Recommendations? i5 3570K @$189 or i7 3770K @$289?

[oboe]

Which would you recommend and why (is the main difference the i7's hyperthreading capability?)

Thinking about upgrading my rig.   With one of these CPUs, I can also get $50 off a Z77 motherboard - thinking about the GA-Z77-UD3H @ $85 .

Planning also to get a faster/bigger HD and DDR-1600 RAM.

[guncrasher]

more like what is your budget.


semp

[oboe]

Either fits within my budget.  I just want the best value.  I'd be upgrading from an E8400, and would likely still use my EVGA GTX460.

Flight sims are the only games I do, and Aces High is nearly the only flight sim I fly.  I can't recall if AH makes use of hyperthreading.   I am interested in checkign out DCS A-10 at some point I think, and I like eye candy.

[Skuzzy]

Hyperthreading is transparent to the application.  It is up to the operating system to assign threads to cores.

Best bang for the buck will be the i5-3570K versus the i7-3770K.

Now, if you are sticking with stock clocks, the i7-3770K is going to be faster than the i5-3570K, but the i5 chip might overclock better than the i7.

[guncrasher]

well it's a trick question.  if all you are gonna do is play simulators I would rather buy the 3570k.  only to save 100 bucks.  if you make movies out of ah then I would rather buy the 3770k.  but you have to match it to a good mobo and I think you also may have to upgrade your video card to really take advantage of the newer cpu as the gtx460 may bottle neck your system.  perhaps later on you can upgrade it.


semp

[Skuzzy]

If the question was about video transcoding the 3770K is the best for the task, between these two, as well.

[katanaso]

Oboe,

I was in a similar quandry, also upgrading from an E8400, but the Ivy Bridge chips weren't out yet, so it was between a i5-2500K or i7-2600K.  It was around the same price difference too -- $100ish.

I went with the i5, simply because I don't do anything that really needs the HT.  The most I do is work with very large RAW images (18 MP), and I spent the extra $100ish on other stuff.  An extra couple of seconds, literally, isn't going to kill me.  If I did video work, I would've gone with the i7.

However, it wouldn't hurt to get it though.  You can't go wrong with having 'more' available to you. 

Here's a comparison between Ivy Bridge and Sandy Bridge, with some times in various tests (not just games):  http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/ivy-bridge-overclocking-core-i7-3770k,3198-5.html

As far as motherboards, Z77 wasn't out yet, so I went with a Z68 chipset.  The actual board I got was a GA-Z68XP-UD4.  Research a bit on the motherboards to see what's best and what people are having good luck with.

[Spikes]

I just put in a 3570k in my computer, with a MSI Z77A-G45, 16GB of DDR3 ram and a 2GB HD6870 and it is great. +1 for the 3570k so far.