3470 or 3570k

Hardware Hub CPU
1

I have £300 to spend and from my previous thread I have decided to go with intel rather than AMD due to the increased single threaded performance and the fact that I have a few games that will only use one core (Sins of a solar empire for example).

I need a new CPU, Motherboard and PSU. I could also do with some RAM though If I buy a cheap 1GB+ stick of DDR3 for my HTPC I can reclaim the 4GB DDR3 currently inside that.

Now the motherboard I want (ga-z77-ds3h) costs £68 and the psu I like the look of (corsair 430w cxm) costs £39 leaving me with £193 for CPU & RAM. Now if I go for the 3570K at £173 I will only have £20 left for RAM so I will probably buy a cheap DDR3 2GB stick for my HTPC to use the 4GB from inside that until I can get some money together for an upgrade.

However if I buy the 3470 for £145 and choose a motherboard with a B75 rather than a z77 due to not needing overclock capability I would be able to afford 16GB 1866 Kingston CL9 Beast series.

Eventually I plan to buy an SSD which is why I want 16GB RAM ideally so I can safely disable the pagefile however I wont need this amount of RAM until I get the SSD really.

Which should I go for?

More RAM and a slightly slower CPU but without OC capability?

Or faster CPU with OC capability but crippled RAM for now?

If this helps I dont actually plan to OC now (will be stuck on the stock cooler for a few months anyway) or even in the near future but depending how long this system lasts I may want to OC towards the end of its life to get a few more months out of it. I generally keep my builds for 2 - 3 years. Though I tend to upgrade partially every 6 - 12 months so SSD, H80 or Havik 140 (& RAM if I go with the 3750K) will probably be in 6 months followed by a new single GPU to replace my crossfire 5750s 6 months after that.

2

Just get a cheap 4gb ram kit that is like 1333mhz now for your htpc and go for the 3570k and a overclocking ready motherboard,

 

3

I have the 3470 and it works just fine, great for gaming. I went withit for 2 reasons over the 3570K - 1) Cheaper 2) Don't want to overclock.

I'd go with the 3470 and get the other parts unless you like to OC.

4

So one for the 3470 and one for the 3570. Anybody want to be the tiebreak? 

5

I have the 3570k and i recommend it, brilliant core, my friend has a 3470 and i get a little bit better performance than him.

6

Thanks, is the performance difference enough to justify spending 15% more on the core and getting by on 4GB of RAM instead of 16GB?

7

i dont really know, we never really compared our framerates, although I'd just like to say that 16gb of ram is a lot just for gaming, i have 8gb and i almost never use half of it.

8

Okay the decision made itself in the end as I managed to get everything I wanted (3570K & 16GB of RAM) with the motherboard and PSU I wanted I got £70 off after a special offer. Getting it delivered on tuesday morning so that can't come soon enough.