worth upgrading from i5-2500k?

[silk186]

I run my i5-2500k at 4.3 @ stock voltage. I'm considering trying to sell my CPU and MB and switching to a i5-4670K and mATX board and eventually an mATX case. I think if I'm patient the "upgrade" shouldn't cost much. Will I notice any difference? Games are starting to list an i5-2500k in suggested requirements. This is based on the assumption that I will get a reasonable OC from the i5-4670K @ stock voltage.

 

[atp1916]

From AT's review here back when they initially reviewed the 4770k/4670k parts, the 4670k was suprisingly potent and frequently traded shots with the 2700k/3770k in all the benchmarks thanks to that amazing Haswell IPC. Many people have anecdotally reported that upgrades to Haswell resulted in a "faster" system, even coming from an Ivy Bridge setup. Realistically, you won't see much of a difference in gaming, but you should see some better content creation / desktop performance that may even be tangible.

If you can flip your current board / CPU (which you shouldn't have any problems doing) and cut out 80% of the cost of the upgrade, I would say go for it. The main deal here is do you actually want to go through all of that? The Z97 platform has some nice IO features that the Z67/Z77 don't have, like M.2.

 

[UZ7]

Well you're not just upgrading the CPU its the entire platform so everything from chipset, memory controller, pcie 3.0, native usb 3 as well as improved ssd/sata support etc.. so overall you will get some improvements. As for CPUs, you may or may not see some improvements in games or the same tasks if they dont use the CPU a lot. But an i5 2500K is stock at 3.3GHz/ Boost 3.7GHz and an i5 4670K has a stock of 3.4 and boosts to 3.8GHz. Since clock per clock comparison Haswell is faster than Sandy.. you'll see about maybe a 4670K @ 3.8-3.9GHz be equivalent to a 2500K @ 4.3GHz.

Thing with Haswell is the whole issues with the space between the IHS and the die causing increase in heat so heatwise its equivalent to 1st gen i7/i5s but at stock or stock use it shouldnt run that hot as it uses less voltage and is more power efficient. Example of that is when I ran my 4770K with a stress test and the contact was so horrible, any stress test I do it would end up hitting 80-90C, after delid it would top out 60-70C. But overall though my performance at 4.2GHz was equivalent to that of a 2600K at 4.6-4.7GHz, and a clock of 4.5GHz would be on par with a 2600K at 4.9-5.0GHz, so thats where you see clock per clock performance increase.

So even with a clock of say you went for 4.2GHz on the 4670K, its comparable to a 2500K at 4.6-4.7GHz. It will also run cooler and more power efficient as long as you don't do those benchmark or stress test that uses avx that automatically ups the voltage by a lot.

For me I ran a 2600K@4.5GHz and a Z77 board, ran great. When I saw a deal on a 4770K and a Z87 board I went for it and thought oh I need to overclock it just as high to see a good boost, but that wasnt the case. Even though my CPU can run at 4.6-4.7GHz I decided to go for lower voltage like 1.2V~ and stick around 4.2GHz which when I did benchmarking saw actual performance over the 2600K @ 4.5GHz and even with streaming on twitch and regular use felt it ran cooler and produced less heat, its also delid so temps are super low, was it worth it? for me it was and saw a good improvement. Could I survived another year with my previous setup? most likely yes.. so while it wasnt a needed upgrade, it was a good one.

 

[silk186]

One of the motivating factors is to move from ATX to mATX form factor.
I was reading up on the performance of Dolphin and it seems to benefit greatly from the upgrade.
Lastly, I've been feeling the upgrade itch for some time now. With how much people were complaining and how frequently people are advised not to upgrade I wasn't sure. I think that after I win10 CP comes out and I get sorted out from moving I will look for deals on a i5-4670K/ i5-4690K and Z97/Z87 mATX board. I would go ITX but I'm afraid that one day it will limit me.