Truly, when you are buying a new computer, the processor ain't really the part you want to cheap out on. Any gamer would want a computer that can do several things at once, and do it without lagging severely and giveyou trouble. Something tells me gamers don't sit at their computers with only one game on and leave the computer once they are done with that game.
Besides, for a big one-time expense for a computer, those extra 100$ should barely be noticed in comparison to the rest of the rig.
Needed: Sure not. An i5 works fine. Recommended: Anytime, unless you'll have to live on instant-ramen for weeks because of it.
You make it sound like an i5 can only handle playing a game and nothing else. I run two minecraft servers, no less than 10 tabs open, 1080p youtube stuff, while having sometimes two games (Like WoW and Deadspace 2 or Borderlands 2) at the same time... And an i5 runs flawlessly. So no, that extra $100 would have been wasted on pretty much anyone who isn't streaming or recording.
I can do all of that on my i7, stream games at the same time using multi threaded streamers, then go and edit and encode / decode those movies alot faster than you, then i can .zip it up or .unzip it up alot quicker than you too all while my game is running smoother than yours.
All that for a measly extra $100.
Just saying ^^
I have a i5 and my brother has the i7...so happy I didn't spend the extra cash just so I can say I did.
You're under the impression that hyperthreading "trounces" all over an i5 in heavily threaded tasks. It doesn't. It's a minimal improvement.
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/551?vs=701
i7-4770k - GTX 780 Ti - 16GB DDR3 Ripjaws - (2) HyperX 120s / Vertex 3 120
ASRock Extreme3 - Sennheiser Momentums - Xonar DG - EVGA Supernova 650G - Corsair H80i
build pics
The i7 is superior for many tasks, that's true. However, the i5 is equal to an i7 in 95% of all tasks out there. If you are a professional user and do a bit of rendering etc. then of course, you aren't looking for an i5. If you are a normal user that games and run a few light programs in addition to games, you aren't looking for an i7. If budget is of no concern I cannot see a reason not to get an i7 cause it will give you 1-2 fps extra etc. and it will give you a better performance should you want to render or compress/encode etc. If on a budget, there is no way you can justify an i7 over say, a better gpu/HDD/SSD/whatever.