i5 6400 + GTX 980 or i7 6700 + GTX 970?

[jamalbayar]

Title says it all. Want a gaming rig. Need to run games on 1440p ultra.

 

[RedJaron]

If your biggest need is gaming framerates, a stronger GPU will make the biggest difference. The extra i7 threads will help with some professional type applications, but most games will benefit a lot more from the 980 than the 970, especially if you're on 2560x1440.

 

[Traciatim]

Agree with RedJaron. For a gaming machine you want the most pixel pushing power possible and that's the i5 with the 980. If it was a working machine that also happened to play games then I would do it the other way around, but you left us with very little info.

 

[Asher2099]

go with I5 and 980, in gaming there is almost zero performance difference with either card between the i5 and i7.

Personally I would go i5 and 970 and save money all around. At 1440p there isnt much of a difference between the 970 and 980 plus with OC on the 970 that cap closes even more and you save almost $200
Fallout 4 at 1440p
http://www.techspot.com/review/1089-fallout-4-benchmarks/page3.html

Project Car
http://www.techspot.com/review/1000-project-cars-benchmarks/page3.html

Star Wars
http://www.techspot.com/review/1096-star-wars-battlefront-benchmarks/page2.html

Witcher 3
http://www.techspot.com/review/1006-the-witcher-3-benchmarks/page4.html

 

[geofelt]

Few games can use more than 2-3 threads, so the extra hyperthreads of a i7 are not that useful.
I would back off the i7 and use a i5-6600K.
Then buy the strongest graphics card you feel comfortable paying for.
If you can do a GTX980, fine. If you can manage a gtx980ti that is the absolute best.

Perhaps there are other places to save.
For example liquid cooling is not helpful, nor is fast ram.
What is the rest of your proposed build?

 

[jamalbayar]

Well right now I've got a gigabyte z170xp sli motherboard. I5 6400. 8GB 2400mhz ddr4 RAM. Corsair's 650 watt psu. And gtx 960 4gb vram. The reason I thought of i7 because I use Digital Audio Workstation like ableton live 9 etc. But I also want a computer which can run all the current and upcoming games on ultra settings. I can get a gtx 980 and wait few months until I get enough money to upgrade to a better processor. But right now. I want to run current and upcoming games on ultra.

 

[geofelt]

GTX980 is a nice upgrade for you.
It is necessary for ultra eye candy.

I think you will be pleasantly surprised at how well you do.

 

[SunnySeven]

Tricky question. But the i5 6400 has a very low core clock, and also remember that boost wont work well with all cores in use. The i7 also has 8 threads and with upcoming DX12 features, use of more than 4 threads will become much more efficient.

I did a quick check on 3dmark 11. The no. 1 World score on firestrike with i7 6700 and 970 is 12317. The no 1 world score with i5 6400 and 980 is 10889.

Score of 10889 with the i7 combo sits at about 170th top score. But synthetic benchmarks don't always provide the full story.

 

[SunnySeven]

Plus if you get a good 970, you could overclock and push it to its max getting very on par with a 980, yet the lowly 2.7ghz of the i5 may inhibit the 980 from reaching its max. May **shrugs**