It is premature to declare the 2700K a waste of money, or to declare it no better than the 2600K. I'm seeing a better binned chip. For some buyers, $40 extra isn't an issue, if it means a high overclock at low volts/temps, and we are still talking $360! Three years ago people were dropping $1k left and right for the top performing quad. Better deal than 2600K? No, but then not everyone cares about price at this price-level.
My take is a little more positive, I haven't seen a 2700K report yet that didn't go 50x easily, so this points to better binning.
Some people are under the misconception that all 2600Ks go 50x; I don't know for sure how that sort of misinformation started, but I think I have a clue, it is all the review sites using their "cherry" 2600K that does 5.3 on air, misleading the masses. Those who've tested larger numbers can tell you it is pretty far off the truth. A lot of owners dont get past 46x, folks. A lesser percentage of 2600K will not go past 48x, no matter what voltage.
ASUS tested 100 retail 2600Ks and percentages were actually worse than I found in my small sample. Direct from ASUS ROG group here
http://www.asusrog.com/forums/showt...ridge-CPU-Overview-and-CPU-Overclocking-Guide . They report a significant percentage (50%) that max 45x, smaller group max 47x (40%), and a select few (10%) that go 50x or higher. Maybe this is consevative, but I have to believe they use sane voltage limits in their test, rather than 1.6v just to achive a number. This falls in line with what I see reported on these forums. Ask how many people with a 50x chip actually had to try more than one to get there. Where do you think all of these new, unboxed 2600Ks on eBay came from? Cherry picking. This isn't a new practice.
We see a lot of 50x claims on AT and other forums, so much that it seems to draw yawns from the crowd now, but there are plenty of threads where folks can't get their chips even in the neighborhood of 48x, and the majority of chip owners don't post their numbers, or if they get cruddy results they are embarassed by all of the other sigs or think they have a "bad" chip. Misinformation.
If 2700K turns out to be an automatic 5Ghz chip @ < 1.475v, then it will in fact be a good chip for the overclocker who isn't on a shoestring budget.
For the rest, well it is hard to argue with the value of the 2500K, now that Intel has dropped the price even more, but I'm still glad we have a second i7 Sandy in the running.
Someone show me a 6.3GHz validation with one of these chips, if he's playing games on it he can surely provide a CPU-Z validation file. Me thinks a site just wants increased traffic and so they are BSing some numbers.
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