Processor version
 

Finally I can afford a new pc. I have no need for portability so I want a desktop.
In earlier times I would purchase the fastest processor I could for future proofing.
So should I go for I3, I5 orI7?
I surf, download TV virtually nightly (which I know is governed by my connection) mail, play games notably Flight Sim, and do some video editing.
I am leaning to I5 being adequate but value opinions please.

Most likely i3. ARK | Compare Intel® Products What's your current unit and which task is it too slow for?

Since you mention the "video" word, if you're using integrated graphics, perhaps the biggest consideration would be to choose a CPU that has 530 graphics rather than 4600/4000/2500 series and older. So 6th-gen of either series.

Personally, I'd go with I5 simply because the pricing in a desktop can be very similar but you get 4 cores instead of 2 and the same power consumption. But i3 processors also get the job done.

Needs must at the time I bought I had no funds so all I have is a 250€ Acer lappy with a celeronT3500 full of memory at 4Gb as that is all the board will take. It is not keen on Video or photo processing.
I lean towards I5 and probably a graphics card as opposed to integrated graphics. My provider consistently talks me out of I7. He has worries about cooling.

Your provider sounds like an honest man. Stick to his advice. Do you really need four thereads to four cores, or would four threads to two cores suffice?

Of course, there's the difference between "need" <> "could put to a good use" <> "want". E.g. sinners like me often WANT things ;)

PM if you wish.

PS: What's the need for dedicated graphics card? Bear in mind, that anything less than GTX 750 Ti provides little benefit over what's already on the chip.

Cooling an i7: I dunno. The TDP for almost-the-best i3, i5 and i7 CPUs is the same at 65W.

Bushfiva's correct. ARK | Compare Intel® Products

Still, with 150 USD more per CPU there's less performance per single-core compared to i3. I'd use those extra $$ for an SSD and a better monitor.

For encoding video, there is only one component that counts: that's the CPU. Get as fast as you can afford to reduce encoding times. A dedicated graphics card will help a lot with decoding video files while you are editing. Also, heaps of RAM: 8gb at least.

Ah, I thought I'd stop before going into too much detail, but the above is wrong re the CPU. For example, with Adobe products, you need a GPU that is supported by Adobe (most are), and you need to make sure the VRAM is comfortably larger than a frame plus lots of overheads that the Adobe site can tell you about. At that point, the software will offload video transforms to the GPU. I don't know about recent versions, but until about a year ago, if the GPU failed to cope with any frame, the load would be dropped back to the CPU for the rest of the job: it couldn't go back to the GPU..

When we're rendering, doing it in the GPU is about 50-200 times faster than the CPU: there's absolutely no comparison. But we're suddenly getting so far away from the original question.

Blender has something similar. ON NVidia you would look for CUDA support (everything from GTX 4xx onwards) and on AMD you would check for OpenCL support on GCN (which is HD, er, 7000 and above, with exceptions.)

But anyway, for the home user with home video, everything works, it may just take time. But for much video work, an extra $150 on a GPU does more than $150 on a CPU.

I think that for mixed home PC use the i5 is hard to beat for price / performance.

I recently upgraded one of my (self-built) desktops to an i5 6500 (socket 1151) on an Asus Z-170K mobo, with 8GB of DDR4 RAM, a 250GB Samsung SSD and a Geforce GTX750ti graphics card with 2GB of GDDR5 RAM.

Goes like stink, Win 7 experience index is 7.9 (max) for all bar the graphics (7.6) - there are better cards out there, but for price / performance it seems pretty good - and it does very well in various benchmark applications that I've run. I get no problems in running HD video full screen, and with the mild game play that it's used for it doesn't break sweat.

Including replacing IDE DVD RW drives with SATA ones (and a USB 3.0 front panel adapter), it cost just under £430 - but then I was re-using the case, PSU (newish anyway) and storage HDDs.

SD

About 5 years ago I built an i7 2600K system with 8GB ram a 6870 video card and all the rest including a 1TB HDD for about £800. I have only added a 240GB SSD and changed the video card for a newer one about 18 months ago. Still very fast with no problems after over 5 years. Guess you pays your money.....

Smart choice. And 5 years later? You can get 15% more performance for 15% less money. UserBenchmark: Intel Core i7-2600K vs i7-6700K

Viva la marketing!

Depends.

Heavy graphics/gaming best an i5/i7 with a decent video card, with light gaming I would lean towards an i5 with integrated HD graphics that can play most games and provide decent graphics performance.

You can always use an i5 with integrated graphics and later add a Video card of course.

Performance difference between i5/i7 not huge for much of the line until you get into megabucks.

That said I use a Quad Core 8-thread 4th Gen i7 at work and much of the time all threads are at 100% (heavy Java VM execution) and fan is active ))

Well I have decided on I5 with integrated graphics, an SSD for the system and to bump the 8gb ram up to 16gb initially. the board will take 32gb but I will see. I expect that after 10 years when all I have had is a celeron powered lap top I am going to be impressed - but not too much, there are rules.

It will be a huge difference, and you've probably found yourself a sweet spot.

I have 32GB in my gaming/video editing PC, and it's total overkill right now. The only real benefit is that the second time I load a game in the same session it's at least twice as fast because all the files are cached in RAM.

I only loaded it up to the max because RAM was cheap at the time.

My i7 is also total overkill, as I rarely see games use more than 30% of it. Only video and 3D graphics rendering can really get close to maxing it out.

I5 will be fine for your needs ideally with the OS on an SSD, and maybe a 2nd HDD for your data.

What I have ordered is an I5 @3.3, 1Tb HDD, 250Gb SSD initially with 8gb RAM, which I plan todouble.
Question how much space does W10 take on the SSD ?

My Windows directory takes up 18.4GB.

Allow plenty of room for expansion - I would suggest 40-50GB for the Windows directory itself, because there will be vast amounts of updates, etc. that will fill it up over time.

SD