Can't decide between two Intel i5 processors... Worth the diff in price or not?

[DownloadFailed]

So I'm in the process of building a new computer, and I've chosen to use a quad core intel i5 processor as my CPU: lots of power for a decent price. But I'm stuck on choosing between two i5s. Both are very similar.

The first costs (on Newegg) $189.99. The second costs $219.99. All of their specs are the same, save for one: The $189.99 processor has an operating frequency of 3.1 GHz (3.4GHz Turbo Boost) and the $219.99 processor operates at 3.3 GHz (3.7 GHz Turbo-Boost).

So, is .2 GHz in processing power really worth the extra $30?

Here are the processor's store pages:
$189.99 : http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115074
$219.99 : http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115072

[Bags]

The 2500k has a $20 promo code, so it's $200, only $10 more. Go with that imo.

$20 off w/ promo code EMCNBNC23, ends 8/13

[DownloadFailed]

I doubt that I'll be purchasing it before the 13th. If the deal went on for a bit longer, then I certainly would.
By the way, I read somewhere that it's bad to mix RAMs of different makes. Is this correct?

[Bags]

I doubt that I'll be purchasing it before the 13th. If the deal went on for a bit longer, then I certainly would.
By the way, I read somewhere that it's bad to mix RAMs of different makes. Is this correct?

Yeah, you don't want like a 1600mhz 9-9-9-24 kit and then like a 133 mhz 8-8-8-19 kit.

BTW, the $30 increase in cost for the CPU also allows you to over clock it. The k means it's "unlocked". So you get the faster basic clock, and a much higher potential clock; however, to oc you need after market cooling so that's another $30 or so to realize the total value. But that's a future proof upgrade, you could get the 2500k, use a stock heatsink fro a while, and a year or two down the line get a $30 cooler and OC it and get some more relevancy out of it.

[Rbstr]

How about an i5-3550 (3.3ghz) @ $210 or the 3450 (3.1ghz) @ $200?

If you don't want the 'k' for overclocking I'd go with the new gen...Especially consider the 3450, it's a good bit better all around than the 2400, even at the same speed, for $10.

As far as RAM: You can mix/match speeds, but it will run at the slowest of the two and may cause instability. Buy 1333 for the old i5s and 1600 for the new ones. Going faster just isn't worth the money.

[DownloadFailed]

How about an i5-3550 (3.3ghz) @ $210 or the 3450 (3.1ghz) @ $200?

If you don't want the 'k' for overclocking I'd go with the new gen...Especially consider the 3450, it's a good bit better all around than the 2400, even at the same speed, for $10.

As far as RAM: You can mix/match speeds, but it will run at the slowest of the two and may cause instability. Buy 1333 for the old i5s and 1600 for the new ones. Going faster just isn't worth the money.

Ah I didn't realize that the K meant it could be overclocked. I'm inexperienced when it comes to OCing. I imagine I would need a pretty good heatsink separate from the stock one. How noticeable is the change when OCing? I imagine the better your cooling system the longer one can OC before something bad happens, eh?

[Bags]

*cough*

[DownloadFailed]

*cough*

Yes, Bags? Can I help you with something?

[Pancake]

Yes, Bags? Can I help you with something?

As Bags said, you will likely want a better cooler if you do OC. A $30 Coolermaster will do the trick.

I was able to jump straight to 4 GHz on my i5 2500K. That is a 10% performance increase with no effort on my part.

[fb III IX ca IV]

The older gen is better for overclocking, the new gen runs much hotter.

[Boone]

The older gen is better for overclocking, the new gen runs much hotter.

True, but as far as I know an IB at 4.0 is just as good as an SB at 4.3 or so.

[Rbstr]

We've sort of been over this before but "hotter" is sort of missleading. The chip puts out less heat because of the process used to make it, it's just more dense so temps are higher.

I'd think a good heatsink would show more improvement in temps on Ivy than Sandy. Less heat at higher temp is quite often a preferable situation, thermodynamically.

[Vancha]

We've sort of been over this before but "hotter" is sort of missleading. The chip puts out less heat because of the process used to make it, it's just more dense so temps are higher.

I'd think a good heatsink would show more improvement in temps on Ivy than Sandy. Less heat at higher temp is quite often a preferable situation, thermodynamically.
I'm not so sure. If the bottleneck is the heat being transferred rather than the heat being dispersed, then beyond a certain point a better cooler will just result in a cooler cooler. I'm wondering if a better TIM wouldn't make a more significant impact for Ivy Bridge...?

That aside, I'm pretty sure Ivy Bridge's overclock potential is high enough that it's still a better choice than Sandy Bridge.

[NumbaOneStunna]

I'm not so sure. If the bottleneck is the heat being transferred rather than the heat being dispersed, then beyond a certain point a better cooler will just result in a cooler cooler. I'm wondering if a better TIM wouldn't make a more significant impact for Ivy Bridge...?

That aside, I'm pretty sure Ivy Bridge's overclock potential is high enough that it's still a better choice than Sandy Bridge.

IB's problem with core temp is related to the crappy application of TIM under the heatspreader. People who have removed the IHS and put in a good quality TIM have noticed vastly improved core temps. (http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1709268)

SB's IHS is actually Soldered on, which is why SB doesn't have this problem.

If I were to buy a CPU right now, I would go with IB and replace the TIM under then IHS.

IB with better TIM > SB > IB with stock TIM.

[Vancha]

SB > IB with stock TIM.
Source?

[NumbaOneStunna]

Source?

To me the ~5% IPC improvement of IB does not outweigh the increased overclocking headroom of the 2500k.

Not saying that IB is bad though, both IB and SB are amazing.

[Goku]

Lets be nice now.

[Vancha]

Oh, that's disappointing...For Goku to have to edit it, it must have been fairly inflammatory. We're all here to learn and expand our knowledge of tech, so please don't be offended by questions.

I'm not sure who I'm answering now, but from looking around, 2500ks seem to be able to reach 4.7/4.8ghz as standard, 4.9/5.0ghz if you're lucky and anything higher is exceptional. Stock 3570ks seem to bring 4.5/4.6ghz as standard and 4.7/4.8ghz if you're lucky, with anything higher being exceptional.

Now most people put the improved speed of Ivy to be equivalent to around 0.2-0.3Ghz, which makes it roughly equal to the 2500k, but then you have lower power consumption and a superior IGP in the event your GPU kicks the bucket and you need something to tide you over 'till the next one, plus you have the rest of the Ivy Bridge-specific features, which may or may not be of benefit to a person.

[DownloadFailed]

Thanks for all the great feedback guys. I suppose now the toss-up is between the SB 2500K and the IB 3570. I need only determine whether or not overclocking is relevant to me. I've read many reviews for the 2500K and people say that the stock heatsink is pretty awful, so I would probably have to drop another $25-$30 for a decent replacement. Now, the 3570 seems to have had a bit more success with its stock heatsink. Seems to me that I should buy the 3570 and forget the aftermarket cooler...

Btw, I'm planning on purchasing this motherboard (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157265). I believe I read somewhere that Ivy Bridge is backwards compatible with Sandy Bridge in that mobos that supported SB can also support IB. Is this true?

[Rbstr]

Yeah you can put an IB in that but why P67?

You can get a full ATX Z77 for $5 less?
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157293
(or a lot less http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157297)

[DownloadFailed]

Yeah you can put an IB in that but why P67?

You can get a full ATX Z77 for $5 less?
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157293
(or a lot less http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157297)

Seems like the biggest difference between these three mobos (besides price) is the number of USBs provided, the number of 6 GB/s SATAs there are, and the number of PCI expresses... And I have no idea what a PCI express is/does. Generally speaking, the P67 offers more of all three of those things, albeit marginally compared to the Z77 Extreme4.

[Vancha]

If he isn't planning on overclocking, he might as well get the Z75 Pro3 and save himself another $17 ($10 less + free shipping). It seems to be the best deal going right now. It'd be more than good enough for his needs and still be capable of OCing if he changes his mind in the future...

And with that said, I suggest getting the 3570k over the regular 3570. You'll still be able to overclock it slightly with the stock cooler, and should you decide to invest in an aftermarket cooler in the future (you won't need anything hugely expensive), you could push it that much further.

Edit: 6 GB/s SATA is for SSDs...Are you planning on having more than two SSDs? PCI-E is used for GPUs. You don't need more than one PCI-E x16 slot unless you're planning on using multiple GPUs at once, which might be worth considering, but it comes with higher temperatures, higher power requirements (your PSU might not be good enough), additional software issues etc. As for the USB slots, do you need more than 6 (in addition to the ones on your computer case)?

Get the P67 if you need the extra SATA, PCI-E and USB ports, but unless you know why you need more than this (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157304&Tpk=z75%20pro3), you probably don't.

Oh, and on the off-chance you're being allured by aesthetics...It's really not worth the premium.

[Rbstr]

Right, but do you need more of those things?

SATA 6gb/s only matters for SSD's, so do you have more than two of them?
You actually get 2 more USB 3.0 with the Extreme4 and the same # of SATA6 (though you lose two USB2.0)
Besides the Z77 is a better chipset (you get Lucid Virtu and sweet SB/IB video capabilities, IIRC the P67 doesn't support the on-board graphics at all, you need a Z68 at least for those features)...and $5 cheaper (and you get a $15 giftcard!)

EDIT: Vancha posted in the meantime, I haven't read his post yet.

[NumbaOneStunna]

Thanks for all the great feedback guys. I suppose now the toss-up is between the SB 2500K and the IB 3570. I need only determine whether or not overclocking is relevant to me. I've read many reviews for the 2500K and people say that the stock heatsink is pretty awful, so I would probably have to drop another $25-$30 for a decent replacement. Now, the 3570 seems to have had a bit more success with its stock heatsink. Seems to me that I should buy the 3570 and forget the aftermarket cooler...

Btw, I'm planning on purchasing this motherboard (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157265). I believe I read somewhere that Ivy Bridge is backwards compatible with Sandy Bridge in that mobos that supported SB can also support IB. Is this true?

SB and IB stock coolers are the same.

[DownloadFailed]

Yeah, SSDs don't rank well on my price-to-usefulness ratio, so that's not a big deal. And I'll only be needing 1 PCI Express port. 1 GPU is quite enough for me. The 3570K is nice, though it's another $15 from the 3570. I know that I'll be spending hundreds of dollars on all these parts and $15 more isn't much, but if I seriously wanted to overclock, I'd probably just go with the 2500K. It's $10 cheaper and is only .1 GHz less powerful than the 3570K.

[Vancha]

The 3570K is nice, though it's another $15 from the 3570. I know that I'll be spending hundreds of dollars on all these parts and $15 more isn't much, but if I seriously wanted to overclock, I'd probably just go with the 2500K. It's $10 cheaper and is only .1 GHz less powerful than the 3570K.
Well I figured you'd just saved $50 on the motherboard, but fair enough.

Also GHz aren't everything. A 3570 at 3.4GHz will be faster than a 2500k overclocked to 3.4GHz, though, granted, not hugely.

[Rbstr]

is only .1 GHz less powerful than the 3570K.

Well...each ghz on an IB is more powerful than one on the SB. I'd take the saved money on a cheaper motherboard and go with the 3570k.

[Pancake]

Go with the 3570K so you can OC.