Best bang-for-my-buck proccessor?

Question

I first want to start off saying that this is not at all based on opinions, and in fact I do not want your opinions. What I want are cold hard screenshots and facts, that will show me which type of processor to get, and which will perform the best for the price I pay. This question relates to my previous question, where it was determined that a new processor would help with the lag. You can check that question for my specs. but incase of deletion for any reason, they are also here:

Now I was chatting with the OP who helped me solve the issue, and he said that Dual Core w/Hyper Threading would give me the best performance, but chatting with others, they said that hyper-threading didn't do much. So for what I want to do (Have multiple very heavy processes running at the same time) which would be better? Quad Core, or Dual Core w/Threading? After that, it's also a question of how much I would need to spend to get said processor. I was looking at the Intel Core i7-6700 and from the articles I have been reading, I think that it is compatible with my motherboard, but I'm not 100% positive. And after that, an article I read said that it was not as powerful as some other processors out there. Again. No opinions. Just facts. If you have any insight, I would appreciate it.

Answer 1

Firstly:

You have a Pentium G3258 which is in the Haswell family, socket 1150. i7-6700 is Skylake with socket 1151. You CANNOT put Skylake into a Haswell board.

So the equivalent Haswell is i7-4790.

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Secondly

Your motherboard is an ASRock Z87 Extreme4 which will support a high-end CPU no problem.

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Thirdly

You need to make sure your PSU can handle a full workload from a high-end CPU for an extended period of time. If you have a 300-watt bronze certified or better PSU then you should be good.

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Fourthly

I see you have an R7 250x gpu; reference Thirdly and get a 400 watt or better.

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If you need further validation for deciding between dual-core hyperthreaded CPU versus true quad core then check this out: Single Threaded Qaud Core v.s Hyper-Threading Dual Core.

As for getting bang-for-your-buck you will need to evaluate the processor options at today's prices considering your needs.

How I recommend going about this

Tell me: What is your expected workload? You mention:

Have multiple very heavy processes running at the same time

But unfortunately it's not enough info.

Example scenario - you plan to run 2 processes which take up 100% of one core each

Great, look at the single-threaded performance at https://www.cpubenchmark.net/singleThread.html and you will see that the i7-4790 ($310) performs almost the same as the G3258 ($70)... dafuq?

That benchmark might not make good use of the cache which the i7-4790 (8MB) brings to the table. As soon as you load up a process which is cache-heavy then the i7 will outshine the G3258 (3MB) by lightyears. Once again, what is your expected workload?

Anyways, say you go with the G3258 and you max it out with 2 processes. Did you plan on using your computer for web browsing while the processes are running? If so then you will have a bad time. Your OS and anything else you ask your OS to do now has to compete with those two processes.

I would recommend a true quad-core so that you can do other things.

You can apply this same logic and keep scaling upwards until you find the right processor for the job.

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Per your comment.

Upgrading to an i3 MIGHT solve your issue.

Something more sensible like an i5-4460 WILL solve your issue.

I see ZERO reason to go for a $300+ i7-anything

Answer 2

On Intel, with the average, each hyperthread in a core gives about 15% improvement in processing. So, two cores each with a hyperthread will give you about 30% of one full core. And for it to be effective an application must be multi-threaded to even use it. If you have the budget choose a quad-core without hyperthreading over a dual core with hyperthreading. If you are going to be using older applications, single-threaded ones, then no matter how many cores, it will only use one, you have then go for a higher clock as that will make the largest difference.