So I wanted to get a little more power into my PC since Skyrim is so CPU hungry. I also do a ton of Video editing and After Effects work so there is plenty of other good reasons for me to want to beef up my system as much as I can. So right now I have a Intel Core i7-2600s 2.80 GHz..
I was looking at what other CPUs would work on my mother board and it said:

Motherboard supports the following processor upgrades:
Core i3-2xxx/T dual core
Core i5-2xxx quad core
Core i3-2xxx dual core
Core i3-2xxx/T dual core

So I thought about looking into the i5-2600k 3.3 GHz.. I have the money to get this, but I was wondering how much better this would be?

Let me get this straight... You have an i7 and you are considering going backwards to an i5?

Hopefully this link works.

http://ark.intel.com/compare/52210,52215

In short by going to an i5 you might gain 500Mhz on the normal clock speed, however you lose 100Mhz on the turbo. You also lose hyper-threading.
So you go from 8 to 4 threads available, also a lose in cache memory. Thats a huge lose for your Video editting which can probably make use of that.
I'm not seeing the benefit, with both being around the 3Ghz mark is already quiet a good speed, but if you really want more I'd look into overclocking.
So I doubt Skyrim will see any benefit for changing to any of the suggested processors.

Dont waste your money Skyrim performance is 70% luck.

My case

Windows7 Ultimate 64
i7 2600k
2gtx580 / SLI
P8P67EVO B3 Motherboard
16gb RAM CORSAIR
Playing at 1080p
Last nvidia beta drivers and YES i used driversweeper.



No crashes ever, played 60 hours total so far. Longest stretch 4 hours.
No missing textures ever.
Horrible stuttering
13-50 outdoors ( Average 26 -23 or less)
50-60+ indoors
It doesn't happen to me with any other game (All 50+ fps even Crysis2 dx11 + texture patch) and i have done a few benchmarks ( 3D MARK11 , 3D MARK VANTAGE and HEAVENS ) all results seem normal.
I use Kaperskypure Pure(Antivirus) and CCleaner for computer maintenance I also defrag my HDD every month.
And yes i have tried to turn them off while playing.
No difference between using 2gb/4gb skyrim.exe

NO ini tweaks

OP has an S version chip, which is the low power varient. Going for an overclocking chip (K version) means you can overclock the CPU more easily, however even the S version runs at 3.8ghz in turbo, so your gains moving to another chip would be practically non-existant, unless you were overclocking significantly faster than this.

I have an overclocked i5 2500K and the performance leaves much to be desired as well.

Thanks guys. Yeah someone recommended the i5 2600k when I mentioned my specs in another thread.. I thought maybe the GHz was a big dea.. so much so that going to an i5 with 500 more GHz would somehow be better..

Guess not.. Actually I think I have the settings I want right not.. It's actually running pretty good. I have been tweaking a lot lately and I think I got it where I want it now.. I might look into over clocking my CPU just a tad, but I will save my money and not buy anything new.

Just a recommendation, without looking at the scenario you are in. Your current processor is actually pretty good. The i5 is only good over your current processor if you are prepared to overclock it alot.
Most people aren't prepared to go to those lengths. Otherwise the difference won't be that noticable to be worth spending the extra money. Knowing the rest of your PC might help out in another area.