Intel i7 2600k

Hi,
I am not sure how to overclock this guy, i am using a Gigabyte H67M-D2-B3.
Great old school bios, reminds me of my AMD board.....easier to OC.
I dont really know how to , this one...

I was thinking to maybe even sell this CPU, but not sure what i can sell it for and then of course what replacement i can get.
Is an i3 a goo choice, since it uses less power?
Not sure what performance it has though.

The i7-2600k is still a perfectly viable chip for most workloads and gaming. There should be a 42x multiplier that is available to select (due to the turbo core 38x multi + 4 extra that were standard on that generation of CPU). If I recall correctly, all 1155 motherboards could "OC" the chip to the max multi + 4 regardless of lockdown for higher multipliers (this was done to encourage serious overclockers to purchase true overclocking motherboards like the P67 or later the Z68/Z77) though some manufacturers gave you the flexibility to OC even in their lower-end motherboard BIOS.

The next step is to raise the voltage to a point of stability. Take your pick for application to perform your stress test. I used Prime95 on my 2600 and 2600k back when I had each. Let it run a CPU-intensive torture test for 8 hours or so if you want a ballpark estimate of stability. I know people that would go 24 - 48 hours on Prime95 torture tests before claiming stability. Really, that part is up to you.

The maximum safe voltage for Sandy Bridge CPUs was 1.35v for 24/7 reliability, if I recall correctly. Theoretically, you should be able to push 1.4v, as long as you can dissipate the heat. There is no BCLK overclocking for Sandy Bridge. You might get lucky and see a 5 MHz boost. I had a friend that felt like he won the lottery because he got a golden board that let him go up by 8 or 10 MHz on BCLK. None of the motherboards I had would let me raise it at all without crashing the system.

I would not downgrade to an i3, especially if you are thinking about overclocking. There was no i3 that you could overclock on LGA 1155 and the LGA 1151 i3 that you can overclock will only give you higher single-threaded performance than your i7, while losing in pretty much every other way.

I have yet to see a 2600k that couldn't pull off the full 42x multi with only a minor voltage bump. My last 2600k did 40x on all cores with no voltage bump. I could get it to POST at 50x on my z77 motherboard, but I never had the time to fiddle with it to make it stable at 5 GHz. Regardless, 4.5 GHz on a 2600k, if your chip will do it (the majority of them probably will with the right motherboard) should make you happy for quite a while longer.

Sadly even if the 2600K is a unlocked CPU that motherboard doesn't support any kind of CPU overclock, they feature GPU overclock but still that's worthless in any case. so in order to overclock you will need another motherboard, you have a highly valuable CPU There if it wasn't ever overclocked, lot of OC'ers and or nostagilc guys should be willing to pay a good price for it..

avoid i3s at any cost unless you are only planing to do light work with that machine. if you want to keep things cheap go with an AMD Ryzen Build as at the price it offer, IMO it destroy anything that have in the market. if you want to stay intel and you are planing to keep the machine for a long time with gaming as focus then i7 7700k would be my only choice as minimum.

MrCaffeineX said:

The i7-2600k is still a perfectly viable chip for most workloads and gaming. There should be a 42x multiplier that is available to select (due to the turbo core 38x multi + 4 extra that were standard on that generation of CPU). If I recall correctly, all 1155 motherboards could "OC" the chip to the max multi + 4 regardless of lockdown for higher multipliers (this was done to encourage serious overclockers to purchase true overclocking motherboards like the P67 or later the Z68/Z77) though some manufacturers gave you the flexibility to OC even in their lower-end motherboard BIOS.

Click to expand...

This was true only for locked CPUS "non-K" and overclocking capable motherboards, not vice-versa.

MrCaffeineX said:

The maximum safe voltage for Sandy Bridge CPUs was 1.35v for 24/7 reliability, if I recall correctly. Theoretically, you should be able to push 1.4v, as long as you can dissipate the heat. There is no BCLK overclocking for Sandy Bridge. You might get lucky and see a 5 MHz boost. I had a friend that felt like he won the lottery because he got a golden board that let him go up by 8 or 10 MHz on BCLK. None of the motherboards I had would let me raise it at all without crashing the system

Maximum safe voltage for sandy was in the range of 1.49V - 1.50V. 1.45V it's still perfectly safe, and still some guys out there are using fixed 1.5v 24/7 without any major degradation.

MrCaffeineX said:

I have yet to see a 2600k that couldn't pull of the full 42x multi with only a minor voltage bump. My last 2600k did 40x on all cores with no voltage bump. I could get it to POST at 50x on my z77 motherboard, but I never had the time to fiddle with it to make it stable at 5 GHz. Regardless, 4.5 GHz on a 2600k, if your chip will do it (the majority of them probably will with the right motherboard) should make you happy for quite a while longer.

Click to expand...

yeah, sandy bridge were so good that it able to overclock to around 4.2ghz even undervolted. 4.5ghz ít's almost guaranteed for any 2600K and a decent board.

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

Araxie said:

Sadly even if the 2600K is a unlocked CPU that motherboard doesn't support any kind of CPU overclock, they feature GPU overclock but still that's worthless in any case. so in order to overclock you will need another motherboard, you have a highly valuable CPU There if it wasn't ever overclocked, lot of OC'ers and or nostagilc guys should be willing to pay a good price for it..

avoid i3s at any cost unless you are only planing to do light work with that machine. if you want to keep things cheap go with an AMD Ryzen Build as at the price it offer, IMO it destroy anything that have in the market. if you want to stay intel and you are planing to keep the machine for a long time with gaming as focus then i7 7700k would be my only choice as minimum.



This was true only for locked CPUS "non-K" and overclocking capable motherboards, not vice-versa.

Click to expand...

That makes sense. It has been a few years since I had a Sandy Bridge rig. I still thought that some of the non-P/Z series motherboards allowed OC by multiplier and that was why Intel strong-armed several manufacturers into editing their BIOS/UEFI to stop that function.

or buy a used P67/Z77 board off forums. I'd do that before selling that cpu and getting an i3 combo that doesn't oc
an oc'd 2600k would be better in most things than a non oc'd cheaper i3 and cheapo mobo

There was a time not too long ago you could get an Intel Z77 board for $50 or so off eBay. Based on the search I did a moment ago, that time is past and everyone thinks the exact same boards are worth $100+ now.

silent-circuit said:

There was a time not too long ago you could get an Intel Z77 board for $50 or so off eBay. Based on the search I did a moment ago, that time is past and everyone thinks the exact same boards are worth $100+ now.

Click to expand...

they have been that way for a while now, i would know as i had been watching the prices as one function after another failed on my old z68 board. Kyle fixed that problem for me

but yes the z68/z77 mobos have been hovering between 75-125$ a pop for the last two years. thats what happens when the CPU is still valid, but Intel has aged out the chipsets

Araxie said:

Sadly even if the 2600K is a unlocked CPU that motherboard doesn't support any kind of CPU overclock, they feature GPU overclock but still that's worthless in any case. so in order to overclock you will need another motherboard, you have a highly valuable CPU There if it wasn't ever overclocked, lot of OC'ers and or nostagilc guys should be willing to pay a good price for it..

avoid i3s at any cost unless you are only planing to do light work with that machine. if you want to keep things cheap go with an AMD Ryzen Build as at the price it offer, IMO it destroy anything that have in the market. if you want to stay intel and you are planing to keep the machine for a long time with gaming as focus then i7 7700k would be my only choice as minimum.

This was true only for locked CPUS "non-K" and overclocking capable motherboards, not vice-versa.

Click to expand...

Good thing it has never been overclocked before.

Neither Intel nor AMD have given me a reason to upgrade my overclocked 2500K. Save your money buy a used z68 board and keep rocking it until it dies, cuz that is the only reason you would need to buy a new rig.

WildMonkey said:

Neither Intel nor AMD have given me a reason to upgrade my overclocked 2500K. Save your money buy a used z68 board and keep rocking it until it dies, cuz that is the only reason you would need to buy a new rig.

Click to expand...

As a former owner of a 5ghz 2500k I felt the same way for a while until I got a 5ghz 4790k....there was a enough of a minimum frame rate difference to make me realize what I was missing. But that was for gaming and I have no idea what you use your pc for so it might not even apply to you.

MrCaffeineX is pretty much spot on in my experience with this CPU. I have a very good chip that can hold 5 giggles at 1.4v steady but is heat throttled at that point. Pushing to 5.1 or > 1.4v is beyond my Noctua cooler. If Coffee Lake really does bless us with a 6c/12t LGA 1151 and my board/CPU haven't sold, I'm going to set up a chiller and see how high I can take 'er until she's no longer Prime stable.

trentchau said:

As a former owner of a 5ghz 2500k I felt the same way for a while until I got a 5ghz 4790k....there was a enough of a minimum frame rate difference to make me realize what I was missing. But that was for gaming and I have no idea what you use your pc for so it might not even apply to you.

Click to expand...

How did you guys managed a 5khz 4790k?
About 2 years ago, I upgraded from a 2600k to a 4790k and find overclocking ability on the haswell--- abysmal.
I live in a tropical city so it is pretty much summer all year round, and with a seidon 240, I managed 4.2Ghz stable with Intel burn test max at 72C
For 4790k, running on stock clock with Cosair 100i, this shit hits 77C with Intel Burn test. This alone makes me unwilling to do any overclocking at all.

socialjazz said:

How did you guys managed a 5khz 4790k?
About 2 years ago, I upgraded from a 2600k to a 4790k and find overclocking ability on the haswell--- abysmal.
I live in a tropical city so it is pretty much summer all year round, and with a seidon 240, I managed 4.2Ghz stable with Intel burn test max at 72C
For 4790k, running on stock clock with Cosair 100i, this shit hits 77C with Intel Burn test. This alone makes me unwilling to do any overclocking at all.

Click to expand...

If you de-lid you can expect a 10 to 20 degree drop in load temps on a Haswell. That's your limiting factor.

socialjazz said:

How did you guys managed a 5khz 4790k?
About 2 years ago, I upgraded from a 2600k to a 4790k and find overclocking ability on the haswell--- abysmal.
I live in a tropical city so it is pretty much summer all year round, and with a seidon 240, I managed 4.2Ghz stable with Intel burn test max at 72C
For 4790k, running on stock clock with Cosair 100i, this shit hits 77C with Intel Burn test. This alone makes me unwilling to do any overclocking at all.

Click to expand...

GlacierNine said:

If you de-lid you can expect a 10 to 20 degree drop in load temps on a Haswell. That's your limiting factor.

Click to expand...

Possibly also just the chip also. I wouldn't dare say mine was the common result you can get with Haswell where to my understanding it's a lot more common to see 5ghz on the 2500k. But I also only had the 4790k for a year before I replaced it with a 5930k and I spent most of my gaming time, etc in the winter here in georgia which is pretty far from the tropics.