Retro review: Core i7 2600K Tested in 2018 - Time to upgrade?

recommend me a good cooler?/ currently using one from a 775 Core 2 quad ...stays very cool with stock settings even under load...asrock CCO ...

Thanks Loop and sykozis ...Love you Guys!

 

Well I recommend the Noctua NH-D14 (I have that one), or NH-D15 - they're great coolers, better than some of the closed loop liquid coolers. When I have my 6700K at my 4.7Ghz 1.4V max overclock and run OCCT it loads it up to 130W, and it keeps it below 70 degC, and that's at only 900rpm on the CPU cooler fans (silent). (It is a liquid metal delidded CPU though). (Off topic post, but wanted to share my experience briefly)

 

@airbud7

NH-D15 is a huge ass cooler, with several compatibility issues. I would stay away from this one unless you REALLY need it/want it.

NH-D15S is better in compatibility regard. A safer choice. Although comes with only 1 fan, unlike D15 which comes with 2x.

NH-D14 should be fine as well. These are all beautiful coolers well worth every penny. Although they could be an overkill. depending on your setup/power/etc.

 

I was using the D15S with no issue on that motherboard. It truly is the best.

 

I own a 1080TI along with my 2600K, and I'm planning on purchasing a 1440P monitor soon.
I'm curious to how big the performance gap is between these processor at that resolution with a 1080TI. Looking at these charts, seems as though I shouldn't even bother upgrading my CPU, mobo and memory.

 

Why would you upgrade from sandybridge when the frames are well over 60? Consider you will be paying for a new system and possibly over 1000 pounds or dollars, just for a few extra frames. I can max out all games at 1080 with an overclocked i5 2500k. Until another ground breaking CPU hits the market I'm sticking with my 2500k.

I've had 2 CPU's in 12 years. Q6600 for five years and now, almost 7 years with my i5 2500k. I skipped the i7 920 (another beast) because the Q6600 was so effective. I think you are crazy to upgrade right now. I will probably wait for Ryzen 3 and Intel's competition before even considering an upgrade. I can rinse over 60 fps on what is considered a relic. I only wish I got a better graphics card than the RX 570. Should have got a 1070, oh well the extreme prices right now means a long wait.

I guess it depends on what games you play too.

 

Some gamers are on 144hz monitors. To get the smoothest experience they try to get stable 144fps.
As great Sandy Bridge is, in CPU heavy games like BF1, Dota2, etc... achieving 144fps is not an easy task for CPU.

For example I have 2500K@4.5GHz, GTX970 and I game on 1440p@96hz monitor.
You would think GTX970 gonna bottleneck hard, right?

Not really in my scenario. I just drop video settings to medium/high in Battlefield 4.
By drastically reducing load from GPU, now CPU have to carry stable 96fps... but it can't.
When idling in single player, CPU is stable with frames, but once I join heavy multiplayer, my 2500k have hard time keeping up.
I have CPU on maximum utilization and GPU is around 60%-80%.

That where 8700k and Ryzen (1600 and above) come in handy.
With more cores, they are less affected by heavy multiplayer action and high IPC boosts fps higher.
Sandy Bridge did brought golden age for CPUs and games took advantage of it.

 

Kudos to you and personally I applaud you. But...

If all consumers/tech enthusiasts/organizations etc were doing the same thing/following same principle, we would all still be "stuck" with 2500k/2600k processing power, same era tech and games quality etc, since nothing new would have been made available when there wouldnt be a need/reason/demand for it.


P.S: Wait a sec.. That's what Intel has been doing.

 

I switched from my 4.6Ghz 2600k to my 4.8Ghz 8700k for multiple reasons.
1: I wanted PCIe 3.0
2: I wanted faster storage (M.2 NVMe drives I have two of them in my new system)
3: I wanted to go to a smaller form factor
4: I wanted the faster USB spec all I had on my old system was two 3.0 ports (now almost all my ports are 3.0/3.1)
5: I am running a 144Hz monitor
6: I wanted a sh!t ton of RGB
7: my base system was 7 years old and the itch was too great.

 

I will wait for:

New CPU architecture (Intel or AMD)
PCIe 4.0
DDR5
8 Cores

 

What if... 12 Cores is the norm by then?

 

I'm still running the same motherboard! That by far is the most stable motherboard Asus have ever released!! I thought about upgrading to Ivy Bridge and I took a step back. Yes the CPU is slightly faster and yes I would unlock PCI-E 3 but Hilbert's review on the PCI-E bandwidth made me satisfied with PCI-E 2. I have a feeling I'm going to need to replace my H100 before I even think about going for 5GHz.

 

@Loophole35 ...Wow Brother! Thank you so much!




I think I can get by a few more years with this 2600k now! ...Proud member I am!

Thanks @Loophole35! and guru3d!

 

Enjoy it bro. The RAM is XMP 1600Mhz but the timings for 1866Mhz work flawlessly. Get a good cooler on it and have fun.

 

Still running my 2500K @ 4.2 GHz with an MSI GTX770 and playing BF1 on a 1080 monitor without any issues. Recently spec'd an upgraded system using the lowend Threadripper with mobo/ 32GB of DDR4 and a GTX1080. With a couple of M2 SSDs and support hardware it came to over 2 grand. Geez.

 

@airbud7 I´m using that same board. Zero clitches for me, working like a charm.

 

A very astute observation. My 2500K at 4.4 is speedy enough. And more than compensates for the incremental improvements in newer architectures up to Kaby Lake.
The reason to upgrade now just recently became something really tangible with the introduction of Zen and Intel's Coffee Lake response.
I have a feeling Intel has been holding back on us. We probably could have had hex core i5-i7 Haswell procs if AMD had been competitive then.

 

@Hilbert Hagedoorn , did you manage to get hold of that board so you could update this article with OC results, any results incoming?

 

If I had a $100 I could get a Asus P7P55D-E Pro with a 2600k and 8GB DDR3 1600, and I would ship the board to HH for a OC review.

But I am poor.