Intel Core i5 vs. i7: Which Is Better for Gaming?

If you are asking yourself “Which processor for gaming should I get?”, chances are you are comparing i5 vs. i7 for gaming. So, here we'll cover the difference between them and help you make a choice.

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Intel Core i5 and i7 are two families of Intel Core; the key advantage of an i7 over an i5 of the same generation generally lies in the fact that it performs better in multitasking, photo and video editing, and, in general, in handling heavy workloads. That is why the i7 is more expensive. So, is i5 or i7 better for gaming? Do you really need the benefits that the i7 system provides?

A basic comparison between the 8th generation i5 and i7 models on UserBenchmark shows that i7 is only slightly better in all areas except for the one where it really leaves i5 in the dust – multitasking. That is because the i7 models have twice as many threads as i5 models of the same generation. And the threads are the key actors in the hyper-threading technology that is responsible for multitasking or the sharing of tasks among the processor’s cores.

Hyper-threading was first introduced by Intel back in 2011 when it was only accessible for the i7 family. Essentially, it adds two “virtual” cores for each physical one, sharing the workload between them. So in the test above, an 8th gen i7 model with 12 threads performs better in multitasking than an 8th gen i7 model that has only 6 threads.

In October 2017, a new round of Intel Core i5 vs. i7 gaming rivalry began with the introduction of the 8th CPU generation. Intel increased the number of cores and threads for each of the models by 50 percent and increased the core’s clock speed for i7-8700K processors. From that point on, both i5 and i7 8th gen processors have had six cores and hyper-threading.

Although the 8th generation processors are more expensive than their predecessors, the difference in price tends to go down quickly and the increase in performance they provide makes them usually worth the additional cost. The specific benefit you’re likely to get from upgrading depends mostly on how much the tasks you regularly perform on your computer require multi-threading, as well as the age of your current chip. The number of single or dual-core applications is going down these days, and Windows tends to send different single-threaded tasks to different cores, so multicore applications running simultaneously are handled much more efficiently by 8th gen processors.

All that said, we have to admit that games don’t normally take up more than four cores if you use hyper-threading. Some speculated that the newest DirectX 12, being more “multicore friendly”, might change the situation. But the actual tests proved not only that game performance does not change after you pass the boundary of 6 cores, but also that the increase from 4 and 6 cores is not that significant. So, if no important workloads pass through your CPU outside the game, you shouldn’t expect much benefit from i7 or i5 for gaming.

Nevertheless, if you want to play demanding games and stream at the same time, a 6-core processor can increase your performance, even if by not as much as you might expect from two extra cores. Having six cores also gives you an extra fallback in case newer games start to use multi-threading more actively. So, if you already have, say, a 6th or 7th gen i5, you shouldn’t probably bother upgrading to an 8th gen. But if you have an altogether different CPU and are thinking of moving to Intel Core, we’d advise you to go directly to 8th gen. The difference in costs between generations is not significant.

As for the i7, if you’re planning to use it exclusively for gaming, it is probably not worth the price. Core i5 will be just as fast for games, and 6 extra threads won’t make a noticeable difference. Core i7, or, better yet, Core i9, are great for 3D rendering or video editing and encoding but, if that’s not your deal, don’t even bother.

“Bottlenecking” seems to have become a trending term among gamers talking about processor performance lately. Let’s see what this actually is.

The core of the issue lies in the interaction between CPU and GPU that makes your PC function correctly. Simply put, the CPU decides what needs to be rendered when by the GPU. If the CPU is somehow unable to perform this task, the GPU doesn’t have enough work to do, its capacity is left unexploited, and, consequently, the PC’s performance drops off. In this case, we would say that the GPU is bottlenecked.

So, should you worry about bottlenecking?

As we’ve already seen, the trick lies in balancing CPU and GPU capacities to ensure both function at their best. And you should know that, frankly, you either need a really high-end graphics card or multiple cards installed on your PC at the same time for an i5 to “lag behind” and bottleneck your GPU during gaming.