Is memory size or clock speed more important in a graphics card?

[jeffd1324]

I am looking at the Gigabyte GTX 770 4gb and the AMD R9 290. I see they both have the same memory size but the 290 has a much lower clock speed. The GTX 770 has a clock speed of 1.14Ghz but the 290 has a clock speed of about 947Mhz maximum. I am wondering if the clock speed really matters that much in games like Battlefield 4?

 

[neon neophyte]

per core is the same between sandy and haswell, as they both have 4 cores (this is including overclocking.)

intel 4 cores do have stronger than amds 8 core offerings though.

as for the difference between i5 and i7, it really just comes down to hyperthreading (and a small amount of cache.)

if your program doesnt take advantage of hyperthreading you will see no benefit to the i7 over the i5. typically things like, unraring or cpu video encoding (which is silly) or rendering in 3dsmax or something.

 

[jeffd1324]

hard not to go with whats new

if i was looking for a new computer i would as well, most likely. though there is something to be said for finding a sandybridge on the cheap right now

for me, its just nice knowing there is no sense in upgrading the core of my pc. though im thinking about picking up a 290 as well

I would feel the same as you if I already had the computer but since I am buying new, I want the newest items. I own a pretty good i5 already (not sure which type) and I think it would be perfect for my build but it is generation 1 and inside of a laptop that I am using at the moment. So basically what I am trying to say is that if I had the option to upgrade from my current i5, i wouldn't because it is very strong and it wouldn't be worth it to upgrade from an already powerful CPU.

 

[jeffd1324]

per core is the same between sandy and haswell, as they both have 4 cores (this is including overclocking.)

intel 4 cores do have stronger than amds 8 core offerings though.

as for the difference between i5 and i7, it really just comes down to hyperthreading (and a small amount of cache.)

if your program doesnt take advantage of hyperthreading you will see no benefit to the i7 over the i5. typically things like, unraring or cpu video encoding (which is silly) or rendering in 3dsmax or something.

Thanks for the heads up. Maybe an i7 is unnecessary for what I do as all i would do is game on my machine. I do not photoshop but if I ever get into it, I will definitely get an i7. I've heard of the name hyper threading before but I really don't understand what it does. Would you mind explaining?

 

[neon neophyte]

its a process done on the software level which divides a single core in 2 seperate cores. hardware wise, there is absolutely no difference between an i5 and an i7 (outside of a small amount of cache.) this division of cores does help, by about 20-30 percent on highly threaded, hyperthread enabled software.

 

[jeffd1324]

its a process done on the software level which divides a single core in 2 seperate cores. hardware wise, there is absolutely no difference between an i5 and an i7 (outside of a small amount of cache.) this division of cores does help, by about 20-30 percent on highly threaded, hyperthread enabled software.

So the i5 has no hyper cores and the i7 has 4?

 

[neon neophyte]

i5 = no hyperthreading
i7 = yes hyperthreading

hyperthreading turns the 4 cores on the cpu into 8 software cores. physically just 4 cores but they are now capable of processing 8 threads.

 

[jeffd1324]

i5 = no hyperthreading
i7 = yes hyperthreading

hyperthreading turns the 4 cores on the cpu into 8 software cores. physically just 4 cores but they are now capable of processing 8 threads.

So do these cores help with gaming performance or are they used strictly for applications like photoshop or video rendering?

 

[neon neophyte]

pretty much strictly for applications. which is why i5 is right alongside i7 in gaming benchmarks (outside of the 100 mhz difference, which isnt applicable if you overclock.)

 

[jeffd1324]

pretty much strictly for applications. which is why i5 is right alongside i7 in gaming benchmarks (outside of the 100 mhz difference, which isnt applicable if you overclock.)

Thanks so much for your help. I wish I put this in a different thread so I could give you best answer but the other guy answered the original question. Now I just need to learn to overclock haha.

-Jeff