This 2600k is still lingering!!! :)

maxinflixion

maxinflixion

Gawd
Joined
Apr 2, 2007
Messages
625
I have had this system running a 2600k since the month the processor was available.

I used to build a new system every fall for kicks. Since I built this one, I have been looking for reasons to upgrade, but I game less and this thing has been fine for working over my VPN to the office and all of my audio editing needs.

I recently picked up Adobe Premiere Pro. Last night I fired it up for the first time, and tested out green screen compositing. Granted, it was a very short video with only a couple of clips, but this darn thing is handling the work without issue.

I just felt the need to share.
 
still have a 2600k, 2500k, and a xeon socket 1366 cpu at 4.3ghz myself. The older i7/i5 are no slouches and while I wouldn't mind building something I cannot justify it.
 
I also have a 2600K and haven't been able to justify building something new other than just to build something new since it's been so long!
 
I have a system still running a P4 3.06 that I use to hold lots of media...I am finally going to replace it this year but I built that in 1999?
 
Even the oldest LGA1156 Nehalem i7s still get it done. Chips like the 970/9x0 EE's are still beasts, and they will be for still some time to come.

Slap a SSD in one of those boxes (even if it's a SATA2 spec) and you'll be hard-pressed to tell the difference in system responsiveness versus one of these latest i7 boxes if you're driving through your typical consumer workloads.

The SNB chips like the 2500k/2600k will go down in history as some of the greatest ever, up there with the original Athlon / Core etc.
 
atp1916 said:
Even the oldest LGA1156 Nehalem i7s still get it done. Chips like the 970/9x0 EE's are still beasts, and they will be for still some time to come.

Slap a SSD in one of those boxes (even if it's a SATA2 spec) and you'll be hard-pressed to tell the difference in system responsiveness versus one of these latest i7 boxes if you're driving through your typical consumer workloads.

The SNB chips like the 2500k/2600k will go down in history as some of the greatest ever, up there with the original Athlon / Core etc.
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The Q6600 was impressive but I also think SandyBridge has it beat. I made the jump from a lapped and overclocked Q9550 to 2600k, it was just incredible. Still have dozens of Q6600 CPUs in office PCs that work ok yet.
 
Ah yes, the Q6600. That thing was the quad 'shot' heard 'round the world.

If memory serves me right it was the first true quad in the world?
 
My Q6600 was a lingerer as well. The 2600k is still near the top in CPU performance. The need to upgrade every couple years is all but gone. Now it's more of a 5+ year upgrade cycle on everything excluding the GPU. They are still making pretty substantial leaps every couple years.
 
Yup, I'm still running my 2600k. No need to upgrade, as of yet. My best friend is still running a 2500k, as well. There hasn't been any significant benefit to replacing the CPU, mobo, and now RAM, as of yet. GPUs have come and gone every few years, but the 2600k has stayed.
 
I've got a Q6600 in my file server. Still running strong, I replaced it in my desktop with a 2500K that I'm still using. I've decided that I'm going to get myself a fairly small and light notebook with an external thunderbolt GPU. Mobile chips that outperform the 2500K are now readily available and the additon of official GPU support on Thunderbolt 3 makes it work for me.

Is mobility a good reason to upgrade? Dunno, but I've found a reason to upgrade finally and it gets me that NVMe support I've been wanting.
 
atp1916 said:
Ah yes, the Q6600. That thing was the quad 'shot' heard 'round the world.

If memory serves me right it was the first true quad in the world?
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nope. it was a MCM chip. so a fake "quad" instead it was 2 core 2 Duo chips in a single die that's why they always had greater cache amounts and always spec'd as 2x4mb cache, each quad core had 4mb cache..

Truly quad cores for intel started with lynnfield.

with the topic, if my 2600K would not have died, I would probably still be using that Z68 + 2600K platform.. however Sandy Bridge together with Ivy Bridge are starting to show the age, Ivy Bridge still have the advantage of tri-gate transistor and F16C or CVT16 instruction sets, however is still not enough to keep with modern gaming without high OC numbers... when I replaced my high clocked 3770K with the 6700K at stock settings the 6700K are still able to offer better performance and smoother gaming, however as other said, sandy bridge will be easily known as a legendary intel chip and will be able to stretch its legs for more years.
 
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Still running my 2600k, and it's handling everything wonderfully. Probably could OC it a bit higher if needed at this point, but I don't need the extra umph yet.

One of my spare gaming rigs has my old Q6600 in it, and it still games at 1080P at LAN Parties perfectly fine. (usually a friend uses it, haven't heard any complaints?)

While the newer chips are more powerful, there just hasn't been a driving force to upgrade since I put together that 2600k rig. Been expanding into the server side of the house to get my building-fix instead.
 
Webhead said:
I also have a 2600K and haven't been able to justify building something new other than just to build something new since it's been so long!
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In the same boat here with my 1366 Xeon. I put a lot of abuse on this thing day in day out. The performance is still incredible after all these years. I would like to upgrade, but only so I can take advantage of newer feature sets.
 
I haven't seen a point in replacing my 2500K yet, and as you all know it's an i5, no hyperthreading even. Would a new setup be faster? Yeah, just not enough to matter, for me.
 
silent-circuit said:
I haven't seen a point in replacing my 2500K yet, and as you all know it's an i5, no hyperthreading even. Would a new setup be faster? Yeah, just not enough to matter, for me.
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I would be absolutely worried running 2 980TIs with an i5, because even my 4.5ghz 3770K was a bottleneck in some games for a single 980TI.
 
I have a Core 2 E8500 that is still humming along SSD made it jump to life
 
Araxie said:
I would be absolutely worried running 2 980TIs with an i5, because even my 4.5ghz 3770K was a bottleneck in some games for a single 980TI.
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As long as everything stays at 60+FPS maxed out, I could care less. That's the thing -- lots of people are chasing 144FPS+ these days... I'm fine with 60 as long as it's stable. The games I play also tend to be less demanding. It's not all triple-A stuff.
 
Arrg. My 6700k is arriving today, and I am very tempted to open it. Like many others, I just cant seem to justify parting with my venerable 2600K. It is just doing so well. The Z170 motherboards are great for their features.

I most likely will return everything as I made an impulsive purchase. Unless I can be convinced otherwise....I know I will have a very hard time not opening everything once its in front of me and then going on a benchmarking binge followed by long gaming hours. Hell, even an x99 swap is alluring right now.
 
mt 2600K is still running at 4800Mhz!! Since the launch, its never crashed or bluescreened. Will be a sad day when its not my main Rig.
 
2600K isn't that old. I don't know if it's worth the attention at this point as to it's age. I think this is more of a testament to how CPU's have not and are not evolving. We are the point of constant side grades.

If you were to say your still using a 486 100mhz now that would be something.
 
I would still be running a 2500k except that my Asus motherboard took a dump.
 
You guys make me kick myself for not getting one back in the day instead of suffering along with an Phenom II X4 for four years waiting for AMD to pull a rabbit out of its hat.
 
Jeffredo said:
You guys make me kick myself for not getting one back in the day instead of suffering along with an Phenom II X4 for four years waiting for AMD to pull a rabbit out of its hat.
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Maybe that'll finally happen with Zen. We can only hope...
 
The only reason I upgraded from my 2600k was because I wanted to rob the parts for an HTPC and didn't feel like buying new, lower end parts.

I love my 6700k skylake system but as others have said, if you have an SSD, performance for typical windows responsiveness seems almost identical.
 
Canon said:
The only reason I upgraded from my 2600k was because I wanted to rob the parts for an HTPC and didn't feel like buying new, lower end parts.

I love my 6700k skylake system but as others have said, if you have an SSD, performance for typical windows responsiveness seems almost identical.
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How did games "feel" with the upgrade from the 2600K to the 6700K with the 980? I know they may have benchmarked higher, but did you really feel much of a difference?

I've got a 2600K running at 4.8 with a 980, but do have an itch to upgrade.
 
2700k @ 5ghz since the day I got it, plays games under Windows @ 4k running a 980Ti just fine.

Also an X5675 Xeon @ stock with 16GB of ram and a 670FTW, loves gaming under Linux @ 1080p.

No need to sidegrade whatsoever since silicon technology has plateaued.:)
 
BlueWeasel said:
How did games "feel" with the upgrade from the 2600K to the 6700K with the 980? I know they may have benchmarked higher, but did you really feel much of a difference?
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For me, my setup went from 2500k with CL9 1600, to 4790K with CL10 2400. Pretty sure the memory speed was also a nice bump in system performance.
 
xorbe said:
For me, my setup went from 2500k with CL9 1600, to 4790K with CL10 2400. Pretty sure the memory speed was also a nice bump in system performance.
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Thanks for the info, especially since I'm really considering the 4790K.

From a gaming standpoint, did you feel like it was a worthy upgrade?
 
treefortrichard said:
I have a system still running a P4 3.06 that I use to hold lots of media...I am finally going to replace it this year but I built that in 1999?
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I had a P4 system from 2001-02 until 2010 when I built a 2500k system for myself. I upgrade a lot more frequently now.

atp1916 said:
The SNB chips like the 2500k/2600k will go down in history as some of the greatest ever, up there with the original Athlon / Core etc.
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I'm in complete agreement with you here, I think they'll go down in history with an amazing legacy. On top of that, they've done a great job of holding their value as well as upper end 1155 motherboards.
 
I have a 6700k and a Asus Maximus VIII hero and ram sitting right in front of me, boxed and unopened. Do I return or open. return or open. FFS I cant make up my mind.....

Any ideas?

I game @ 1600p (and 4k Later on..maybe)
Is it better for my 980ti SLI setup? higher minimum frames?
 
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Whach said:
I have a 6700k and a Asus Maximus VIII hero and ram sitting right in front of me, boxed and unopened. Do I return or open. return or open. FFS I cant make up my mind.....

Any ideas?

I game @ 1600p (and 4k Later on..maybe)
Is it better for my 980ti SLI setup? higher minimum frames?
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Here's an article that specifically compares the 6700K to the 2600K, including SLI at 1440p: http://www.pcper.com/reviews/Graphics-Cards/Skylake-vs-Sandy-Bridge-Discrete-GPU-Showdown/Metro-Last-Light-and-Conclusion

If I were you I would definitely upgrade.
 
komatta said:
Here's an article that specifically compares the 6700K to the 2600K, including SLI at 1440p: http://www.pcper.com/reviews/Graphics-Cards/Skylake-vs-Sandy-Bridge-Discrete-GPU-Showdown/Metro-Last-Light-and-Conclusion

If I were you I would definitely upgrade.
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That's exactly the article that I used to justify the purchase...until I realized it was tested at stock speeds =/ Although that speed increase would probably still be there at OC's clocks too...say 4.7Ghz?
 
Whach said:
That's exactly the article that I used to justify the purchase...until I realized it was tested at stock speeds =/ Although that speed increase would probably still be there at OC's clocks too...say 4.7Ghz?
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Definitely. There's a 40% difference in GTAV... much more than the clock speed difference can account for. And there are other articles around that compare them at the same clock speed.
 
Another major factor in upgrading on a more frequent basis is resale value. The 2600k is still worth a pretty decent amount and will help offset the cost of upgrading everything. Waiting a few more years and that might not be the case.
 
So... if you play GTAV then it's worth upgrading, or if you run a monitor with greater than 60Hz native refresh rate. Otherwise you're way over 60FPS at most resolutions with max settings in most other titles, particularly if you have a solid OC on the 2500/2600K. Considering I'm running 3440x1440 (about 1/2 of 4K) and haven't seen any performance issues to speak of in any title, AAA or otherwise (and I don't care about GTAV, at all) I'm fine. Maybe in another year or two I'll do a full rebuild, but 980Ti SLI has done exactly what I hoped it would for this machine so far -- make it relevant for quite a while longer.
 
^ MMMmmm... I'm sure if you throw 980ti SLI ($1000+) at much of anything and it will solve your problem.
 
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Still running a [email protected]. I just can't justify upgrading. Using the system less and less. Will probably sell for a SP4 and a dock to keep my 27inch 1440P LCD IPS panel
 
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