i5-8500 worthy purchase over i5-8400?

[rcald2000]

One of my computers has a Kaby Lake Pentium G4560 and Z170 chipset motherboard w/ updated BIOS. On NewEgg (US) a i5-8400 is $180, while the i5-8500 is $205. Is it worth paying the additional $25?

I seem to recall that the previous skylake i5-6500 being a worthy budget stretch over the 6400.

 

[Roland Of Gilead]

do you mean to put the I5 8400/8500 in your current setup?

That's not gonna work. You need a new mobo for the Coffee Lake CPU's. The i5 8400 is a great gaming chip. For $25 diff, the performance increase for gaming on the I5 8500 will be almost unnoticeable.

 

[rcald2000]

Hi Keith. Yes, I'm aware that I'd need to upgrade to a B360 or Z370 chipset. I should have stated that in my original question. Thank you for your response.

 

[yeti_yeti]

No, the price tag of i5 8500 puts it into a striking range of i5 8600k, which is pretty much the best "only-gaming" cpu availible. Have you considered i3 8350k? With a minor overclock it can give i5 8400 a run for its money in most games. Good luck

 

[rcald2000]

yeti_yeti I briefly considered the i3-8350K, however it's currently priced at $175 on NewEgg. It's only $5 cheaper than the i5-8400, and only has four core versus the 8400's six cores. Also the i3-8350K doesn't come with a stock cooler, just like all 'K' variants. Plus, in order to overclock it, a Z370 board would be necessitated.

 

[yeti_yeti]

yeti_yeti I briefly considered the i3-8350K, however it's currently priced at $175 on NewEgg. It's only $5 cheaper than the i5-8400, and only has four core versus the 8400's six cores. Also the i3-8350K doesn't come with a stock cooler, just like all 'K' variants. Plus, in order to overclock it, a Z370 board would be necessitated.

My bad! For some reason I thought you already had the motherboard (got confused by z170 in OP). Regardless, I still do think, that the performance gain is not worth the 25 dollars. If you were to spend over $200 the i5 8600 or i5 8600k would be the best option. In my country, 8600 retails for 215 euros and 8600k for 225

 

[geofelt]

Worth is something only YOU can determine.
When faced with such an issue, I find that I have no regrets buying the better product, even if it does cost more.
Buying the cheaper part, I always wonder if I made the best choice.

As to the value of 6 threads vs. 4.
Most games today can effectively use only 2-3 threads.
It is more important that the threads be fast.
Multiplayer is an exception where many threads is very helpful.

I would today, spend the extra for a Z370 based motherboard.
That need not be expensive and it preserves your option to upgrade later to a K suffix processor.

All the K processors will overclock near 5.0 on all cores.
you pick the number of threads you need. 4 for the 8350k, 6 for the 8600k, and 12 for the 8700K

If your games are sims, strategy, and mmo types, they tend to be single threaded and depend on a single fast master thread.
For them, I would consider the 8350K.
$35 buys you a nice 120mm cooler like the scythe kotetsu.

 

[mdd1963]

I'd pay more for it, but, not much more. The 200 more MHZ increased base clocks and 100 MHz increased peak single core turbo is certainly worth $10-$20....but, IMO, it is not worth the almost $50 more in current retail asking prices over the 8400. (Unless the 8500's cooler is better, as the 8400's is known as being marginal to inadequate, at best...