2500 i5 Vs. 2600 i7

P

PolygonGTC

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
Jan 6, 2006
Messages
1,791
I'm thinking of upgrading from my i7 860 to a Sandybridge. Mostly what I care about is encoding video. My question is should I go with the i5 or am I going to see enough of an increase to warrant spending $90 more on the i7?
 
If you are doing a lot of video encoding then the extra $90 is probably worth it - for games, not so much.
 
I have both K processors and I cant tell a difference in games. The 2600K is definitely faster by a margin than the 2500 in video compression/conversion etc.... but games they are almost the same to me.

All depends on your needs. Also you can save coin by going with the non-k versions if you are absolutely sure you dont want to overclock. And you also gain extra VM support from the non K chips if you were ever even concerned about that.
 
If your main concern is editing video, then the i7 is worth the upgrade, that's the kind of usage where the difference between the i5 and i7 will really be noticeable.
 
tangoseal said:
All depends on your needs. Also you can save coin by going with the non-k versions if you are absolutely sure you dont want to overclock. And you also gain extra VM support from the non K chips if you were ever even concerned about that.
Click to expand...

Actually, none of the non-K CPUs are permanently locked to stock speeds. Rather, the non-K CPUs allow a limited amount of overclocking (up to about 400MHz above the stock Turbo Boost frequency) on motherboards that can access the restricted multiplier settings. Thus, the maximum clock speed of the plain i7-2600 with all four cores in use is 3.5GHz or 3.9GHz, depending on the motherboard and chipset.
 
The 2600k has more cache and gets better performance in games that are CPU hungry, about 10% or so. I don't really think that is worth $90 extra for gaming and overclocking the 2500k will help immensely. For media the 2600k is the choice if you need it done a few minutes quicker.
 
I would take a look at QuickSync as well. The only problem being that you would need to bypass the discrete GPU if you have one on an H67 motherboard (P67 cannot use it at all). The option of waiting for Z68 is also there if you wish to utilize QuickSync as that one will allow you to overclock, use QuickSync, and a discrete graphics card.

If you don't see a use for QuickSync, I would get the i7 and go from there but its just something to think about.
 
By the time 2500K gets outdated, the 2600K will be outdated also.
 
Thanks for the input. Looks like I'm just going to get the i7. I'm getting P67 mobo so no QuickSync, but that's all right as I do all my encoding with HandBrake and transcoding with MediaCoder. Also, I have no real interest in OC so I'm not going to get the K either.

Thanks for all the input everyone.
 
PolygonGTC said:
Thanks for the input. Looks like I'm just going to get the i7. I'm getting P67 mobo so no QuickSync, but that's all right as I do all my encoding with HandBrake and transcoding with MediaCoder. Also, I have no real interest in OC so I'm not going to get the K either.

Thanks for all the input everyone.
Click to expand...

Not to get off-topic, but is MediaCoder better than Handbrake for transcoding for some reason? I've always used Handbrake to transcode, just wondering if I should switch.
 
Forceman said:
Not to get off-topic, but is MediaCoder better than Handbrake for transcoding for some reason? I've always used Handbrake to transcode, just wondering if I should switch.
Click to expand...

Hmm. I've never used HandBrake to Transcode.....

The reason I've been using MediaCoder is I like it's interface and I can transcode from pretty much anything to something else.I don't know if HandBrake does, but MediaCoder also does audio as well.
 
The 2600k or nothing. You can only oc the 2600 by its turbo so 4ghz is the highest you will see. For the 2600k to shine in video editing you need to oc it to 4.5Ghz. But a balance system is very important in video editing not just the cpu. Pay particular attention to your disk setup. It can speed it up a big way
 
Spooony said:
The 2600k or nothing. You can only oc the 2600 by its turbo so 4ghz is the highest you will see. For the 2600k to shine in video editing you need to oc it to 4.5Ghz. But a balance system is very important in video editing not just the cpu. Pay particular attention to your disk setup. It can speed it up a big way
Click to expand...

You should read my post above. I don't care about over clocking.
 
Spooony said:
then you won't see much of a performance boost doing the upgrade
Click to expand...

If I were only playing games, then yeah, not really. However, the i5 beats my current i7 by about 30 FPS when encoding. I think I'll see the difference.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top