Upgrading - Future Proof Gaming CPU?!

If your i5 is working fine, you should wait and maybe on a sale or something you can upgrade to an i7, but I'd consider what you want to play, i.e.: is there a CPU bottleneck or not.

Well if you are looking CPU for gaming go with Intel i7 7700K , if you are editing,rendering or etc go with AMD.

sticking to your current one and wait comes down to the same thing.

Clock speed means jack shit. I built a mini-PC for my folks that has a 1.4 GHz CPU in it that outperforms our old 4.0 GHz Pentium 4. By a lot. And I mean a LOT.
Clock speeds stopped being an indicator of anything like… 7 years ago by now?

If you have games where you regularly see your CPU at 90-100%, then you should replace it. Unless you only play Arma which is infamous for having one of the worst coding jobs on the planet, your current one should stay in the 70-80% range in most any current releases… at worst cases.

If you really want to spend money, then the Ryzen right now seems to be a slightly better in price/performance. But not by a whole lot.
As for future-proofing, it cannot be said. Some say multi-thread is the near future, so Ryzen should shine. But if you play, games that can actually utilise more than two threads (cores) are still quite rare; those that can understand the concept of more than four are practically unheard of (it is still GTA V they test for this, because, well, not many else exist).

For short term kicks, go 7700K. If you're in it for the long haul, go Ryzen (edit: or rather, go AM4).

I'd lean towards fewer cores with more oomph if you're just gaming. I've noticed that most games only bother to multi-thread across two of my cores, very rarely will I see 4 of them active at once. and I don't think I've ever seen all 6 being used, and especially not for games. Over all though, I wouldn't spend too too much on a CPU unless your current one feels like it's on its last legs. your GPU is the main defining factor for game performance.

Forgot to say, don't buy a 1080Ti just yet. Vega will be released by June. Not saying it will be the best, but it's at least worth waiting for reviews.

Been using the same CPU for a few years now. I've since had two GPUs (the current being a GTX 970 SSC). Just loaded up Yooka-Laylee the other day, put it at 4K Max settings and found that my GPU is currently my bottleneck.

In short, my i5-2300 from 2011 is still serving me well. Only upgrade when you need to!

I'm still running a 3570K at 4.2Ghz (1.21v) and probably won't upgrade for another 2 years. I may bump the speed, but I didn't get the best chip and it requires a decent voltage. I am still running a GTX 580 though. I will probably do a GPU upgrade within the next year. I would say whether or not you should upgrade your CPU depends on what GPU you are running. I would guess if your GPU is slower than a GTX 1060, I would not upgrade your CPU yet. If you are running a faster GPU, your current CPU will probably be a bottleneck in modern games that are demanding.

If you can get a 6700K at a decent price, I'd go with that. This way, you're at least in the latest architecture and can upgrade later if you'd like.

Future proof ? Then skip 4 Cores.

Btw, for future proofing if you go with something new you should take a look at the platform not necessarily the CPU.

AM4 might be a future proof platform if the rumors are true with an upcoming 16 Cores CPU. You could get a "cheap" Ryzen 1600 or 1700 (Note that i skipped the X version as you mentionned Overclocking) that will already last long enough and then maybe upgrade for those new Ryzen 9(?) CPUs.

On the other hand, it might be better to hold until June 16th and see how it goes for the new Intel's CPUs.

I myself use i5 3470 @ 4Ghz Turbo 4.2Ghz

http://www.passmark.com/baselines/V9/display.php?id=78080349068
single cpu 2329 / multi 8690

If any game do not force me earlier next CPU I probably buy around 2020+ 7nm AMD CPUs :)

Your CPU is fine, don't waste your money. If you HAD to get a new one it would be i7 for gaming, Ryzen 7 for editing/3d work.

you got an SSD?
a better gpu is more important. imo.

The Ryzen 5 1600X is better for gaming than the 1700 and is cheaper.

In general I'd say that you should wait with your current CPU unless it's a real bottleneck in games you play.

As others have said, you should wait a little, your current CPU is powerful enough to play every single game, you may see some little FPS drops in most modern games but in my oppinion loosing 2 or 3 fps do not justify buying a new CPU, prices will drop and you'll get better deals in a 6 months period.

are you having problems with your current system? if not, upgrading is useless.

I have the exactly same CPU and was thinking about this as well. I decided to keep the CPU, motherboard, PSU, HDDs, SSD and case (for now). I will buy 8 more gigs of RAM (so increase from 8 to 16), swap my GTX 670 for GTX 1060 6GB and overclock the CPU to 4 - 4,2 GHz (to be safe and to keep some room for future). This should last me for another 3 years at least without having to do anything.

only change your hardware went you need more power, otherwise is like changing from a 2016 car to a 2017 car from the same brand, you only will pay more for the same thing

I have the exact same CPU as your current one. OC'd the same as well. I have not found it to be a limitation yet.

To future-proof, don't buy until necessary.

Just keep your current intel, it is a good CPU.

The AMD cpu may perform worse in some games anyways as it requires games to be optimized to use 4+ cores. (This is the reason why source engine games always perform better on intel. The engine is designed to be used on only ONE thread.. and therefor the better single core performance cpu (intel approach) will perform better).

I'm not biased either. I refurbished PCs for a living for a few years and this proved to be the case after benchmarking at least 100+ cpus..

What's your current GPU? And what resolution do you plan gaming at?