The Intel Core i3-7350K (60W) Review: Almost a Core i7-2600K
by Ian Cutress on February 3, 2017 8:00 AM ESTGrand Theft Auto V
The highly anticipated iteration of the Grand Theft Auto franchise finally hit the shelves on April 14th 2015, with both AMD and NVIDIA in tow to help optimize the title. GTA doesn’t provide graphical presets, but opens up the options to users and extends the boundaries by pushing even the hardest systems to the limit using Rockstar’s Advanced Game Engine. Whether the user is flying high in the mountains with long draw distances or dealing with assorted trash in the city, when cranked up to maximum it creates stunning visuals but hard work for both the CPU and the GPU.
For our test we have scripted a version of the in-game benchmark, relying only on the final part which combines a flight scene along with an in-city drive-by followed by a tanker explosion. For low end systems we test at 720p on the lowest settings, whereas mid and high end graphics play at 1080p with very high settings across the board. We record both the average frame rate and the percentage of frames under 60 FPS (16.6ms).
The older Core i7-2600K eeks out a small ~5 FPS advantage over the Core i3 when running a GTX 980 at 1080p maximum settings, but with all other GPUs the differences are minimal. With integrated graphics, the Core i3 shows it can pummel the older IGP into the ground.
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realneil - Wednesday, February 8, 2017 - link
^^This^^Intel is ~finally~ facing some upcoming opposition in the CPU arena and they're trying to fill in some perceived gaps in their CPU lineup.
After Ryzen is released, expect to see multiple product changes from team blue right away to combat AMD's offerings.
CaedenV - Friday, February 3, 2017 - link
I think it will make more sense with next gen parts. I suspect we are watching a shift in the lineup that is slowly rolling out.celeron - duel core
pentium - entry duel core with HT (limited cache/clock/iGPU)
i3 - high-end duel core HT (essentially unchanged)
i5 - quad core with HT (today's i7)
i7 - 6-12 core with HT (today's LGA2011 line)
So why no straight quad core part? Well, 2 reasons.
1) it probably isn't needed. The original i5 parts were just i7s with broken HT cores that were disabled. I imagine most chips coming out now have perfectly fine HT cores, so they are artificially disabled. This increases the cost of the binning process, and reduces profit on a per-chip basis... especially if they can sell the same part somewhere between today's i5 and i7 price.
2) Right now I would wager that most home builders buy either an i3 because they are budget conscious, or i7 because their pride will not let them get anything less than the best. But the i7 that they buy is the lower margin 'consumer' i7 chips rather than the premium laiden LGA2011 i7 chips that make buku bucks on both CPU and chipset sales. Moving the i7 lineup to start at ~$500 instead of ~$280 would more than off-set the number of people willing to step down to an i5 chip; even if the step down is in name only and really the i5 would be more affordable while offering traditionally i7 performance levels.
3) Bonus reason; Ryzen chips are expected to land near today's i5/i7 chips in performance, and Intel does not want AMD to be able to say 'our chips are as fast as an i7 but only cost what an i5 does'. Instead, intel want's it's smug users (like myself) to say 'ya, that Ryzen is not a bad chip, but it doesn't hold a candle to my i7'. Real world benchmarks be damned, it is what people are going to say.
Alexvrb - Friday, February 3, 2017 - link
I wouldn't necessarily bet that more home users buy i7s than i5s. I personally know two gamers that recently built i5 systems because they wanted more oomph than a 2C/4T i3, but didn't want to spend money on an i7. Why? So they could spend more money where it makes the biggest difference... the graphics card. An i5 provides plenty of CPU horsepower for games, and gives you another $100 or so to spend on better graphics.I think their judgement was sound. I doubt they are alone in this kind of assessment. I think you're letting your admitted i7 smugness cloud your judgement a little bit.
Tunnah - Saturday, February 4, 2017 - link
I build PCs for my friends, and advise people on what to buy, and I don't know a single person apart from myself who has an i7 (and only know of 1 person who has an i3 but he uses his box for media). i5 is a perfect chip for casual users who use the PC mostly to game.Hell the only reason I have an i7 is for Civ VI ha.
Alexvrb - Saturday, February 4, 2017 - link
Bingo!Meteor2 - Sunday, February 5, 2017 - link
i7s (or Xeons) are nice if you're encoding a lot of x265 video (x265 gives better quality per bitrate than hardware encoders). That's the only desktop use case I can think of.Meteor2 - Sunday, February 5, 2017 - link
...or apparently not, according to a comment way below, where a 12C/24T Xeon barely does double digit x265 FPS.bak0n - Monday, February 6, 2017 - link
Exactly why I have an I5 3570k. My next build will either be a ryzen (depending on wither it hits expectations), or the I5 of whatever generation is out when I'm ready to buy. To big of a price jump to the I7 for a hard core 1080P maxed setting gamer, but not to much of a price jump over the i3's. That is, until now with the i3k which I may actually give a second look at.DiHydro - Monday, February 6, 2017 - link
I fit into that category with one caveat, I also do some 3d modeling and rendering. This pushed me to the i7-2600k about four years ago, and I still don't feel that my CPU is the limiting factor on my PC.Byte - Saturday, February 4, 2017 - link
Very true, most customers want the best or the cheapest. Changing the lineup liek that would make it easier.