i5-4690K vs Xeon E3-1241v3 vs Broadwell i5-5675C for gaming/encoding system...

[gerr]

My current PC...
i5-4690(non-K)
Hyper-212 EVO cooler with two Corsair SP120 fans(push/pull config)
ASRock Extreme 4 Z97 mobo
16GB DDR3-1866 RAM at CAS9
MSI GTX 970 GPU
2x250GB Samsung 850 EVO SSD's in Raid-0
1TB WD Blue HDD
Rosewill Capstone 750W PSU
Asus 24" 144Mhz HD monitor
Windows 10 Preview

Current PC uses...
40% Gaming
40% DVD/Blu-Ray riping and re-encoding to MKV files
10% GNS3 (Cisco IOS emulator - memory & CPU intensive)
10% General Internet use

Current upgrade plans...
2015 Black Friday or Xmas - buy a 2nd MSI GTX 970 and setup SLI, and upgrade RAM to 32GB.

Question...
My 2nd PC, which is my Family PC, has a G3258 CPU on a B85 mobo and I would like to upgrade that to a true quad-core(I have my reasons). Instead of buying a new CPU for that PC, I want to buy a new CPU for my main rig and just move the i5-4690(non-K) to the Family PC. My budget is $250, so that takes i7's out of the running. My first thought was to get an i5-4690K and overclock it as I am already setup for that.

However, I leave my PC running while at work doing re-coding jobs, often for 12+ hours, so having HyperThreading and a CPU designed for heavy long term use like the Xeon has its benefits. Plus the minor hit I would take in FPS on games with the Xeon won't be noticed, especially once I move to SLI, which should max out that Asus 144Mhz monitor.

A third option would be to wait for the Broadwell i5-5675C to come out mid-May and see how it compares to the i5-4690K in both stock preformance and overclocking headroom.

I am really torn as to which option to pick. Everytime I make a decision, I start to 2nd guess my choice and go back to being undecided. Any input on the issue would be great.

Thanks in advance!

 

[anoori9000]

I would just get the Xeon. As you probably know it is basically the i7 4770. It will be more future proof with hyperthreading. Im not sure if broadwell will have hyperthreading I haven't read much about it.

 

[synphul]

It may depend on what software you're using for the video encoding. Do you use handbrake or something else? Handbrake is often the benchmark used (likely because it's free and does a decent job as well as being cross platform). From what people have said during discussions on avs forums, handbrake doesn't use gpu encoding because the software for amd/ati and nvidia gpgpu processing isn't free. It does however use quicksync which uses the intel igpu to offload the transcoding/encoding work to the igpu and puts almost no load on the cpu cores themselves. It's also much faster than straight cpu encoding. Just something to consider since the 1231v3 doesn't have an igpu.

If you use handbrake and still wanted the ht on the xeon and also wanted the igpu, you could go with the 1245v3 which runs around $270-290 depending on the vendor.

Broadwell in terms of the standard i5 cpu's (haven't heard about broadwell xeons or if they'll exist), it's more about the die shrink and power efficiency rather than performance which will be skylake. If you're still unsure and broadwell is actually coming out this month (it's almost may) then wait and see but doubtful there will be much improvement.

Update - since you asked about ht on the i5 broadwell, the answer is no. Slightly higher ipc, slightly lower clocks out of the box, slightly less cache. Current i5's have 6mb L3 while i7's have 8mb l3. Both are dropping 2mb of L3 cache with broadwell but the ht stays the same - ht on the i7, no ht on the i5. Broadwell will have newer iris igpu.

https://www.techpowerup.com/210997/intel-to-launch-just-two-lga1150-broadwell-parts.html
http://www.guru3d.com/news-story/intel-broadwell-core-i7-5775c-core-i5-5675c-released-mid-may.html

 

[gerr]

OK, that takes the Broadwell out of the running.

Yes, I use Handbrake, but have not set it up to use the iGPU on my i5-4690. From what I have read on Intel's Quicksync, while much faster, the quality is less than pure CPU encoding. In fact, I read somewhere that the Haswell iGPU's have a lower quality than the Ivy Bridge iGPU's.

The Xeon E3-1246v3 is only $12 more than the E3-1241v3, so that would be a logical upgrade if Intel's Quicksync works well, but the question is does it?

 

[gerr]

Hjgrove, let the OP, in this case, me, decide who has the best solution as I would have liked more input on this issue. Don't make that decision for me please!