Intel Sandy Bridge 2600K and 2500K Processors @ [H]

FrgMstr

FrgMstr

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Intel Sandy Bridge 2600K and 2500K Processors - We take a look at Intel's soon to be in retail Sandy Bridge processors. We are going to specifically look at the 2500K and 2600K since these are Intel's only new overclockable processors and likely the only ones that you are concerned with.

Please PM me with errors that need to be corrected, I am sure there are more than a few.
 
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ManI have everything ready for a 2600k, just waiting for them to drop. Any possibility of them going on sale tomorrow or Wednesday?? BTW Great review again guys...
 
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Can you confirm what type of cooler the 2500K retail units come with (low profile or tower?), or did you get just the chip?
 
GLSauron said:
Can you confirm what type of cooler the 2500K retail units come with (low profile or tower?), or did you get just the chip?
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Mine came with the low profile cooler, so I would suggest a good cooler with the 2500K. The 2600K came with a badass cooler that was overbuilt for it. Remember though LGA 1156 coolers will fit these units, so maybe something used might be a good bet rather than something new.
 
Whoa, paired with H67 these will make for monster HTPC setups. Good to know it hasn't rendered x58 obsolete. I have high hopes for the high end next year. Great review again!
 
runudownquick said:
Whoa, paired with H67 these will make for monster HTPC setups. Good to know it hasn't rendered x58 obsolete. I have high hopes for the high end next year. Great review again!
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I thought the high end was end of this year?
 
Overclocking Sandy Bridge is about as easy making toast. If fact I am pretty sure that there are some of you out there that cannot make toast that can OC the shit out of Sandy Bridge.

No problem, just click the button and get it running 4.8GHz without any hesitation. Your mom could do it.
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LOL. I'm running a Core i7 920 Nehalem at about 3.2GHz. I dunno why everyone says it's not worth it to upgrade...these 2600K OC numbers look pretty sexy to me and worth the cost to upgrade. Nice review guys, filtering out all the bullshit. Other sites just go on and on about every minute detail. Leave it to [H] to show me the important stuff straight up. Looking forward to some ASUS board reviews to go with these.

Oh, but one thing. Fail on the inclusion of the FFXIV bench. Nobody gives a shit about that turd of a "game". FFXI was great but wtf were they smoking when they made FFXIV? At least replace it with Guild Wars 2 later on down the road... :)
 
looks good, still going to sit and wait for bulldozer before I do a whole new system build. Actually Im hoping Bulldozer is a bit "lackluster" compared to these so they can stay cheaper, then I can move my Q9450 to my HTPC and silence my 4890 and have a hugely over the top HTPC.
 
Looks great, can't wait to upgrade from my Q6600 setup. Now just have to find the perfect mobo, amongst the slew of P67 options!
 
hey kyle good review. just a quick question. i have a q6600 oc to 3.6gig. where do you think that cpu oc'ed stack up against SB? The reason why im asking is because if my cpu can at least keep up somewhat to SB at their stock speed then any cpu/mobo upgrade would be pointless. tia
 
canmanone said:
hey kyle good review. just a quick question. i have a q6600 oc to 3.6gig. where do you think that cpu oc'ed stack up against SB? The reason why im asking is because if my cpu can at least keep up somewhat to SB at their stock speed then any cpu/mobo upgrade would be pointless. tia
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SB would blow its friggin doors off. If it had doors.
 
hmmm this makes me want to upgrade from my phenom 965be but i also want to wait for the new mobos at the end of the year then theirs bd to many choices lol
 
canmanone said:
hey kyle good review. just a quick question. i have a q6600 oc to 3.6gig. where do you think that cpu oc'ed stack up against SB? The reason why im asking is because if my cpu can at least keep up somewhat to SB at their stock speed then any cpu/mobo upgrade would be pointless. tia
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In all the reviews that had the Q6600 included in it's benchmarks, SB basically murdered it. We are talking about chips that hold their own against 970/980x's w/o overclocking. If you sat out i7 era, which from the chip you listed makes it seem you did. I would totally go SB and not look back.
 
terrybogard21 said:
In all the reviews that had the Q6600 included in it's benchmarks, SB basically murdered it. We are talking about chips that hold their own against 970/980x's w/o overclocking. If you sat out i7 era, which from the chip you listed makes it seem you did. I would totally go SB and not look back.
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Do you happen to know off the top of your head which reviews those were?
 
Great review. I wonder why the new motherboards aren't tri-channel memory like the x58 series. Is the 1155 series set back at all by being dual channel? Sorry if this is noob :)
 
Kyle, thanks for the review! a couple of questions:

1) What was the cooling that you used? more specifically, I was wondering how does the stock intel tower measure up to an after market cooler? (you just mentioned that all three use the same cooling solution, H70 I presume or something similar.)

2) Will you compare motherboards later? Or is it pointless since now it's the chip that really matters. Or does 16 phase vs 12 phase still make a difference? That said, Legits's review of Asus boards showed that the $160 board OCed pretty much the same as the $230 board.

3) Does Ram speed matter? 1333 vs 1600 vs 2000?

4) What did AMD Gamer say to just get hammered on the spot? :D (i mean we all have seen his posts over the past few days, so it doesn't take much imagination.. but still.

Thanks again!
 
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So assuming I'm looking to upgrade this year, what's an alternative on the horizon to the 2600K? I'm not looking to move to the 999$ price point, 300$ or so seems to be the sweet spot for me.
 
codeartist said:
So assuming I'm looking to upgrade this year, what's an alternative on the horizon to the 2600K? I'm not looking to move to the 999$ price point, 300$ or so seems to be the sweet spot for me.
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2600k should only be $317 giver or take a few bucks
 
I wonder why the new motherboards aren't tri-channel memory like the x58 series.
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Intel will probably stick it on the high stuff. Crap time to upgrade again!!:eek:

Kyle any word on date these will drop? Well looks like Jan 5th I believe.
 
Retail embargo drops on the 9th, but there are some B&M stores that have been selling these in various places already.
 
Wonder if the retail 2600k will come with a nice cooler or if it was just included with review units? At it's price point + good out of the box cooler, it will be heating up my CC ;)
 
Filter said:
2600k should only be $317 giver or take a few bucks
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Yeah I knew 2600k was at the 300$ price point. I meant I was avoiding the 980x at 999$.
Assuming I'm going to spend around 300: is there something on the horizon to hold out for or is the 2600K the choice to make in 2011H1?
 
codeartist said:
Yeah I knew 2600k was at the 300$ price point. I meant I was avoiding the 980x at 999$.
Assuming I'm going to spend around 300: is there something on the horizon to hold out for or is the 2600K the choice to make in 2011H1?
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Theres ivy bridge later this year. Im sure most the chips will be more then 300 though since its set to replace socket 1366. But for 300 bucks 2600k PROABBLY the chip to get.
 
The Handbrake 'Blu-ray to MKV' comparison is kind of flawed. You're encoding a 2.5 minute clip in almost 2.5 minutes, meaning real time. Seeing as the decoder Handbrake uses is single threaded, you can assume that any bottleneck would be casued by the decoding not keeping up with the encoding. Same with the 'VOB to M4V' test. 30 minutes encoded in 2 minutes is 450fps, which is definitely bottlenecked by the decoder. As a result, one core is maxed out while the others wait. So realistically, the 980X could be much faster.

Good review otherwise. :D
 
Holy mackerel! SB packs a punch and is super efficient!

Looks like I get to keep and use my trusty Corsair HX620 for my new setup! YAY!
 
I'm curious about clock to clock 2500k vs 2600k, since we're dealing with a difference in cache size as well. I figure HT on/off can is the same as last gen.

Good bye E6400. You've been the best CPU purchase ever.

Also, Frys has already had tons of P67 boards for sale for the past week or so. Funny
 
Thanks for the hard work in your reviews, as always. Sandy Bridge is definitely the chip I've been waiting for and I'm loving the power to performance to price ratio.

Now all I need is the darn CPU in my hands so I can start building!
 
Kills me because I just put together a system on NewEgg and it consisted of many top parts including the i7 980X Extreme processor. now I feel like it will be second fiddle in a few weeks...

Thank you for this fantastic post.
 
Fire488 said:
Kills me because I just put together a system on NewEgg and it consisted of many top parts including the i7 980X Extreme processor. now I feel like it will be second fiddle in a few weeks...

Thank you for this fantastic post.
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Thanks for playing the game of catching up! :D
 
aShrubbery! said:
Thanks for playing the game of catching up! :D
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Not sure what you mean by those remarks, but since i am a very positive person and always try to see the good in people I will take your words as a thoughtful compliment.
Thank you.

I can't wait to see these processors roll out!
 
Thanks for the review guys! Looks like I'll be getting a 2500k and either an ASUS or Intel mobo as the other manufacturers seem to lack what I need/want (namely UEFI and eSATA at a reasonable price)

Also how loud is the heatsink that comes with K model processors? I saw that it has a switch for quiet and loud. I'll eventually replace it with an aftermarket but I don't want to spend money on that right away.
 
I am just waiting for CES to come and for Newegg to start carrying some Cyberpower or Ibuypower sandy bridge systems. The time to buy is at hand for me. :D Its too bad AMD's Bulldozer won't be out until spring time. And it will probably be too little, too late. :(
 
Great review about great hardware, thanks Kyle.
 
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Great read. Enjoyed this bit:

Sandy Bridge can very well be a kick in the 'nads for many of us. Intel giveth and Intel taketh away. If overclocking was your hobby, Intel just taketh'ed.
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:D

I'm curious if the 2011s will be limited to no-brainer overclocking too.
 
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