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

I don't usually comment on articles but I felt the need to do so here as this article was really eye opening. Seeing the 2600K hold its own at stock against 8700K at 2560x1440 is surprising and makes me think I should keep my Core i7 3930K @ 4.25GHz for a longer time. It has six cores and quad channel memory and I have PCIe 3.0 with my X79 board.

I was considering an upgrade to a 7900X or something similar but now I'm really thinking that money would be better kept in my pocket, incredibly revealing review.

 

2500K stock / 2x4 1600Mhz DDR3 / Nvidia GTX 770 4GB

Happy that i made an investment to last for so many years. For every day use and some gaming i really don't see a single reason to upgrade.
I see many people feel the same way.

I never thought it will last so long to upgrade but i really cant find a reason for at least the coming 2 years. 1400 euros for 8-9 years i call it a good investment.

 

Hence, my reluctance to upgrade my current crop of Intel CPU's which have been serving me well since....well, when I'd gotten them. I'm hanging on to my i7 2600K, i7 4770K and i7 3960X. I'd always advocated getting 4C/8T CPU's, during those times when many had said an i5 4C/4T would be enough.

 

Keep in mind its not even overclocked results. Sandy bridge 2500k and above k series can get up to 20% more performance with OC. 4.5GHz is managable with air cooling.

 

Heck yeah!! I just hope for that oh so coveted driver/update support for years to come and we should be in the clear for a few more years!!

 

From 2nd to the 7th generation we haven't see a great competition coming from AMD, hence the slow performance improvements on each series.

I have a Core i5 4670K, not a great overclocker but still can run @4.2GHz with air cooling with decent temperatures, and not a single time is the bottleneck of my computer.

Things might change from now on with AMD back on the field.

 

12 Sandy threads at 4.7GHz is nothing be ashamed of, even today

 

My almost 6 year old 3570k is doing OK. But the lack of threads is becoming evident in some titles.

I don't want to upgrade to a 3770k, because they're like 150€ at minimum. Which is absurd for a 4-6 year old used CPU.

So, waiting currently for the Ryzen Refresh, because that's the value proposition. Intel was a dead-end for upgrades, which was very dull after having been on AMD for the Phenom 2 era... and since the 3570k won't go higher than 4.3ghz without starting to crash, the performance will be much better.

 

Classic problem, that's why I didn't go for a Xeon on my X58 board.

 

Double post

 

I know right!?! I just want something comparable today from AMD.... I am crushing scores/benchmarks in comparison to today's processors and do not feel that lesser clocks of today can suffice in the proverbial "long run" like this old Sandy chip is doing.....

 

the old chips do great still, i reckon ill still be able to hold out on my 3770k@4.6ghz for another year yet, even after flashing my bios with spectre microcode im not seeing too much degradation. I dont mind waiting an extra second or two compared to the latest i7 providing my fps doesnt drop too below 60fps.

 

Well, I guess this article means I should really upgrade from my i7 990x OC'd to 4.0 Ghz and 1600 mem...

 

2500k running @ 4.5GHz / 1.25v. I do have a profile for 4.8GHz which is stable but I only ran it as a test to see what it was capable of. I think I have a chip good enough for 5GHz but I'm not ready to fry my 2500k just yet! I recently dropped 4x4GB in favour of 2x8GB to give more head room for overclocking for when I do decide to OC. Heck I need to replace my Corsair Hydro H100, that's been in there for 4 years and is still going strong, I must replace that before it starts to leak...

Until I find a game that my 2500k / GTX 1070 can't hack then I'll upgrade my CPU. The only reason for me to now upgrade it over just buying a new GPU would be because of these bitcoin miners.

 

Why? If it does all you need, then you are fine.

 

I had my old 2500k @ 4.5GHZ together with the H100 for years too running like a champ, i even managed to reach [5000.62 MHz (50 * 100.01 MHz) ] with that chip at one point with the P8Z68-V PRO GEN3 motherboard, however i couldn't do much in windows before i got the bluescreen. Now i've been on the 3770k @ 4.5GHz for well over a year still with the same old H100. The Sandy chip was and still is an awesome chip.

 

This reminds back in the days when peeps were asking for advice whether to go i5 or i7 SB (and basically non-HT CPU's vs HT CPU's), I'd advocated CPU's with HT, but I recall getting the same old refrain, "Why get a more expensive 4C/8T CPU when a 4C/4T CPU would get the job done? Besides, you can get better OC outta a 4C/4T CPU than a 4C/8T CPU". But no matter how awesome the OC on an i5, 4C/8T CPU's were simply more future-proofed. I may build a rig based on a Ryzen refresh, or perhaps a Ryzen 2 in the future, right now, I don't see the need to do anything.

 

So my 4770k @ 4.7ghz will be ok for a while..

Was just checking gamegpu newer games cpu scenarios, and the only obvious time it was a bit behind was in Crysis3, but they used stock 3.5GHz..



I think I will wait for DDR5, apparently with TigerLake, 10 or 11th gen..

 

If the ASRock Z77 Extreme4 I was using hadn't failed, I'd probably still be using that old i7 2600K instead of airbud having it.... <---I'm sure after reading that, he's probably happy the board failed though...lol

I don't regret my R5 1600 in the least though. I still consider it to be a worthy replacement.

 

He will be even happier tomorrow when the Z68 board I sent him gets there. BTW @airbud7 I think there may be a 4.6Ghz BIOS setting saved in there.