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2500K or 2600

S

sptham30

Junior Member
Hey guys, been searching through the forum and didnt find much information regarding i5 2500K vs i7 2600

Basically, i'm helping my friend to build a CPU when i met this dilemma.. His budget i can fit only a i7 2600 without the overclocking features..
Here's what he mainly uses it for, casual usage, bit of gaming and a lot of movies - HD.. mostly non heavy duty stuff.. what would you guys recommend??

Here's the rig so far,

i7 2600k
z68X-UD3-B3
2x4GB 1333MHz
2TB Seagate HDD
CM SGC-1000 (storm enforcer) or HAF 912 advanced casing
ATI 6850
Corsair CX500

for the above rig...
would a 650W CM GX Bronze suffice even with the processor overclocked at MAX speed? lets say 4.5GHz?
 
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2500k without a doubt. Not really worth the extra the 2600 costs, unless you absolutely must have the most expensive of everything and without the OC'ing features the 2500k has. The 2500k will have a better resale value later, at least to an enthusiast.
 
Get the Core i5 2500K. Not worth it IMHO to get the Core i7 2600 as it does not have any tweaking potential and most probably you could get way better performance out of the Core i5 2500K when overclocked. Even if overclocking is not a selling point to your friend, it might come in handy if you need some extra ponies a few years from now.
 
thanks for the feedback guys.
yes i'm taking the Z68X-UD3-B3 gigabyte motherboard....

question though... for overclocking purpose, i suppose that stock CPU cooler wont do right? what am i looking at for cooling purpose... do i need to change stuff in the bios to overclock? or just the setting using gigabyte built in software?

i5 is a selling point, i7 might look good to him just by the name of i7.. hahaha...
 
Save the $100 and get the I5 2500k and either put that in ram, or a SSD for caching on the Z68 board.

A good CPU cooler is the Cooler Master Hyper 212, you could get that cooler and OC the I5 2500k to where it blows the doors off the 2600k and still have less money invested.
 
2500K is better suited for his needs; put the difference toward an SSD for boot and most apps (except most games). Much better to have that than a 2600 without SSD. Stock cooler is probably fine even for a mild overclock.
 
The extra threads certainly improve performance, but the standard i7-2600 can only be overclocked to around 4.0 GHz. An i5-2500K will generally run 4.5 GHz or so, which will make up for the extra threads more often than not.
 
You must understand that 8 threads does not equal to 8 physical cores and HT will not give you 2x the performance over a processor without HT. 4 strong threads/cores are more than what many users would need period.

Core i5 2500K + Noctua NH-D14 > Core i7 2600
 
sptham30 said:
the i7 has 4 cores 8 threads, while the i5 has 4 cores and 4 threads... does it affect?
Click to expand...

At stock speeds the 2600 will be a little faster. Doing things that take advantage of hyper-threading will make the gap larger in favor of the 2600.

Overclocking the 2500k changes things in favor of the 2500k
 
not all software and games take control of the HT technology right?

There's no Noctua cpu cooler around my are.. but i could get a hold of a cooler master CPU cooler V6GT.. would that be an overkill?

here's my rig for him so far,

i5 2500k
z68X-UD3-B3
2x4GB 1333MHz
2TB Seagate HDD
CM SGC-1000 (storm enforcer) or HAF 922 casing
ATI 6850/6770
CM V6GT cpu cooler

for the above rig...
would a 650W CM GX Bronze suffice even with the processor overclocked at MAX speed? lets say 4.5GHz? hahaha
 
The CM V6GT will do. 4.5GHz should be easy for a SB but go according to what your setup will allow within a safe range. I do not recommend the CM GX. Get something like a Corsair, Silverstone, Seasonic or XFX. The Corsair CX500 would be good enough if you could find it.
 
sptham30 said:
i think i could find the CX500.. why not the GX650? mind to share?
Click to expand...
CM has been making PSUs with questionable quality and I have yet to see that change for a very long time. There are CM PSUs that are of decent quality but I'd rather play it safe and pick from the major brands that I have listed.
 
ok.. what about the CM V6GT CPU cooler? good enough or any recommendations for better or cheaper CPU cooler

and the RAM, should i go for kingston,corsair, or team elite on 1333MHz?
 
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sptham30 said:
so the CX500 corsair will definately be enough?
Click to expand...
for that system with that level of gpu, yes its fine. if you think you may go with a higher end gpu later then I would get a better psu. the CX500 only has 34 amps on the 12v so an overclocked 2500k system with an overclocked gtx570 would push it right to the very edge.
 
Guys, here's the latest spec for the cpu,

i7 2600k
z68X-UD3-B3
2x4GB 1333MHz
2TB Seagate HDD
CM SGC-1000 (storm enforcer) or HAF 912 advanced casing
ATI 6850
Corsair CX500

Is the PSU enough even if i overclock the whole system to the max?
should i get the ASUS 6850 or gigabyte 6850, it sells for the same price here.. are there any difference??
 
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