SKYLAKE: Does GHz matter??

[LiamCJohns]

Hi everyone, upgrading my PC properly for the first time in years next weekend but I'm not sure about which intel core to get- The i7 6700 or i7 6700K. It's about a hundred bucks difference but the only difference is the GHz, 3.4 vs 4.0 GHz, max turbo 4.0 vs 4.2 GHz.

My question is will I see a significant difference between the two cores?
Note: I will not be overclocking so only wondering about the out of the box speeds and performance.

I intend to use very heavy video editing software, running multiple programs simultaneously across my two screen set up. I won't be using it for gaming, also my graphics card is really cheap and weak (GeForce GT 640). I'll have 32GB of DDR4, no SSD. Any help or tips would be highly appreciated as I have no idea if this system will be any good.

 

[Petercze]

check this http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/answers/id-2829999/6700-6700k.html

 

[JellyfishRave]

Well, the 6700K is obviously going to be more powerful for everything in general, but as for whether or not it's worth it is another story. If your GPU is a cheap one, you may want to consider going with the normal 6700 and saving the money for a newer card if you're going to be using powerful video editors. The i7 is definitely best for the amount of multitasking you plan on doing compared to the i5s, not that you were considering an i5 anyway, but it was worth mentioning. Overall, before anything you probably want to get a more powerful GPU if you do plan on doing powerful video editing. Hope this helps!

 

[LiamCJohns]

Well, the 6700K is obviously going to be more powerful for everything in general, but as for whether or not it's worth it is another story. If your GPU is a cheap one, you may want to consider going with the normal 6700 and saving the money for a newer card if you're going to be using powerful video editors. The i7 is definitely best for the amount of multitasking you plan on doing compared to the i5s, not that you were considering an i5 anyway, but it was worth mentioning. Overall, before anything you probably want to get a more powerful GPU if you do plan on doing powerful video editing. Hope this helps!

Wow it does help thanks!!! I didn't think a gpu would make any real difference, thinking they were just for gamers but if you think it'll help I'll try and get a new one Thanks again!

 

[JellyfishRave]

Well, the 6700K is obviously going to be more powerful for everything in general, but as for whether or not it's worth it is another story. If your GPU is a cheap one, you may want to consider going with the normal 6700 and saving the money for a newer card if you're going to be using powerful video editors. The i7 is definitely best for the amount of multitasking you plan on doing compared to the i5s, not that you were considering an i5 anyway, but it was worth mentioning. Overall, before anything you probably want to get a more powerful GPU if you do plan on doing powerful video editing. Hope this helps!

Wow it does help thanks!!! I didn't think a gpu would make any real difference, thinking they were just for gamers but if you think it'll help I'll try and get a new one Thanks again!

Ah I'm glad I could be of assistance! That said, it's important to remember that a really powerful CPU will likely benefit you more than a moderate GPU upgrade, so if you have any specifics you'd like me to take a look at to get you a better idea of which upgrade(s) are best for your situation, shoot a quick link!

EDIT: And if you're not planning to overclock at all, it's probably very likely not worth getting the 6700K, as it seems most only choose it over the normal 6700 for the sole purpose that it's unlocked and has a lot of overclocking customization.

 

[marko55]

10%. You're looking at about 10% more overall processing power with the 6700K over the 6700, due to the higher clock speed. Naturally that gap can be widened more, all be it slightly, by overclocking the 6700K. Will you feel a difference from that extra 10%? Pretty much guaranteed no. If it takes the 6700 1 hour to render a hi def video (for instance) then the 6700K might do it in 58 minutes. Its most likely like that.

A little video card upgrade will definitely help you, especially coming from a 640! Drop $200 USD on a GTX 960 and you've gained about 5x in GPU power. Even better, grab one of the 4GB GTX 960s for a few bucks more.

 

[LiamCJohns]

10%. You're looking at about 10% more overall processing power with the 6700K over the 6700, due to the higher clock speed. Naturally that gap can be widened more, all be it slightly, by overclocking the 6700K. Will you feel a difference from that extra 10%? Pretty much guaranteed no. If it takes the 6700 1 hour to render a hi def video (for instance) then the 6700K might do it in 58 minutes. Its most likely like that.

A little video card upgrade will definitely help you, especially coming from a 640! Drop $200 USD on a GTX 960 and you've gained about 5x in GPU power. Even better, grab one of the 4GB GTX 960s for a few bucks more.

So helpful thankyou!! It's great to hear people agreeing that a GPU will help with video editing and rendering performance, as much as I want to get the best CPU I can afford I may as well get the second best and put the money towards a GPU as you've suggested my only concern is that it will not be powerful enough in a couple of years and I'll have to upgrade again so soon

 

[marko55]

10%. You're looking at about 10% more overall processing power with the 6700K over the 6700, due to the higher clock speed. Naturally that gap can be widened more, all be it slightly, by overclocking the 6700K. Will you feel a difference from that extra 10%? Pretty much guaranteed no. If it takes the 6700 1 hour to render a hi def video (for instance) then the 6700K might do it in 58 minutes. Its most likely like that.

A little video card upgrade will definitely help you, especially coming from a 640! Drop $200 USD on a GTX 960 and you've gained about 5x in GPU power. Even better, grab one of the 4GB GTX 960s for a few bucks more.

So helpful thankyou!! It's great to hear people agreeing that a GPU will help with video editing and rendering performance, as much as I want to get the best CPU I can afford I may as well get the second best and put the money towards a GPU as you've suggested my only concern is that it will not be powerful enough in a couple of years and I'll have to upgrade again so soon

That's just the nature of computing.... It will always be "enough" but within a year of your purchase there will be something better. Look at it this way though, the new generations of Intel CPUs have historically only added about 10% (or less) increase in computing power each year. I'm still on a 3770K from 3 years ago and run multiple VMs all day, game on it at the same time, running routing lab software (GNS3), and it takes it all like a champ. I can't even justify upgrading except I'm reaching the limit of memory usage. I have many friends in the same boat w/the same CPU.

I wouldn't sweat grabbing the 6700. It'll work hard for you for years to come.

 

[sizzling]

If not overclocking 4.0 v 4.2Ghz is a 5% difference, everything else is equal I believe. Is 5% really going to make a material difference in real world situations

 

[JellyfishRave]

10%. You're looking at about 10% more overall processing power with the 6700K over the 6700, due to the higher clock speed. Naturally that gap can be widened more, all be it slightly, by overclocking the 6700K. Will you feel a difference from that extra 10%? Pretty much guaranteed no. If it takes the 6700 1 hour to render a hi def video (for instance) then the 6700K might do it in 58 minutes. Its most likely like that.

A little video card upgrade will definitely help you, especially coming from a 640! Drop $200 USD on a GTX 960 and you've gained about 5x in GPU power. Even better, grab one of the 4GB GTX 960s for a few bucks more.

So helpful thankyou!! It's great to hear people agreeing that a GPU will help with video editing and rendering performance, as much as I want to get the best CPU I can afford I may as well get the second best and put the money towards a GPU as you've suggested my only concern is that it will not be powerful enough in a couple of years and I'll have to upgrade again so soon

That's just the nature of computing.... It will always be "enough" but within a year of your purchase there will be something better. Look at it this way though, the new generations of Intel CPUs have historically only added about 10% (or less) increase in computing power each year. I'm still on a 3770K from 3 years ago and run multiple VMs all day, game on it at the same time, running routing lab software (GNS3), and it takes it all like a champ. I can't even justify upgrading except I'm reaching the limit of memory usage. I have many friends in the same boat w/the same CPU.

I wouldn't sweat grabbing the 6700. It'll work hard for you for years to come.

This is incredibly true. As someone using the i7-2600 right now, it has not shown the slightest sign of slowing down, and I would have loved to keep it, but my GPU is just about done for, and it's old, so when I upgraded, I had to upgrade the motherboard along with it, and with the motherboard came the CPU, and with the CPU came the RAM, and so on, but the processor, despite being like 5-7 years old, still runs flawlessly like it's right out of the box, and again, it's a 2600! A 6700 should last you probably much longer than you're probably expecting, especially since you don't plan to even look at overclocking.

 

[LiamCJohns]

10%. You're looking at about 10% more overall processing power with the 6700K over the 6700, due to the higher clock speed. Naturally that gap can be widened more, all be it slightly, by overclocking the 6700K. Will you feel a difference from that extra 10%? Pretty much guaranteed no. If it takes the 6700 1 hour to render a hi def video (for instance) then the 6700K might do it in 58 minutes. Its most likely like that.

A little video card upgrade will definitely help you, especially coming from a 640! Drop $200 USD on a GTX 960 and you've gained about 5x in GPU power. Even better, grab one of the 4GB GTX 960s for a few bucks more.

So helpful thankyou!! It's great to hear people agreeing that a GPU will help with video editing and rendering performance, as much as I want to get the best CPU I can afford I may as well get the second best and put the money towards a GPU as you've suggested my only concern is that it will not be powerful enough in a couple of years and I'll have to upgrade again so soon

That's just the nature of computing.... It will always be "enough" but within a year of your purchase there will be something better. Look at it this way though, the new generations of Intel CPUs have historically only added about 10% (or less) increase in computing power each year. I'm still on a 3770K from 3 years ago and run multiple VMs all day, game on it at the same time, running routing lab software (GNS3), and it takes it all like a champ. I can't even justify upgrading except I'm reaching the limit of memory usage. I have many friends in the same boat w/the same CPU.

I wouldn't sweat grabbing the 6700. It'll work hard for you for years to come.

10%. You're looking at about 10% more overall processing power with the 6700K over the 6700, due to the higher clock speed. Naturally that gap can be widened more, all be it slightly, by overclocking the 6700K. Will you feel a difference from that extra 10%? Pretty much guaranteed no. If it takes the 6700 1 hour to render a hi def video (for instance) then the 6700K might do it in 58 minutes. Its most likely like that.

A little video card upgrade will definitely help you, especially coming from a 640! Drop $200 USD on a GTX 960 and you've gained about 5x in GPU power. Even better, grab one of the 4GB GTX 960s for a few bucks more.

So helpful thankyou!! It's great to hear people agreeing that a GPU will help with video editing and rendering performance, as much as I want to get the best CPU I can afford I may as well get the second best and put the money towards a GPU as you've suggested my only concern is that it will not be powerful enough in a couple of years and I'll have to upgrade again so soon

That's just the nature of computing.... It will always be "enough" but within a year of your purchase there will be something better. Look at it this way though, the new generations of Intel CPUs have historically only added about 10% (or less) increase in computing power each year. I'm still on a 3770K from 3 years ago and run multiple VMs all day, game on it at the same time, running routing lab software (GNS3), and it takes it all like a champ. I can't even justify upgrading except I'm reaching the limit of memory usage. I have many friends in the same boat w/the same CPU.

I wouldn't sweat grabbing the 6700. It'll work hard for you for years to come.

This is incredibly true. As someone using the i7-2600 right now, it has not shown the slightest sign of slowing down, and I would have loved to keep it, but my GPU is just about done for, and it's old, so when I upgraded, I had to upgrade the motherboard along with it, and with the motherboard came the CPU, and with the CPU came the RAM, and so on, but the processor, despite being like 5-7 years old, still runs flawlessly like it's right out of the box, and again, it's a 2600! A 6700 should last you probably much longer than you're probably expecting, especially since you don't plan to even look at overclocking.

Thanks again guys, I think I will go with the i7 6700 after all, with a $135 Gigabyte B150M-D3H Motherboard, 4 sticks of DDR4 8GB RAM and maybe even a 120GB SSD just for my system and program files. I'll stick with my cheap GPU until I can afford a decent one. Not sure if I'll need to replace power supply. Hopefully everything is compatible.
Links to items being purchased if you're interested:
http://www.centrecom.com.au/intel-core-i7-6700-34-ghz-quad-core-cpu
http://www.centrecom.com.au/gigabyte-b150m-d3h-socket-lga1151-matx-motherboard-ddr4
http://www.centrecom.com.au/kingston-8gb-2133mhz-ddr4-cl15-kvr21n15d8
http://www.centrecom.com.au/kingston-ssdnow-v300-120gb-sv300s37a120g-25-ssd

 

[JellyfishRave]

So your RAM and Motherboard will 100% be compatible, although it looks as if the motherboard isn't available for purchase through the website, but as long as that's not an issue for you, then that's all set. You may want to consider however, getting x2 4GB as opposed to a single 8GB, depending on your current RAM situation. Can't really argue with an SSD if you can afford it, and I believe it will also be compatible with your motherboard, would prefer someone to confirm that first though just to be 100% certain (Storage devices aren't my field of expertise). Finally, you may want to be sure you won't be needing any expansion slots in the motherboard, because it seems to be lacking in those greatly. How many watts do you have on your current PSU?

 

[LiamCJohns]

So your RAM and Motherboard will 100% be compatible, although it looks as if the motherboard isn't available for purchase through the website, but as long as that's not an issue for you, then that's all set. You may want to consider however, getting x2 4GB as opposed to a single 8GB, depending on your current RAM situation. Can't really argue with an SSD if you can afford it, and I believe it will also be compatible with your motherboard, would prefer someone to confirm that first though just to be 100% certain (Storage devices aren't my field of expertise). Finally, you may want to be sure you won't be needing any expansion slots in the motherboard, because it seems to be lacking in those greatly. How many watts do you have on your current PSU?

Hey sorry I fell asleep, so what's the advantage of having 2X4gb sticks rather than one 8gb stick? Also what are expansion slots used for and how many do I need compared to how many it has? An lastly I couldn't really tell how much watts it has but it says 240V Max Output Extended to 600W so I think that's it's, the only other wattages listed were 320W and 6W. Not sure what it means. Thanks again for your help!

 

[JellyfishRave]

So your RAM and Motherboard will 100% be compatible, although it looks as if the motherboard isn't available for purchase through the website, but as long as that's not an issue for you, then that's all set. You may want to consider however, getting x2 4GB as opposed to a single 8GB, depending on your current RAM situation. Can't really argue with an SSD if you can afford it, and I believe it will also be compatible with your motherboard, would prefer someone to confirm that first though just to be 100% certain (Storage devices aren't my field of expertise). Finally, you may want to be sure you won't be needing any expansion slots in the motherboard, because it seems to be lacking in those greatly. How many watts do you have on your current PSU?

Hey sorry I fell asleep, so what's the advantage of having 2X4gb sticks rather than one 8gb stick? Also what are expansion slots used for and how many do I need compared to how many it has? An lastly I couldn't really tell how much watts it has but it says 240V Max Output Extended to 600W so I think that's it's, the only other wattages listed were 320W and 6W. Not sure what it means. Thanks again for your help!

Okay so for the RAM, if you have 4 sticks of 2GB RAM, and it's all being used by various programs, you'll have all 4 working together, vs the single one working on its own. It can still handle the workload fine, but it will be a bit slower. Of course, It's probably not that much slower, but still not as fast as it could be. (It may also be cheaper depending on the amount you want). Expansion slots aren't exactly my field, but I know that they're ports on the motherboard that you can use for things like wifi adapters. Basically, if you're using a wired Ethernet connection, and you have enough USB ports, I think you shouldn't need the expansion slots, but it would be best to confirm that with someone else, because I don't have too much experience in that field. At a glance, I THINK that PSU should have enough power, but just to confirm, when you do get around to getting all of the parts, you might wanna run a PSU calculator and make sure it will work. (You could PM me as well and if I see it I can help). It will really depend on the graphics card you get, but unless it's something like incredibly powerful, you should probably be all set. I'm glad to be able to help, so if you have any other questions, ask away!

 

[Gamer1985]

If you run 1 stick of memory, it would be single channel, running 2 or more is called dual channel and allows the ram to run at its full potential.