i5-6600 (non k) or i7-6700 (non k) w/ MSI gtx 970 System

[Peip]

Hello, the purpose of this thread is for help on deciding which prebuilt pc I should buy. I plan on buying a budget prebuilt pc. I have no intention of building my own yet. So please don't tell me to make my own. Thank you.

These are the prebuilts i'm torn between: iBUYPOWER and CyberPowerPC. I'm choosing Best Buy because I will be using my Best Buy Credit Card to take advantage of the 12 month financing offer, to build more credit & to get more Best Buy reward points and hit that Elite status. :]

I'm going to be playing games like (Black Desert, World of Warcraft, Guild Wars 2, Rise of the Tomb Raider, Battlefield 4, Witcher 3 and hopefully Quantum Break on medium-high settings). And i'll be making game videos for my youtube channel. So I will be using my Bandisoft video recording app to record my gameplay while i'm playing that game & editing lightly afterwards. Also I will be creating music in FL Studio (not at the same time i'm gaming lol). So this is essentially going to be a gaming/audio workstation/video recording & very light editing rig.

I'm considering the CyerberPowerPC for it's:
-i5 6600 (non k) because of its price-performance ratio. (I'm going with a non k because overclocking just doesn't appeal to me).
-4x ram slots so I can expand my capacity up to 64gb (compared to the Ibuypower which only has 2 slots) to let me run much more vst's/vsti's in FL without freezing the program and without having to bounce tracks to wav file's.
-The gtx 970 for the best price-performance graphics card available for my budget.
-Surround sound for game immersion, and 3D capability for the occasional 3D movie. Not really big on 3D movies but it's a nice feature.

And i'm considering the iBuyPower for it's:
-i7 6700 (non k) because of the Hyperthreading which will come in handy for video recording while i'm gaming, video editing and making music in FL Studio. And will take more stress to bottleneck the gpu.
-The built-in AC wireless networking. While it's not that big of a feature for me, it's still convenient to have.
-The gtx 970 for the same reason as the CyperPowerPC.
-The USB 3.0's because I have 2 external HDD's that I will be transferring data to and from often. One is for additional storage and the other is for backup.

(A gtx 970 or higher is an absolute must have for me).

I'm leaning more towards CyberPower for it's $1000 price tag vs IBuyPower's $1200 price. If I go with CyberPower i'd be saving around $200 which I can use for other things i want like a Crucial 250GB SSD which doesnt come with either pc and a ViewSonic 21.5" LED Monitor.

$1000-$1200 may not seem like alot for a gaming/music creation/video recording pc but this will be the first one I have ever bought myself & it's a pretty big thing for me. If anyone can help me out it would be very much appreciated. And who knows, maybe this thread will help others that are in a similar situation find their answer. Thank you in advance.


Oh and I currently use a laptop that's running off an i7-4500U /w intel HD graphics 4400, 8gb of DDR3 memory and a 250GB SSD as my only drive (hence why I use 2 1TB external HDD's). And my current desktop is a relic. Can't remember the exact specs but I know it's a Celeron M processor that's about 1.5ghz, 2gb of ram, and 500GB HDD... Yea, so this is a much needed buy lol.

 

[basroil]

Giving them the benefit of doubt, the first one is more or less http://pcpartpicker.com/p/mjrXCJ and second one http://pcpartpicker.com/p/jbPNXL . Basically, you can either save ~$150 buying the parts, or spend that $150 in exchange for not having to build it yourself

The only real difference is the clock speed and HT or not HT. HT helps with video editing, but the money is far better spent getting 16gb ram and a 256GB SSD instead

 

[Peip]

Giving them the benefit of doubt, the first one is more or less http://pcpartpicker.com/p/mjrXCJ and second one http://pcpartpicker.com/p/jbPNXL . Basically, you can either save ~$150 buying the parts, or spend that $150 in exchange for not having to build it yourself

The only real difference is the clock speed and HT or not HT. HT helps with video editing, but the money is far better spent getting 16gb ram and a 256GB SSD instead

Yea HT is one of the things i'm really stuck on. I'm mainly worried about reaching 100% cpu usage with the i5 while i'm recording my gameplay of Star Citizen/Battlefield 4/etc. when it comes to the processors. I'm not that worried about getting an SSD right away as I can just get one later with cash. So i'd be using the HDD for games and such until I get an SSD.

 

[jackspeed]

I would recommend if you are streaming that you go for the i7. You may want to look into a support plan from best buy as most of the power supplys and motherboards ibuypower or cyberpowerpc uses are junk.

I don't know what getting the elite status does for you. I recommend that you look at the websites to see if you would save any money by purchasing your pc directly from them if its an option.

 

[Peip]

I would recommend if you are streaming that you go for the i7. You may want to look into a support plan from best buy as most of the power supplys and motherboards ibuypower or cyberpowerpc uses are junk.

I don't know what getting the elite status does for you. I recommend that you look at the websites to see if you would save any money by purchasing your pc directly from them if its an option.

I won't be streaming. Just recording my gameplay. Yea i'm thinking of going with their 1 year plan.

Put simply, the Elite status gives more "points" per dollar spent on anything through Best buy (I buy all my electronics through Best Buy). Points are basically Best Buy coupons / Best Buy cash.

 

[basroil]

Yea HT is one of the things i'm really stuck on. I'm mainly worried about reaching 100% cpu usage with the i5 while i'm recording my gameplay of Star Citizen/Battlefield 4/etc. when it comes to the processors. I'm not that worried about getting an SSD right away as I can just get one later with cash. So i'd be using the HDD for games and such until I get an SSD.

Avoid using shittycam and you'll be fine with the i5 even in the most CPU intensive games. That software is on the level of gom(i)player in terms of how horrible it is, in fact I've only seen Japanese people use it, mostly because they couldn't read english to use better software. If you have Windows 10 it comes built in with a better recording method that uses hardware acceleration, and for 7 and up both AMD and Nvidia have dedicated programs to do the same (raptr and shadowplay)

 

[Peip]

Avoid using shittycam and you'll be fine with the i5 even in the most CPU intensive games. That software is on the level of gom(i)player in terms of how horrible it is, in fact I've only seen Japanese people use it, mostly because they couldn't read english to use better software. If you have Windows 10 it comes built in with a better recording method that uses hardware acceleration, and for 7 and up both AMD and Nvidia have dedicated programs to do the same (raptr and shadowplay)

Just checked out a Shadowplay review. I think i'll try it out once I get my CyperPowerPc since it has a gtx 970. Yes I did decide on a pc. Took about 3 weeks of research and 3 days of forum posting (4 including today) to decide. It's got the 15 6600 that is only slightly lower than the i7 6700 in terms of frame rate & has a fractionally lower clock speed and is ultimately the better option for my budget. While the i7 does have hyper threading, the only time it will really shine is when i'm editing/hardcore browsing which is rarely. And finally the 4x ram slots opposed to ibuypowers 2x will come in very handy with my music making in FL studio.

Thanks for the help with deciding. Once I get it i'll come back to this thread and post how it's doing. Maybe I will make a benchmarking video for youtube and link it here for future reference in case anyone is in the same position I was in with deciding and stumble upon this thread. Cheers! :]

 

[basroil]

future reference in case anyone is in the same position I was in with deciding and stumble upon this thread

Most people won't be in your situation because custom build is significantly cheaper and faster 😉