Ordering parts for PC but stuck on what CPU to buy.

So my PC's cpu is fried and since i was rocking a 660 i figure its time to all out. Well, not all out but its time to splurge some.

I have everything picked out except the CPU and this is where my budget comes in play. I can either go with a i5 4670 and a GTX 980 or a i7 4770k and a GTX 970. I know it's easier to replace a video card but is a i7 really that necessary? if i go with a i5 am i good for a couple years? Or should i just get a 970 and i7 and maybe get a 980 or whatever new line comes out next year?

You will absolutely not experience a bottleneck with the top end i5 and single GTX 980. Get a GTX 980 whatever you do.

Awesome, i will go with the i5. I got a 128gb SSD drive along with a 2TB drive for storage because people keep telling me that the SSD drive is great for booting up windows and key programs.

The Intel Haswell (4th generation core cpu-s) are really nice, they run super cold so you won't hear the CPU fan that much or at all. As some people already said any Core + i5 will do the trick nicely.

@brandino: i7s are absolutely not necessary if your main concern is gaming performance. They can actually hamper performance in some cases where games interact poorly with the hyperthreading.

What resolution are you hoping to play at? I would guess that in 99% of cases the 980 is unnecessary, and you'd be served just as well by a 970. You could put the money saved towards a bigger ssd (128gb is really too small).

@brandino: For the best performance right now, the i5+980 combo will provide you with better value; I still recommend that you get the i7 and 970 combo though. A year ago an i5 was all you need because games were released on engines built for the previous consoles that ran a 3-core CPU (xbox 360), but unfortunately an i5 is only 4-cores and both new consoles are 8-core systems. I am positive that game engines are now being designed from the ground up with the idea that it will be run on an 8-core machine. Just look at the recent game releases that actually have 8-core CPU's as their recommended CPU's now, it's bad enough that most PC threads on this site are, "Look at how crazy the system requirements of this game are, this must be a bad port." Unfortunately those are not bad ports, that's just the new norm for system requirements.

@monetarydread: It's not even that they're bad ports, it's that the recommended specs often have only a tenuous connection to reality. Shadow of mordor, for example, most definitely does not require an i7 to get the best performance. It's never dropped below 60 for me, and I struggle to imagine how the i7 could possibly improve the experience.

People have been saying that multiple cores would be necessary for gaming for years, and yet a decent dual core i3 can still outperform an 8 core FX 8350.

If and when games demonstrably start making good use of multiple cores, it might be time to reconsider. Til then i5s are the best option for even the highest end of gaming rigs.

@brandino: Hold off for a few months, Intel HAS to be releasing new processors soon

@joebigfoot: Mobile and low power broadwell chips will be available soon. Unlocked desktop i5s won't be available until Q2 next year, by which time Skylake will be just around the corner. Intel's release schedule means it's never really a good time to buy, unfortunately.

The i5 4670K and the i7 4770K are virtually identical except that the i7 has hyperthreading and a larger cache. Unless you are doing some crazy CPU intensive work, the i5 will be more than sufficient for anything you can throw at it. I went through the same debate as you about a year ago and spent the extra money on a quality motherboard which is one area that people should not skimp on.

It's like what people have already said. The i7 does multitasking way better because of the hyperthreading, but it doesn't help gaming performance.