How much is the i7-2600K holding me back?

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jnick

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Myself and a bunch of my buddies all built rigs at the same time; 2011 when the i7-2600K was all the rage. The PC has been solid since then. The specs are in the sig but other than maybe some more Ram, it's held up with everything...

After getting married, buying a house, having a kid...I transitioned from PC gaming to console gaming just due to cost. However, with some newer titles coming out (Doom, BF1, etc) I'm contemplating on what it would take to get back in the game on the PC end.

With that said, I have:

i7-2600K @ 4.2
Asus P8P67-Pro
8GB Ram
256GB Samsung Pro SSD
750W PCP&C PSU (way back in the day!)

If I was to buy a card such as the GTX 970 or GTX 1070 when released...how much am I bottlenecking it due to the CPU? I currently game at 1080p. No desire for 4k anytime soon...maybe a new monitor at 1440p but that would be a while...

Thanks!
 
2600k? That's a Sandy Bridge CPU, most likely running on a P67 or Z67 chipset.

Well, I'd say the CPU is fine, but the P67/Z67 chipset is showing its age. I think you'll be fine with a single card, but if you want to run SLI, I'd upgrade for PCI-E 3.0. Running a card at PCI-E 2.0 x16 is like running one at PCI-E 3.0 x8... which is roughly the performance hit people take from SLI, barely enough to hurt the card's performance. But SLI would be a bad idea because then you're cutting that in half again.

Here's my little reference/cheat sheet...

Yorkfield/Core 2 Extreme -- You're really pushing it. Upgrade soon.
Gulftown/Core i? 9xx (1st gen) -- You're kind of pushing it. Upgrade when you have about $800.
Sandy Bridge/Core i? 2xxx (2nd gen) -- The CPU is fine, but the P67/Z68 chipset is showing its age.
Ivy Bridge/Core i? 3xxx (3rd gen) -- You're probably okay, although that could change any year now.
Haswell/Core i? 4xxx (4th gen) -- You're definitely okay, this processor is being used by OEMs in new computers.
Broadwell/Core i? 5xxx (5th gen) -- You're ahead of the curve, this is a fairly new architecture.
Skylake/Core i? 6xxx (6th gen) -- This is the newest architecture, and it will be until later this year.
 
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As someone running 980Ti SLI with a 2500K i5 at 4.5Ghz, you'll be fine. My numbers are usually within 1-2FPS of reviews with much newer PCIe 3.0 capable chips/boards, often even X99 setups with full 16x/16x PCIe 3.0. I've considered picking up a newer chip to enable PCIe 3.0, or selling the board/ram/CPU combo and going Skylake or X99, but it's just not worth the hassle and expense involved to gain 1-2FPS.

Now, to be clear, are there some titles where it would make a bigger difference? Yeah, as I understand GTA V would thrash my system if I started turning things way up... but I don't play it and have no desire to. So it's really down to what you want to do.
 
Only difference I noticed was my min fps. I went from 2500k to 6700k. Before it would drop to low mid 20s...now it doesn't drop below 60.
 
athenian200 said:
2600k? That's a Sandy Bridge CPU, most likely running on a P67 or Z67 chipset.

Well, I'd say the CPU is fine, but the P67/Z67 chipset is showing its age. I think you'll be fine with a single card, but if you want to run SLI, I'd upgrade for PCI-E 3.0. Running a card at PCI-E 2.0 x16 is like running one at PCI-E 3.0 x8... which is roughly the performance hit people take from SLI, barely enough to hurt the card's performance. But SLI would be a bad idea because then you're cutting that in half again.

Here's my little reference/cheat sheet...

Yorkfield/Core 2 Extreme -- You're really pushing it. Upgrade soon.
Gulftown/Core i? 9xx (1st gen) -- You're kind of pushing it. Upgrade when you have about $800.
Sandy Bridge/Core i? 2xxx (2nd gen) -- The CPU is fine, but the P67/Z67 chipset is showing its age.
Ivy Bridge/Core i? 3xxx (3rd gen) -- You're probably okay, although that could change any year now.
Haswell/Core i? 4xxx (4th gen) -- You're definitely okay, this processor is being used by OEMs in new computers.
Broadwell/Core i? 5xxx (5th gen) -- You're ahead of the curve, this is a fairly new architecture.
Skylake/Core i? 6xxx (6th gen) -- This is the newest architecture, and it will be until later this year.
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So you are recommending a new system for 5 maybe 10% increase in performance? really?

OP you are just fine about the only thing I'd do is getting 16gb of ram and that's about it.
 
Stoly said:
So you are recommending a new system for 5 maybe 10% increase in performance? really?
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No, I actually said he shouldn't upgrade if he's only running a single card. And the CPU isn't the issue, it's the PCI-E 2.0 thing, which is only a big deal if you're running SLI.

I said that Sandy Bridge is fine if you're NOT running SLI, and the OP seems to be saying that he isn't. So that means he doesn't need to upgrade.
 
...and I'm saying, as someone who's actually running SLI on a Sandy Bridge system, that it's fine for that too 90% of the time.

I'm still getting 60+ FPS in The Witcher 3 and Rise of the Tomb Raider at 3440x1440 with everything but motion blur (cause I hate it) on.
 
athenian200 said:
No, I actually said he shouldn't upgrade if he's only running a single card. And the CPU isn't the issue, it's the PCI-E 2.0 thing, which is only a big deal if you're running SLI.

I said that Sandy Bridge is fine if you're NOT running SLI, and the OP seems to be saying that he isn't. So that means he doesn't need to upgrade.
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Even if he was going SLI, he wouldn't need to upgrade.
 
Op, a clocked 2600K is still a great chip.
If you want minimum fps to be 60fps in all games, upgrade.
If you dont care that your fps drops a bit, keep what you have.

I upgraded from a 2500K to a 6600K because Project Cars was jerky when it dropped below 60fps due to being CPU limited.
This was an extreme case.
If you dont suffer in this manner dont upgrade.

You might as well get the new gfx card and see how you get on.
No point in jumping the gun.
 
There is a video on Youtube showing crysis 3 on a 387989734k or whatever the later quad cores were after our 2600k and a 5920 or 5930k. Sorry I can't find it or i'd link it.

The 59X0 has easy 12-15fps lead in almost every scene, especially busy ones.

So no, our 2600ks are not enough for a modern 1440p or up game to be absolutely maxed out, even when heavily clocked, when using the absolute top of the range GPU(s).

But that said, is 10-15FPS worth a 1-2k upgrade?

I'd wait for the new high end GPUs from both sides either mid or Q1 next year and jump then if you can't budget to just do it anyway now. As you'll then have the latest Intel xyzsuperduper storage solid state stuff compatible with the systems, which I think will be a huge boost if it's so tied to the CPU.. it's like a huge ram pool almost. Games out of ramdrives are amazing.. there is no comparison, so doing that for everything, would be wicked!

disclaimer- 4 hours sleep.
 
I suspect games going forward (dx12) will use that older cpu just fine. Get one of those new cards coming next month and your set
 
Digital Foundry recently investigated this and you definitely would see an improvement going from OC sandy bridge to even non-OC skylake with a modern GPU. Interestingly, RAM speed matters too-- "common knowledge" was that it didn't. There is a bottleneck at the extreme high-end.

Is it finally time to upgrade your Core i5 2500K?

This is the article that finally convinced me to upgrade my positively ancient i920 a couple months ago.
 
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A wealth of info here, thanks guys! Definitely not into SLI. I always only run one card...so that's no issue. I may look to budget out an upgrade...thanks all!
 
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This is a good question. If it were just about CPU only and if I would upgrade the RAM to fastest and lowest latency DDR3 there is, which I am going to at some point, I could put my 2500K @ 4.8ghz (24/7 clocks, no turbo) against any i5 Skylake and it would not be badly left behind, in a ways that would matter anyway. But being limited to PCIe 2.0 is a problem. People have noticed it bottlenecking slightly with current high end cards when they SLI them. Considering how fast Nvidia claims GTX 1080 to be we might see it bottlenecking in single card solutions too. Unless AMD pulls a miracle with Polaris (which I actually hope, I want to go back to Team Red for a change) I AM going to buy 1080 at the end of this year. A little bottleneck wont worry me, the performance jump from my good old GTX 770 should be massive either way.
 
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60 fps you will have no issues, 120 fps or higher you will be bottlenecked in newer games.
 
schizo said:
Digital Foundry recently investigated this and you definitely would see an improvement going from OC sandy bridge to even non-OC skylake with a modern GPU. Interestingly, RAM speed matters too-- "common knowledge" was that it didn't. There is a bottleneck at the extreme high-end.

Is it finally time to upgrade your Core i5 2500K?

This is the article that finally convinced me to upgrade my positively ancient i920 a couple months ago.
Click to expand...

That article brought up an interesting alternative. Sandy Bridge is starting to show its age there is no question but i7 3770K Ivy Bridge does not, not yet atleast. As far as CPU dependent situations go it keeps up with Skylake remarkably well when overclocked. Now, Ivy may be notoriously worse overclocker than Sandy was but despite that it is still newer and faster CPU and it is a simple drop-in replacement. :D You will still have to deal with PCIe 2.0 limitations though.
 
jnick said:
A wealther of info here, thanks guys! Definitely not into SLI. I always only run one card...so that's no issue. I may look to budget out an upgrade...thanks all!
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Well, then I wouldn't worry about upgrading just yet. I mean, you might have to upgrade in 2018 when Volta comes out, but I wouldn't get in a rush. There's at least a good 2 or 3 years left in Sandy Bridge, maybe more. Especially with an i7, those are aging better than the i5s.
 
MaZa said:
That article brought up an interesting alternative. Sandy Bridge is starting to show its age there is no question but i7 3770K Ivy Bridge does not, not yet atleast.
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Most of the gain from moving to the 3770K was that it's an i7 with hyperthreading, while the sandy bridge they compared against was an i5 without. The OP of this thread has a 2600K, which does have hyperthreading.
 
schizo said:
Most of the gain from moving to the 3770K was that it's an i7 with hyperthreading, while the sandy bridge they compared against was an i5 without. The OP of this thread has a 2600K, which does have hyperthreading.
Click to expand...

Oh, I did not think of that. Both are 4 core 8 thread CPU's. And considering how much better Sandy overclocks if he can massage his CPU bit higher the performance difference between them might be negated. C'mon OP, you can do it. 4.2ghz is nothing yet. :D
 
If you already have a i7 that's overclocked (even if it's first gen), then upgrading your CPU will NEVER be worth it for a single GPU gamer. I'd go with a 1070 if I were you.
 
The link I posted compared i5 vs i5, and said otherwise. I wouldn't think that i7 vs i7 would change the conclusions.
 
No - that 2600k is more than enough, especially @ 1080p paired with a 970 or 1070. If you plan on going to 1440p, while a 970 is very capable & much cheaper, a 1070 will hold out longer (but more expensive). I have my 2600k tucked away waiting to inherit my 980ti's once big pascal is out & if/when I decide upon a decent 4K monitor.

If you haven't done so, OC that 2600K a little and voila. Your current system is more than capable at 1080p and will definitely last some more, so a little GPU upgrade and maybe a little system ram/ bigger ssd upgrade might serve you better. Other than that, you are pretty much set for a while longer.
 
sI'm going to Chime in here, I own a 2600K and it runs on air @ 4800Mhz since day one with no problems. Ive had many different Crossfire and SLI setups in it and they have all done great. Currently I'm running two Gigabyte G1 980 gtxs in SLI, I'm gaming on a 34in Acer Predator 3440X1440P res with Gsync enabled. All games at max settings and the only game that doesn't always feel perfectly smooth is GTA V, I was all gung ho on upgrading to Broadwell but now I'm having second thoughts. I think the best upgrade path will be to just slap in 2 1080 GTXs and call it a day.
 
jnick said:
If I was to buy a card such as the GTX 970 or GTX 1070 when released...how much am I bottlenecking it due to the CPU? I currently game at 1080p. No desire for 4k anytime soon...maybe a new monitor at 1440p but that would be a while...

Thanks!
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You really won't be bottlenecked that much. You might get about 10% performance difference AT BEST clock for clock between SandyBridge and SkyLake. Very few games are CPU limited (with the exception of draw call intensive titles)

HOWEVER your PCIe is likely PCIe V2.0 which is HALF the bandwidth of PCIe V3.0. You might get a penalty here when loading uber complex scenes. When PCIe V3.0 came out, it really only affected SLI/Crossfire setups. But this may not be the case anymore with today's texture memory heavy/complex geometry/high draw calls under DX12.
 
I ran two 980Ti in SLI on a 2600k/p67-Deluxe board for a good while. I got the upgrade itch and moved up to 5930k/x99-Godlike combo, and honestly couldn't tell a difference. Looking at FPS numbers my minimum frames were a bit higher, but with my Gsync monitor, I never noticed drops much anyways.
I was a little disappointed there wasn't a noticeable increase in performance, going from PCIe 2.0 (8x8x) to PCIe 3.0 (16x16x).
Which with the new GPU's things may be a bit different. But I say you'll be fine on your current setup.
 
Push your 2600k higher (Most chips seem capable of between 4.4 and 4.6ghz) and you will basically have the equivalent of a stock 4770k. The IPC gain between Skylake and Sandybridge is somewhere in the neighborhood of 20% - most of this difference can be overcome by overclocking.

The Sandybridge was probably the best generation in terms of how far you could overclock the 2500k/2600k (Haswell being the worst). I have seen guys hit 5ghz with golden chips - can't say that I have heard too many Haswell and Skylake chips hit those frequencies.
 
Did you guys read the article I linked? You're saying they're completely wrong; is that based on actual data?
 
DraginDime said:
I ran two 980Ti in SLI on a 2600k/p67-Deluxe board for a good while. I got the upgrade itch and moved up to 5930k/x99-Godlike combo, and honestly couldn't tell a difference. Looking at FPS numbers my minimum frames were a bit higher, but with my Gsync monitor, I never noticed drops much anyways.
I was a little disappointed there wasn't a noticeable increase in performance, going from PCIe 2.0 (8x8x) to PCIe 3.0 (16x16x).
Which with the new GPU's things may be a bit different. But I say you'll be fine on your current setup.
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I know what you mean and I agree. In September of last year, I upgraded my FX 8350 setup to a 6700K setup but kept my R9 290x. Since I was gaming at 4k, I did not really see any gaming difference and was sort of disappointed once the newest factor wore off. I then upgraded to a 980 Ti in December and yes, it did increase the FPS at 4k but, not as much at 1440p that it would make a $650 difference that I paid for the card. However, I now have the machine and will be content with it for a couple of years at least but, lesson learned, do not upgrade just because. Keep enjoying what you already have until a real upgrade is needed.
 
schizo said:
Did you guys read the article I linked? You're saying they're completely wrong; is that based on actual data?
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I'm actually pretty surprised by those results - particularly surrounding memory frequency. What's strange is that in Anandtech's review (which looked at 4 generations worth of CPUs), the difference in frame rate was much smaller, and memory speed had minimal impact.

In any event, I personally don't think that Skylake offers enough of a speed bump over Sandybridge in CPU intensive activities (games, rendering etc). As athenian200 aptly pointed out though, the compelling reason to upgrade is for the benefits the chipset offers (USB 3.1, M2 ports, PCI-E 3). With that being said, most of those things can be added to an older PC using add-in cards (I did something similar with my x5660 in my sig), so it largely depends on what OPs budget allows.

I doubt he will notice a tangible difference in games, but there is utility in having a new toy to play with.
 
I know that is the prevailing opinion; that's why that article was such a revelation to me (and got me to upgrade). EG is very reputable too.
 
I would get a new GPU and try it out, then if you are not happy with the results upgrade the rest of the system.
 
I agree that memory speed on my clocked 2500K made no difference that I could tell.
I changed from 1600MHz to 2400MHz running at 2220MHz (2133MHz plus tweaking the FSB).
My GPU benchmark tests showed no appreciable difference either.
 
Henri108 said:
If you already have a i7 that's overclocked (even if it's first gen), then upgrading your CPU will NEVER be worth it for a single GPU gamer. I'd go with a 1070 if I were you.
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This isn't true, it will be eventually be worthwhile to upgrade your CPU for single GPU gaming.
 
Sgraffite said:
This isn't true, it will be eventually be worthwhile to upgrade your CPU for single GPU gaming.
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We get this exact same troll argument every time the question comes up lol every fucking time......getting a 1070 or equivalent is the best way to invest performance in said gaming rig..But Noooo upgrade those cpus first lol ;)
 
No doubt, GPU always comes first. But a 2600K will perform noticeably worse than a 6700K in actual games.
 
primetime said:
We get this exact same troll argument every time the question comes up lol every fucking time......getting a 1070 or equivalent is the best way to invest performance in said gaming rig..But Noooo upgrade those cpus first lol ;)
Click to expand...
Depends on the problem.
Generic information is not absolute.
 
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