Would a modern i3 be an upgrade from a 6 year old i7?

DanielSan · Dec 1, 2015

I have an i7 930 and I'm soon going to upgrade my gpu add more ram and install an sSD and new psu. But next year I want to completely replace my motherboard and cpu combo. Would a skylake i3 be an upgrade from my much older i7 930? Or more of a side grade so to speak.or should I just save money and get an i5 or new i7?

I have a feeling that the i3 would be better in single thread performance but it's only a dual core. Albeit with total 4 threads. I will be using the pc for gaming modern titles on ultra at no bigger than 1080p resolutions.

beers · Dec 1, 2015

I'd say sidegrade personally, although for single threads it'd be a significant improvement.

If you could swing at least the i5 then it'd be much more worthwhile (and you wouldn't waste money buying the i3 first

)

H4rdR3s37 · Dec 1, 2015

Overclock i7-930 and i3 it would be downgrade.

Geoff · Dec 1, 2015

I wouldn't do it, you'd also be going from a quad core to a dual core. You should get the Skylake i5 6600K if you want a modestly priced upgrade.

H4rdR3s37 · Dec 1, 2015

Geoff said:
I wouldn't do it, you'd also be going from a quad core to a dual core. You should get the Skylake i5 6600K if you want a modestly priced upgrade.

Not that much upgrade because 6600K is missing hyper threading.

Overclocked i7-930 won't be much slower than i5-6600K (without overclocking).

C4C · Dec 1, 2015

H4rdR3s37 said:
Not that much upgrade because 6600K is missing hyper threading.

Overclocked i7-930 won't be much slower than i5-6600K (without overclocking).

Please look some benchmarks up.

The i7-930 is much slower in single core speed making up for missing HT.

Though more expensive, it's 5 years newer and is already running DDR4 making it a much stronger competitor.

The 6600K also performs much better in real-world applications (gaming, workstation usage).

http://cpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/Intel-Core-i7-930-vs-Intel-Core-i5-6600K/m79vs3503

H4rdR3s37 · Dec 1, 2015

C4C said:
Please look some benchmarks up..

The i7-930 is much slower in single core speed making up for missing HT.

Though more expensive, it's 5 years newer and is already running DDR4 making it a much stronger competitor.

The 6600K also performs much better in real-world applications (gaming, workstation usage).

http://cpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/Intel-Core-i7-930-vs-Intel-Core-i5-6600K/m79vs3503

In 5 years, Intel's processors have developed very little on IPC side. 6600K has much higher clock speeds, that makes most difference. Overclocking i7-930 to 4 GHz makes speed difference so little that upgrade is quite expensive considering benefits.

Geoff · Dec 1, 2015

H4rdR3s37 said:
Not that much upgrade because 6600K is missing hyper threading.

Overclocked i7-930 won't be much slower than i5-6600K (without overclocking).

Not true, and HT gives little performance gains for gaming.

The i7 930 is a 2.8GHz quad core, vs the 6600K which is a 3.5GHz quad core. The newer architecture and faster clock speed will lead to a modest improvement overall.

H4rdR3s37 said:
In 5 years, Intel's processors have developed very little on IPC side. 6600K has much higher clock speeds, that makes most difference. Overclocking i7-930 to 4 GHz makes speed difference so little that upgrade is quite expensive considering benefits.

And you can overclock the 6600K as well. 4.6-4.8GHz is very easy with these chips.

H4rdR3s37 · Dec 1, 2015

Geoff said:
Not true, and HT gives little performance gains for gaming.

The i7 930 is a 2.8GHz quad core, vs the 6600K which is a 3.5GHz quad core. The newer architecture and faster clock speed will lead to a modest improvement overall.

That is why I said overclocked i7-930. Newer architechture makes no major difference. Sandy Bridge is about 5-10% faster than Nehalem. Ivy Bridge is 5-10% faster than Sandy Bridge. Haswell is 5-10% faster than Ivy Bridge. Skylake is 5-10% gaster than Haswell. So clock speed is essential making performance difference justified. I still recommend overclocking that i7. If MB breaks because of it, then buy new one and new processor also.

Geoff · Dec 1, 2015

H4rdR3s37 said:
That is why I said overclocked i7-930. Newer architechture makes no major difference. Sandy Bridge is about 5-10% faster than Nehalem. Ivy Bridge is 5-10% faster than Sandy Bridge. Haswell is 5-10% faster than Ivy Bridge. Skylake is 5-10% gaster than Haswell. So clock speed is essential making performance difference justified. I still recommend overclocking that i7. If MB breaks because of it, then buy new one and new processor also.

Did you even look at what you just said?

Nehalem > Sandy - 10%
Sandy > Ivy - 10%
Ivy > Haswell - 10%
Haswell > Skylake - 10%

That adds up fast. I did a lot of research before buying my 6700K, and from benchmarks and reviews, everyone was in agreement that the jump from Haswell to Skylake was not worth it for a 10% gain, and it was hard to justify it from Ivy Bridge for a 15-20% gain, but going from Nehalem to Skylake is a huge improvement in efficiency, performance, and power consumption.

H4rdR3s37 · Dec 1, 2015

Geoff said:
Did you even look at what you just said?

Nehalem > Sandy - 10%
Sandy > Ivy - 10%
Ivy > Haswell - 10%
Haswell > Skylake - 10%

That adds up fast. I did a lot of research before buying my 6700K, and from benchmarks and reviews, everyone was in agreement that the jump from Haswell to Skylake was not worth it for a 10% gain, and it was hard to justify it from Ivy Bridge for a 15-20% gain, but going from Nehalem to Skylake is a huge improvement in efficiency, performance, and power consumption.

Overclock (once again, overclock) i7 to 4 GHz, add that about 40% (now about same clock speed), consider loss of hyper threading and then improvement is not that huge considering investment. So I recommend at least i7-5820K.

C4C · Dec 1, 2015

H4rdR3s37 said:
Overclock (once again, overclock) i7 to 4 GHz, add that about 40% (now about same clock speed), consider loss of hyper threading and then improvement is not that huge considering investment. So I recommend at least i7-5820K.

Overclocking can't fix what it lacks except for clock speed. You're lost.

Even overclocked, it'll perform worse than a 6600K.

Geoff · Dec 1, 2015

H4rdR3s37 said:
Overclock (once again, overclock) i7 to 4 GHz, add that about 40% (now about same clock speed), consider loss of hyper threading and then improvement is not that huge considering investment. So I recommend at least i7-5820K.

You are stuck on this thinking that you can compare an overclocked 930 to a stock 6600K, but not that the 6600K can also be overclocked, and likely higher as well. You are looking at a ~45% improvement from the 930 to a 6600K in efficiency/performance alone. Add in that the 6600K is clocked higher from the start, and you can overclock it easily to 4.5GHz+, and it's the clear winner.

The 5820K is a very expensive setup, and for most gamers they'd be better off with a higher clocked Skylake.

H4rdR3s37 · Dec 1, 2015

C4C said:
Overclocking can't fix what it lacks except for clock speed. You're lost.

Even overclocked, it'll perform worse than a 6600K.

What essential it lacks except clock speed? Some special instructions (like AES-NI) and what else?

Remember, that upgrade is not free. Considering investment and speed gain, IMO it makes no sense.

Geoff said:
You are stuck on this thinking that you can compare an overclocked 930 to a stock 6600K, but not that the 6600K can also be overclocked, and likely higher as well. You are looking at a ~45% improvement from the 930 to a 6600K in efficiency/performance alone. Add in that the 6600K is clocked higher from the start, and you can overclock it easily to 4.5GHz+, and it's the clear winner.

The 5820K is a very expensive setup, and for most gamers they'd be better off with a higher clocked Skylake.

And still I'm considering that upgrade to 6600K requires now motherboard, new memory and new processor. Even overclocked 6600K is not fast enough to justify price difference IMO. This is not about what is faster. This is about if it's investment is worth price difference.

5820K processor is quite cheap actually. MB costs more but still I consider it much better investment than 6700K for example.

Geoff · Dec 1, 2015

H4rdR3s37 said:
What essential it lacks except clock speed? Some special instructions (like AES-NI) and what else?

Remember, that upgrade is not free. Considering investment and speed gain, IMO it makes no sense.

And still I'm considering that upgrade to 6600K requires now motherboard, new memory and new processor. Even overclocked 6600K is not fast enough to justify price difference IMO. This is not about what is faster. This is about if it's investment is worth price difference.

5820K processor is quite cheap actually. MB costs more but still I consider it much better investment than 6700K for example.

Yes it's not free and is expensive for a slight improvement, but I gathered that he wants to upgrade and get a mid-range CPU to hold him over until he can upgrade to something better. The 1151 socket is brand new and has potential, while the 2011 is done with AFAIK, and the motherboard and added RAM is expensive. Plus the 6-core processors have a much lower clock speed.

I'm not going to pretend to understand the intricate details between each new CPU revision, but benchmarks clearly show improvement clock for clock between each revision, as you said ~10% or so. You should know that clock speed alone is not the deciding factor, otherwise AMD "should" be in the lead.

Cromewell · Dec 1, 2015

Geoff said:
The 1151 socket is brand new and has potential, while the 2011 is done with AFAIK

I'd be wary of picking up a CPU based on a socket now for an upgrade at some point in the future. Unless it's later this year, you might end up looking at a socket change again when it comes time to upgrade.

Geoff · Dec 1, 2015

Cromewell said:
I'd be wary of picking up a CPU based on a socket now for an upgrade at some point in the future. Unless it's later this year, you might end up looking at a socket change again when it comes time to upgrade.

I believe Intel uses them typically for 2 generations, the tick and tock, so seeing as how it's brand new within a few months he should be fine if he plans to upgrade sometime next year.

Personally if you can afford $100 more I'd go with the i7 6700K, but that's just me.

H4rdR3s37 · Dec 1, 2015

Geoff said:
Yes it's not free and is expensive for a slight improvement, but I gathered that he wants to upgrade and get a mid-range CPU to hold him over until he can upgrade to something better. The 1151 socket is brand new and has potential, while the 2011 is done with AFAIK, and the motherboard and added RAM is expensive. Plus the 6-core processors have a much lower clock speed.

LGA1151 will not get much faster processor than i7-6700K. Meaning it will get i7-XXXXK that is about 10-15 % faster. Same happened on LGA1155 and LGA1150. LGA1156 did not get refresh round.

LGA2011 is done but LGA2011-3 is still waiting Skylake part. 6-core processor will however be upgrade on every side. i7-930 to 6600K means losing 4 threads that has effect on multitasking.

Geoff said:
I'm not going to pretend to understand the intricate details between each new CPU revision, but benchmarks clearly show improvement clock for clock between each revision, as you said ~10% or so. You should know that clock speed alone is not the deciding factor, otherwise AMD "should" be in the lead.

We are talking about quite same basic architechture so clock speed alone is quite much deciding factor. AMD has different architechture.

Cromewell said:
I'd be wary of picking up a CPU based on a socket now for an upgrade at some point in the future. Unless it's later this year, you might end up looking at a socket change again when it comes time to upgrade.

LGA2011-3 should get Skylake processors somewhere next year. Of course, that is still speculation.

Geoff said:
I believe Intel uses them typically for 2 generations, the tick and tock, so seeing as how it's brand new within a few months he should be fine if he plans to upgrade sometime next year.

Personally if you can afford $100 more I'd go with the i7 6700K, but that's just me.

i5 "upgrade" to i7 makes no sense, too expensive so better to buy i7 outright. Then again i7 930 to i3 is not that much upgrade. So i7-5820K is worth considering. Surprisingly cheap compared to 6700K.

DanielSan · Dec 1, 2015

Geoff said:
Yes it's not free and is expensive for a slight improvement, but I gathered that he wants to upgrade and get a mid-range CPU to hold him over until he can upgrade to something better. The 1151 socket is brand new and has potential, while the 2011 is done with AFAIK, and the motherboard and added RAM is expensive. Plus the 6-core processors have a much lower clock speed.

I'm not going to pretend to understand the intricate details between each new CPU revision, but benchmarks clearly show improvement clock for clock between each revision, as you said ~10% or so. You should know that clock speed alone is not the deciding factor, otherwise AMD "should" be in the lead.

Thanks Geoff yes I was thinking along the lines of a mid range cpu until I can get something better. After reading all these posts and looking at some benchmarks I think the skylake i5 is the right way to go for me. And even though it's an i5 and not an i7 it looks like it will be a significant improvement over my current cpu. And easily overclockable on air. Just got to wait and see what the prices are like early 2016 now. Thanks all.

Geoff · Dec 2, 2015

DanielSan said:
Thanks Geoff yes I was thinking along the lines of a mid range cpu until I can get something better. After reading all these posts and looking at some benchmarks I think the skylake i5 is the right way to go for me. And even though it's an i5 and not an i7 it looks like it will be a significant improvement over my current cpu. And easily overclockable on air. Just got to wait and see what the prices are like early 2016 now. Thanks all.

Great choice, you will be pleased with the performance improvements of the i5 6600K and it's improved overclocking capabilities.

Would a modern i3 be an upgrade from a 6 year old i7?

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