Fatback
VIP Member
You have to understand the workings of the chip to really understand the difference. The non-core parts of the i5 are clocked slower than that on the i7. Keep in mind that the PCIe controller on the 1156 i5/i7 is on the CPU and is part of the 'non-core' clock group.
Another feature of i7 over i5 is hyperthreading. I know that's not a big deal yet, there's very few places for 8 threads to be running right now but they'll come in time I'm sure. And one more thing: turbo mode. The i7s can disable unused cores on the fly and get a higher single (or dual or triple) core clock speed than the i5.
Like I said I was talking about games not other stuff you might do with it. If someone was looking to build a gaming computer then it would be best to go with the i5. The i7 is not going to give you much more in games and you would just spending more money.
Like I said though I don't care about the i5/i7.IMO If I where to build a $1500 gaming rig I would still go with AMD without putting a second thought into it.