I7-7700 (non k) vs i5-8400 with 2133Mhz memory

[biloplus]

Recently, i've decided to upgrade my CPU, so my PC would satisfy all the CPU hungry games wih 1080p and above 60 fps. I'm experiencing some stutters\freeze issues in games like BF1 with very high settings.

Currently, i have an i5-6500 and GTX 1060 6gb + 16gb HyperX ram (2133 Mhx freq). I have a strict budget for upgrade and i cannot decide what should i acquire.

From one hand i have an option of purchasing i7-7700 (non K), from other hand, to buy Z370 MOBO + I5-8400. That will cost me the same at the moment.

BUT

As i've read on forums and have seen on some benchmarks, coffee lake CPU's work well with 2666 MHz freq memory, and if i combine coffee lake CPU with 2133 MHz memory, i will experince some performance drops, about 10-12%. i7-7700 is lower in performance than i5-8400 by 8-10%, so that's the question.

In which case can i benefit more, by upgrading mobo and CPU to Coffee lake with slower RAM, or by just buying I7-7700.

P.S. Please, don't tell me to *just upgrade your memory as well*

 

[superninja12]

the i5 8400 is by far better for bf1.

the i7 will speed up very little, games dont benefit from HT.

 

[biloplus]

the i5 8400 is by far better for bf1.

the i7 will speed up very little, games dont benefit from HT.

But i must also take for consideration, that i5 will suffer some performance drop because of a slower freq memory

 

[superninja12]

neglectable, checkout the benchmarks

 

[geofelt]

Intel processors do not depend much on ram speed for performance.

As to your upgrade options, both the i5-7700 and the i5-8400 are comparable performers.
If you were to buy a I7-7700k, even if your motherboard is not overclock capable, that would be better.

OTOH, I5-8400 motherboards give you future upgrade options surpassing the i5-7700 option.

 

[Captaingadget]

Go for an 8th gen CPU and Z370 mobo if you can afford it, should future proof for a good few years and your GTX1060 will be good for a couple of years yet before it wants upgrading.

 

[cryoburner]

I agree about the minimal impact of RAM speed on these processors, and that the 8400 would likely be the better option given the price, but...

games dont benefit from HT.

...that's not exactly true. If a game makes heavy use of more threads than a processor has cores, hyperthreading will definitely help, at least, compared to a processor with the same number of cores without it. Having more physical cores will generally be better, particularly if we're comparing something like a 6 thread load on the 8400 vs the 7700, but the hyperthreading on the i7 will still be making a difference compared to a quad core without it, like a 7600.

When it eventually becomes common for games to make heavy use of more than 6 threads, the Coffee Lake i7s will pull further ahead of their i5 counterparts as well. Of course, that will likely be a while, since most of today's games are still optimized to run well on processors with four threads.

For a more extreme example of hyperthreading making a difference given the same number of cores, just look at the performance of the dual-core Pentium G4560 with hyperthreading against that of the unlocked G3258 without it. Even when the G3258 is clocked significantly higher, it simply can't keep up with its hyperthreaded counterpart in today's quad-core gaming loads...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cyf7OKZNq0M