I3 6100 vs i5 4440 GAMING?

[Avineet]

Which will be a better processor for gaming. I will pair it with gtx 960 and also the i5 is a bit costly than the i3 where I live..
I am a bit confused between these two.And also is the dual core i3 sufficient for gaming ? Or I have to get the quad core i5..?which one is the better choice now?

 

[dudeman509]

For future gaming workloads (the big titles that release every year), having 4 full cores vs 2 cores and 2 emulated cores will be a big benefit. Go for the i5.

 

[envy14tpe]

Take the four cores over 2. Yes, the i3 has faster single core performance but for gaming you want four cores.

 

[audie-tron25]

The i3 6100 is definitely a good gaming CPU but it will depend on the games you will be playing. I have an i3 4170 (a last gen version of the 6100 and is slightly less powerful) and it handles most FPS games without any difficulty (including BF4 on 64 player maps).

However it can suffer a bit when trying to play games such as Cities Skylines when you have a fairly large city although it is still quite playable (40FPS). If you are going to be playing city building games or maybe hardcore strategy games such as Total War, you may be able to justify the i5 since there is quite a price jump in my country as well ($80AUD, 40% more expensive).

 

[Stysner]

I5 all the way. I3 is cutting it way too close, and the I5 will be so much nicer overall, also while browsing the web, or using powerful software.

I'd only recommend I3s on a serious budget or light office tasks. For gaming, get a Haswell-R I5, best price/performance by far.

It'd be a shame if you buy the I3 now and in a year or two you can't run newer games... Better to skew your budget towards the CPU a bit more to get at least an I5, and upgrade the GPU later, instead of buying a high-end GPU and finding out your I3 is obsolete.

Also if you're thinking about selling somthing when you upgrade, you'll have way better luck selling a GPU than CPU.

TLDR: The I5, no question.

 

[D BIIJOU]

i5, regardless of the faster single core performance, four physical cores is better than four logical cores.