i5 6400, 6500 or 6600?

[jejemon1012]

Which one should I pick? I was originally planning to get the i7 6700 but I decided to change my plan and get an i5 instead. Should I still go for the i7 6700? Or i5 is enough?

 

[greens]

I have a 6400 clocked to 4.1GHz with the stock multiplier. If you're willing to OC with BCLK, i say the 6400 and a compatible Z170 motherboard all day - you'll save tons of cash and still get 6700 levels of performance.

Most people here are vehimently against BCLK overclocking on skylake for some reason, but it is extremely easy and very stable.

There is ostensibly zero difference between a 6400 and a 6600, other than the artificial limitations Intel places on them in order to have more CPUs to sell to more clients.

 

[Barty1884]

It really depends on your needs.

If gaming (and at 1080p or 1440p) and i5 will suffice. At 4K, an i7 get's called in a little more. If editing/rendering etc, then the i7 makes sense.

Between the 6400, 6500 or 6600 I'd recommend the 6500 in 99% of situations. The clock speed gains vs the 6400 justify the slight cost increase, whereas the 6600 is overpriced (generally) for what it is.

IMO, the only 'viable' i5's that are worth investing in are the 6500 or 6600K.
If you're considering the 6400, the i3-6100 is likely the better option.
If you're considering the 6600, then the 6600K is a smarter move (along with a Z170 board + cooler). Even if you have no desire to OC, there's a little clock speed/boost gain, and the option remains to OC in future to extend the viable lifespan of the CPU....

 

[RCFProd]

I have a 6400 clocked to 4.1GHz with the stock multiplier. If you're willing to OC with BCLK, i say the 6400 and a compatible Z170 motherboard all day - you'll save tons of cash and still get 6700 levels of performance.

Most people here are vehimently against BCLK overclocking on skylake for some reason, but it is extremely easy and very stable.

There is ostensibly zero difference between a 6400 and a 6600, other than the artificial limitations Intel places on them in order to have more CPUs to sell to more clients.

Think they're against it as the people generally asking for advice here are beginners and shouldn't immidiately get their hands on things such as BLCK overclocking.

Side affects are the onboard graphics not working anymore? (apparently) and you can't read core temperatures?

 

[ac13044]

yea you can o/c on the locked cpus doe it depends on the mobo as you would need a bio version that you can o/c with i have the i5 6500 truly magnificent

 

[andy_Man]

It really depends on your needs.

If gaming (and at 1080p or 1440p) and i5 will suffice. At 4K, an i7 get's called in a little more. If editing/rendering etc, then the i7 makes sense.

Between the 6400, 6500 or 6600 I'd recommend the 6500 in 99% of situations. The clock speed gains vs the 6400 justify the slight cost increase, whereas the 6600 is overpriced (generally) for what it is.

IMO, the only 'viable' i5's that are worth investing in are the 6500 or 6600K.
If you're considering the 6400, the i3-6100 is likely the better option.
If you're considering the 6600, then the 6600K is a smarter move (along with a Z170 board + cooler). Even if you have no desire to OC, there's a little clock speed/boost gain, and the option remains to OC in future to extend the viable lifespan of the CPU....

I have to respectfully correct most of this comment.
Increasing resolution does not affect how many threads/cores a game/application will use. Increasing resolution almost solely increases load on the gpu.
On the next point, an i5 having 4 "real" cores completely puts it ahead of an i3(2 cores with HT).
The jump to 4 real cores is much more meaningful than a minor speed increase of 300mhz(i5-6400 to the i5-6500)

Do not get an i3 thinking it's as good as an I5.

 

[Barty1884]

And I'd respectfully disagree with your claims.

It has actually been proven in certain titles, the added cores/threads of the i7 is showing gains (not in every title, and not necessarily dramatic improvements) as the CPU has more work to do to send to the GPU, in order to output at 4K (in very simplistic terms at least).

While 4 "real" cores is certainly beneficial, it's a fairly close battle between higher clock speed & cores.
Most titles still benefit from higher single core clock speed/performance (ala an i3 @ 3.7) and, paired with HT will see the i3 win out in a lot of titles.
The i5-6500 is where things start to level out. The clock speeds are similar(ish), and the "true" 4core nature starts to show gains.

There really is very little argument for a i5-6400 (outside of titles who can't utilize hyper-threading, which are extremely few & far between). I'm still not completely sure why it was every released.

 

[andy_Man]

The i5-6500 is worth the extra $15 in my mind also. The 15$ to go from an i3-6320 to an i5-6400 is an even bigger jump because of the extra physical cores.
All I was getting at.

 

[king3pj]

I say go with the i5-6500 as well. I made the mistake of shelling out for an i5-4690k, an aftermarket cooler, and an expensive Z97 motherboard so I could overclock. Don't get me wrong, my setup did overclock very well but I don't actually see much performance difference in games versus the stock speeds. This is because even at stock speeds the GPU will be the limiting factor more often than the CPU if you have a modern i5.

I ended up undervolting my CPU because it was still able to maintain a modest 4.0GHz overclock with less voltage reducing my temperatures. If I ever need more CPU performance I will put it back to 4.5GHz with a slight voltage increase.

If I was building a new PC today I would go with an i5-6500, a cheaper H110 motherboard, and stick with the stock cooler. The extra money I put into a unlocked CPU, expensive Z97 motherboard, and aftermarket cooler could have gone into a better GPU. The fact is that investing in the parts necessary for overclocking does not make as much of an impact on gaming performance as a better GPU would.

That said, I would avoid the i5-6400 just because the price difference between that and the i5-6500 isn't very much and the 6400 is clocked pretty low at 2.7GHz.

 

[Barty1884]

The i5-6500 is worth the extra $15 in my mind also. The 15$ to go from an i3-6320 to an i5-6400 is an even bigger jump because of the extra physical cores.
All I was getting at.

I'd actually say no, it's not . I wouldn't even entertain an i3-6320 due to it's poor "bang for buck" performance.

The i3-6100 is what I was talking about and, at $110 is a good $65 cheaper than an i5-6400 - and will outperform (or at the very least, compete with) in the vast majority of situations.

The only 'true' options IMO are the i3-6100>i5-6500>i5-6600K>i7-6700K, for most users. I'm sure there are a select few cases where a 6400, 6600 or 6700 (non-K's) make sense, but not to most consumers.

Not looking to derail the thread @andy_Man, and we can agree to disagree. Unless I can see some viable benchmarks proving solid gains for a 6400 to justify it's cost ^ that's my opinion.

I say go with the i5-6500 as well. I made the mistake of shelling out for an i5-4690k, an aftermarket cooler, and an expensive Z97 motherboard so I could overclock. Don't get me wrong, my setup did overclock very well but I don't actually see much performance difference in games versus the stock speeds. This is because even at stock speeds the GPU will be the limiting factor more often than the CPU if you have a modern i5.

I ended up undervolting my CPU because it was still able to maintain a modest 4.0GHz overclock with less voltage reducing my temperatures. If I ever need more CPU performance I will put it back to 4.5GHz with a slight voltage increase.

If I was building a new PC today I would go with an i5-6500, a cheaper H110 motherboard, and stick with the stock cooler. The extra money I put into a unlocked CPU, expensive Z97 motherboard, and aftermarket cooler could have gone into a better GPU. The fact is that investing in the parts necessary for overclocking does not make as much of an impact on gaming performance as a better GPU would.

That said, I would avoid the i5-6400 just because the price difference between that and the i5-6500 isn't very much and the 6400 is clocked pretty low at 2.7GHz.

You're correct @king3pj; depending on the GPU/resolution/settings, an OC'd CPU may not show dramatic gains to offset the additional cost. Where keeping the option open helps though, is in future. If the OP is a "won't upgrade much for 5 years" kind of person, the OCing ability will help an i5 'keep up' with newer GPUs (assuming the OP would be prepared to upgrade that much) - much like Sandy/Ivy Bridge chips being pretty viable in 2016/17 with a decent OC.

Of course, if the OP will upgrade in a couple of years, the locked skew makes sense to keep cost down etc initially.

 

[rcald2000]

Best options are the i5-6500 or i5-6600K. With that said, the Intel Kaby lake is rumored to come out next month. Personally I would get the future "i5-7500" or i5-7600-k with Z270 chipset motherboard. However, there is a likely chance that they'll hold a $30 price premium above skylake. I would pay the premium because I tend to stick with CPUs for a while. GPUs I upgrade all the time.

 

[ac13044]

there is no real difference on performance or new features in the 7th gen kabylake. so sticking to skylake id say would save some money to put aside for a good gpu

 

[RCFProd]

My only issue with the i3-6100 is that hyper threading isn't always supported well enough in games that do use 4 cores or more. Most games that use only 2 cores however and games like Battlefield 1, who support hyper threading really well, will run similarly compared to i5 CPU's.

Also, I don't know just how well virtual cores represent the numbers shown, but physical cores still work better than virtual ones. If I'm correct the i3 also has half the amount of M3 Cache.