Trying to decide: i5 7600 or i5 8400

[sirhawkeye64]

I'm trying to decide which one would be better buy considering my circumstances.
I mainly will be doing photo editing, and possibly some light video editing too. I do want something that will also be able to play games for the next few years as well. I don't overclock my computers.

They are both essentially the same price (maybe $10 difference which is irrelevant for decision making at that little of a price difference). I have chose the board which will support either processor.

I'm tempted by the 6-core mainly for media creation and photo editing, but I am a bit concerned about the clock speed and future usage. 2.8 GHz vs 3.5 Ghz quad core. I have yet to see many games that require a six core, but some have some higher-end requirements, like at least a 3 Ghz quad core, so I'm a bit concerned in that regard if I do happen to play some newer games. Since I don't overclock, the unlocked multiplier of the "K" processors doesn't matter to me. And I will be using a dedicated PCI-E graphics card, so onboard graphics are irrelevant too.

What would people suggest in this situation? I mostly will be doing productivity, media creation (light) and photo editing. With the possibility of some light gaming?

 

[AniChatt]

Better will be 8400 for years to come. After Ryzen 6 core is the average mainstream and you will definitely get the benefit of 2 more cores in current media creation work load. Now for the clock speed yes it has lower clock than 7600 but it boosts up to 4.0 and 3.8 multiplied by 6 cores and you will get better multi threaded performance than a 7600. Now games previously not using more than two cores as regular consumers are not using more than two earlier. After dx12, and recent development it has started to use 4 core and eventually support 6 and more. There are games which can take advantage for 6 and more today. So don't buy outdated stuff if you can afford newer and definitely buy 8400 for sure. Its is a value king from intel.

 

[mrmez]

8400 is definitely better for everything.

 

[guanyu210379]

1. I5 8400 has 2 more cores (50% more cores) compared to I5 7600.
2. The single core speed of I5 8400 is also slightly better than I5 7600.
I5 8400 is the much better choice because of nr. 1.

 

[Mike Prior]

Hi,
Under load, the Turbo Boost frequency for both across 4 cores is 3.9GHz. (It's more aggressive on the 8 series.)
The only time you lose out is in single core boost, which you won't notice. (4 vs 4.1 GHz)
It's got to be an 8400.

 

[sirhawkeye64]

OK thanks. Yes, the apps I'm using are all multi-threaded anyway so they can take advantage of at least 2 or 4 of the total 6 cores available (at least, I know PS and LR can utilize 4+ cores according to my conversations with others around the Web). I guess I'll go with the i5 8400 then since the price is the same, but I get 2 extra cores and a bit of future proofing (at least, for the next 3-5 years).

 

[storfal]

After comparing Intel i3 and i5 specs I've found i5-8400 lacks some technologies such as: Intel vPro, Intel TSX-NI, SSIP and Intel Trusted Execution. Apart from performance which -8400 seems to be the best choice do you guys think that's an issue? Why Intel decided to ban those tehcnologies?

 

[mrmez]

Intel didn't ban these. They are mostly used at the enterprise level, which the 8400 isn't really aimed at. Dropping those features keeps the prices down and makes zero difference for 99.9% of users.