Upgrading from an Intel Core i7-2600K: Testing Sandy Bridge in 2019 & revisiting old but still great

[lostin3d]

"One of the most popular processors of the last decade has been the Intel Core i7-2600K. The design was revolutionary, as it offered a significant jump in single core performance, efficiency, and the top line processor was very overclockable. With the next few generations of processors from Intel being less exciting, or not giving users reasons to upgrade, and the phrase 'I'll stay with my 2600K' became ubiquitous on forums, and is even used today."

https://www.anandtech.com/show/1404...el-core-i7-2600k-testing-sandy-bridge-in-2019


I love these kind of articles. Over the years [H] has had more than a few of them too and each one is a great read. I'd recommend if anyone can easily find the links to please post them in this thread. Doesn't need to be team/brand specific but please share an example of an old but still can rock most things today.

I've got a 2600k rig. It's the one listed in my profile and paired to a Strix 1080TI with a G-Sync 1440p monitor. A gentle OC of 4.2GHZ courtesy of OC genie and this baby continues to average 80-120 fps on most games and then 50-70 fps for the most demanding newer titles. This rig represented a number of firsts for me. First OC'd cpu, SLI(rip SLI) w/ OC'd GPUs, 1st post Pentium build, 1st w/ 2 raids, SATA III, USB 3. At one point it was briefly retired while I used some of its parts to start another build, the 4930k rig in my signature, and then over that year I decided it still had plenty to give and revived it with SSD's, new PSU, and new case. That was about 3 years ago.

I figure it's maybe got 1 or 2 years left before I have to retire it but man it's been a great ride!

 

[Ruiner]

A slightly older piece on the same theme: https://techreport.com/review/31410/a-bridge-too-far-migrating-from-sandy-to-kaby-lake

I'm on Ivy, just one 'tick' above you and run everything I play to my satisfaction. The plan was to upgrade to a hex core 3xxx Ryzen, but damn if all the current triple A titles aren't pozzed shit, reboot/sequels or multi-player sandbox grindathon loot-box fests.
Still, it's a decent time to upgrade before the next crypto bubble inflates.

 

[Revenant_Knight]

A friend is using my 2600K (at 4.7ghz) rig as his main system. He paired it with a Geforce 980ti and an ultrawide display. It's still gaming fine for him. His brother has my 4.5GHZ 2500K with a GTX 970 which works well for 60hz 1080P gaming.

I actually have a 3770K (stock) with an RX570 4GB for my family room PC. I was playing BF1 supersampled to 1080P on ultra at a locked 60FPS.

These chips still have life.

 

[lostin3d]

A slightly older piece on the same theme: https://techreport.com/review/31410/a-bridge-too-far-migrating-from-sandy-to-kaby-lake

I'm on Ivy, just one 'tick' above you and run everything I play to my satisfaction. The plan was to upgrade to a hex core 3xxx Ryzen, but damn if all the current triple A titles aren't pozzed shit, reboot/sequels or multi-player sandbox grindathon loot-box fests.
Still, it's a decent time to upgrade before the next crypto bubble inflates.

That was a fun read. For awhile I was hoping to upgrade to a 3770k just to gain PCIe 3.0 support since my MOBO is capable but man those prices never dropped. Just for kicks I even checked a few days back and they're still over $400 for new. Oh well, it's pretty much a given that I'm going to Ryzen or TR when this build is retired.

 

[kingdom9214]

What amazing is you can upgrade to 2080ti/Radeon 7 and see almost no performance loss at higher resolutions. Anything past 1440p and the CPU performance is negligible.