you meant 2048x1152 then I'd definitely upgrade.