Windows 7: i5 2500k or the i7 2600k

Right now I have a 1055t amd x6, I'm actually selling my computer and going to do a new build and I wanted to try intel... I do a bit of video editing here and there, but my 1055t was just fine for that, is the extra 100 dollars worth for the 2600k if i mainly do gaming and a bit of video editing? Im going to be pairing it with a nice GPU and 8-16 gigs of ddr2 1600, or is there a AMD CPU thats just as good but cheaper?

Gaming aficionados would point you to the 2500K as its gaming performance is virtually the same as the 2600K and most don't think the 80 or 100 dollar difference is worth it.

On the other hand, the 2600K is an i7 and has hyperthreading, which can be an advantage in video processing. So, it depends on what you mean by "a bit" of video editing, whether saving a few minutes means much, and how tight your budget is.

If your AMD was fine for video editing, I'd say the 2500K will probably be more than fine and you could put the saved money toward an SSD or a night on the town.

There's no need for you to get a K model processor if you won't be overclocking. That might save you 20 bucks.

The largest table of comparisons I've seen is here:

AnandTech - Bench - CPU

It appears that a 2500k is faster than a 1055t in most benchmarks. If you pair it with a motherboard that permits overclocking (P67 or Z68), plus a third party cooler, getting more than 4.2 GHz out of the 2500k would be routine.

There may be some price points where AMD is competitive with Intel, but if you can afford an I5-2500k, it has a lot of value.

If you think you might benefit from hyperthreading go with the 2600, otherwise the 2500 and use the $100 saved for something else.

The 2600K is about 40% more powerful than the 2500K, both at stock speeds. My 2600K @ 4.4Ghz is almost 80% faster than a 2500K.

but you will get virtually no gaming performance increase from a i5 2500k to a i7 2600k. As no games other than the new Arma game and shogun2 make use of more than 4 cores.

not sure if pcformat makes it to the States, but my fave in the uk! this month they did a test, a £300 gaming rig verses a £3000 gaming rig. the test was can you really tell the difference in gaming between the 2.

Games graphics on the £300 rig were limited to what it could handle (but as most games stem from consoles it maxed out most with a £100 GPU) and the ones on the £3000 were maxed out.

They then put them both in a room and ran games on them, but not showing the testers the loading times (as SSD's would give it away) and let people play.

The results were scary, the cheap £300 got just as much praise as the faster machine with some people saying they were almost the same rig...
the point they were proving is you dont need the fasted to do the same thing. the i7 2600k may rape the the i5 2500k in bench marks.. but what does that prove? just a lot of people willy waving

what games were they testing?
I know that Battlefield 3 is a very demanding game, even at lower settings.
the game stutters really bad on my nephews budget machine, about $350 with a GT240 and AMD X3 450, but Crysis 2 plays really well at medium settings @ 1280x720.

And it's not the amount of cores that matter, it's how powerful each core is.

bf3, skyrim, dirt 3 and ummmm crysis 2.

you could easily play bf3 with a core i5 2500k and say a 6850 58** on high with out any issues.

if you set bf3's AA from 4 to 2 it basically doubles your FPS i get between 40-80fps on bf3 with everything maxed out bar AA on a 2gb 6950, if i set it all to high i get over a 100fps

Well with my 6870 I get on all games high or ultra even with BF3, in the first post I meant to say ddr3 nor ddr2, what do you think my new build would be like?

i5 2500k or i7 2600k
Asrock z68 (Love asrock never had to RMA and slightly impressed with OC)
8-16 gigs of ddr3 1333-1600
6870 or nvidia equivilent
corsair hyper 212 or H60 or H80
Corsair 500r white med case.
700-900w modular OCZ PSU

anyone want to add in?

Sounds just fine. I pretty much got that build (ASUS motherboard though) and i can go with high/maxed settings on everything (1920x1080 45-60 FPS). You can save a bit on the PSU and (if you get a good deal) squeeze in an GTX 560 Ti or HD 6950 as my 6870 often hold the CPU back a bit. You don't really need 700W+ for a single GPU setup.

And if you decide to go with the 6870, don't get the XFX dual fan version. The cooling on mine is horrible (On stock fan settings it easily peaks at 85+ degrees Celsius)