Quick Simple Question

[Reem]

Am I right in saying that if a game only uses 2 cores then a four core Intel Core i7 2700K at 4.8GHz (less expensive) will make the game run faster than a six core Intel Core i7 3960X at 4.2GHz (more expensive).

[Djinni]

In theory yes.
In practice it really depends on what background programs you are using, since if you use a lot of CPU intensive programs/applications you will benefit more from being able to shift them onto other core's.

Also to my understanding, the 2700k is just a cherrypicked 2600k set at a higher clock speed. (Regardless pretty much all i5-2500k and i7-2600k chips have a go to speed of 4.0GHz without having to adjust the voltage. Assuming you are comfortable OC'ing it yourself.)

[Djinni]

Also if your only going to be gaming your just as well off with the i5-2500k (or its IvyBridge equivalent) very few games gain anything from Hyperthreading.

[Reem]

Ah thanks for that, so what sort of performance difference will there be from 4.2GHz to 4.8GHz, in terms of FPS?

[Djinni]

Assuming you have a half decent GPU too, you will already max out most games to a pretty solid 60 FPS at stock, the differences will mostly only be seen in environments with 16+ other players being rendered at a time. Can't say I've bothered testing the differences in any game other than World of Warcraft.

[Mike]

That would totally depend on what you're doing. If you're gaming then not much as 4.2GHz is more than enough for any game currently on the market and games (and many apps) use a combination of CPU, graphics card, RAM, and HDD - not just CPU.
If you're folding, editing, etc then you may see a boost. TBH I wouldn't bother OC'ing to that apart for possible boasting rights .

Don't forget that i5/i7 CPUs will auto-overclock themselves anyway if not all of their cores are being used - which is the case when gaming for the most part
As an example: my i7 2600K goes from 3.4GHz to 3.7GHz.