Best Used K Series i5?

[jimbob200521]

Looking to put together a system based on a used i5 CPU, but it will be overclocked so it must be a "K" series CPU. What's a solid, relatively reasonably priced compared to a new CPU that would fit the bill?

 

[ElFenix]

any? there's only, what, 5 so far? (2500k, 3570k, 4670k, 4690k, 6600k). of those, only the 2500k and 3570k are likely to be found on the used market.

so, rather limited in the options.

edit: forgot 2550k

 

[ShintaiDK]

I think "any" is the answer as well.

 

[NTMBK]

I think the answer is "none". These are parts sold specifically for overclocking, there is no way in hell I would buy one of them second hand. You don't know how badly they've been abused by a previous user. "Oh sure, I just run it at 5GHz 1.5V 24/7!" You could get something which is on the verge of failing completely.

 

[Charlie98]

I think the answer is "none". These are parts sold specifically for overclocking, there is no way in hell I would buy one of them second hand. You don't know how badly they've been abused by a previous user. "Oh sure, I just run it at 5GHz 1.5V 24/7!" You could get something which is on the verge of failing completely.

Yes and no. If you are buying from someone here at AT, chances are you can search previous posts and get an idea of what kind of user has it for sale. That's not always the case, and I share your general concern... with CPUs and GPUs... so I wouldn't just arbitrarily buy one without a little research.

In my case, the used 2500K I got OC's better than the new 2500K I bought myself at MicroCenter.

 

[Denithor]

One thing to consider, if you buy an i5/i7 non-K Ivy Bridge chip, on a Z77 chipset board you can overclock by 4 speed bins above max turbo speed. On the i7 3770 this equates to 4.3GHz on all four cores. Intel disabled even this level of overclocking on non-K chips from Haswell onward. So you could potentially buy an i5 3570 or i7 3770, pair with a Z77 board and still get a pretty solid overclock (keep in mind, IB did not OC as well as SB, typically topped out around 4.5GHz, so you really aren't missing much at 4.2-4.3GHz). These chips are far less likely to have been scrambled by some idiot doing suicide runs on his fancy "K" chip.

The i7 3770 chips look to be going in the $220-230 range on eBay. Make sure you don't get an "S" chip, these are "low power" with substantially lower clock speeds.

 

[poofyhairguy]

What are you using it for?

Just general desktop use? I find my 2500k at stock speeds is perfectly fine

Gaming? Honestly the i7 2600K used can be had for about what the 3570k goes for but it does better in current games OCed.

Console Emulation? Haswell has a huge boost, I would get a i5-4670K at least. Hell my G3258 is better than my 2500K ever was for console emulation

 

[NTMBK]

Console Emulation? Haswell has a huge boost, I would get a i5-4670K at least. Hell my G3258 is better than my 2500K ever was for console emulation

Oooh, interesting. Any idea why that is? Does your emulator use new instructions like AVX2/FMA3? Which console are you emulating?

 

[Kenmitch]

edit: forgot 2550k

My 2550k was a beast overclocker. I might have pushed it really hard but did opt for the protection plan that never was needed. Really wish I just kept it in the end....Would have saved me $'s but at the time was more into the latest and greatest and wanted to play around with something new.

Yes and no. If you are buying from someone here at AT, chances are you can search previous posts and get an idea of what kind of user has it for sale. That's not always the case, and I share your general concern... with CPUs and GPUs... so I wouldn't just arbitrarily buy one without a little research. In my case, the used 2500K I got OC's better than the new 2500K I bought myself at MicroCenter.

Look for crazy overclocks like this and then decide if it's a good buying decision.

I'd avoid it at all costs....Oh wait that was my chip and the above had zero ill effects on the conservative 24/7 overclock I was running.

I think the answer is "none". These are parts sold specifically for overclocking, there is no way in hell I would buy one of them second hand. You don't know how badly they've been abused by a previous user. "Oh sure, I just run it at 5GHz 1.5V 24/7!" You could get something which is on the verge of failing completely.

 

[richierich1212]

First pick your motherboard then pick your CPU. Good luck trying to find a good LGA1155 motherboard these days. I would have to go with whatever LGA1151 CPU that fits your budget since there's still a good selection motherboards available.

 

[jimbob200521]

First pick your motherboard then pick your CPU. Good luck trying to find a good LGA1155 motherboard these days. I would have to go with whatever LGA1151 CPU that fits your budget since there's still a good selection motherboards available.

I was just coming back here to post this, I did a little looking on Newegg, Microcenter, Amazon, and Tiger Direct and found ZERO motherboards that I would like to have in my system. Wrong chip set, ITX/Micro ATX, other things cut out 99% of the boards and the one or two that I found decent were numerous hundreds of dollars. Phooey.

 

[poofyhairguy]

Oooh, interesting. Any idea why that is?

Not completely. There is a theory that the better branch prediction for Haswell really helps with emulation, much more than most programs benefit.

Does your emulator use new instructions like AVX2/FMA3?

PCSX2 does, but honestly SSE4.1 mode often does better.

Which console are you emulating?

I emulate all that I can!

Really though the only two playable emulators out there that NEED the speed OCed chips provide are PCSX2 and Dolphin. In both emulators you can expect around a 20%+ (sometimes more like 30%) speed increase from Sandy/Ivy to Haswell at the same clock speeds.

I currently don't have the 2500k overclocked anymore (a 2600k is in its place that is MUCH worse at emulation due to hyperthreading), but when I had it at 4.5GHz the best I could do on the Unofficial Dolphin Benchmark was around 6ish minutes. In comparison my G3258 at 4.5 GHz gets a score of 4 Minutes and 35 seconds! So the G3258 was a huge boost to that hobby for me.

Part of what is going on though is that emulators are a weird workload. Dolphin pretty much only uses two cores (one WAY more) unless you chose the option to put sound on a third core (which isn't really needed and isn't a huge boost). PCSX2 is pretty solidly dualcore unless you run in software more, then it can eats cores like nobody's business and the 2600K does best of all of them. I never use software mode though, only a few games need it for compatibility and I avoid them.

 

[Denithor]

I was just coming back here to post this, I did a little looking on Newegg, Microcenter, Amazon, and Tiger Direct and found ZERO motherboards that I would like to have in my system. Wrong chip set, ITX/Micro ATX, other things cut out 99% of the boards and the one or two that I found decent were numerous hundreds of dollars. Phooey.

Are you looking for ITX/mATX or prefer regular ATX size? Need SLI/CF?

I'd say look on eBay as well, find a board with all solid capacitors and you should be good to go.

Something like this:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/ASRock-Z77-...516994?hash=item4af9528e02:g:99oAAOSwFNZWw4MU

Under $100 shipped with I/O shield included.

Or this, $100 mATX although you'll have to find I/O shield separately (if that matters to you):
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Asus-P8Z77-...615565?hash=item2eebcd998d:g:qlkAAOSwuAVWvVdA

EDIT: Here's the I/O shield for $15:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/I-O-SHEILD-...597499?hash=item4d303a203b:g:CJQAAOSw34FVHroV

Drop in an i7 3770, set to 4.3GHz on all four cores and enjoy the new speedy system.

 

[Gardener]

I think the answer is "none". These are parts sold specifically for overclocking, there is no way in hell I would buy one of them second hand. You don't know how badly they've been abused by a previous user. "Oh sure, I just run it at 5GHz 1.5V 24/7!" You could get something which is on the verge of failing completely.

This processor was used by a little old lady who never overclocked and only used her gaming rig to compose the church bulletin and send ecards to the sick and infirm, and to heat her apartment.

 

[Kenmitch]

This processor was used by a little old lady who never overclocked and only used her gaming rig to compose the church bulletin and send ecards to the sick and infirm, and to heat her apartment.

When I see the " never overclocked " I think deception....Not just in your example. Maybe it's just me that thinks this way?

 

[Ketchup]

I'd say look on eBay as well, find a board with all solid capacitors and you should be good to go.

I was going to post this as well. If you are going to go with a used CPU, might as well go with a used motherboard (and not just because you have to). You aren't going to find a new motherboard for that socket that will overclock very well.

Don't get too hung up on overclocking. Sure, it's fun. But the speed increases for overclocking aren't what they used to be (think in the form of percentage of base speed, not just numbers).

So what all are you wanting to buy (just CPU and mobo)? How much do you want to spend?

 

[jimbob200521]

Are you looking for ITX/mATX or prefer regular ATX size? Need SLI/CF?

I'd say look on eBay as well, find a board with all solid capacitors and you should be good to go.

Something like this:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/ASRock-Z77-...516994?hash=item4af9528e02:g:99oAAOSwFNZWw4MU

Under $100 shipped with I/O shield included.

Or this, $100 mATX although you'll have to find I/O shield separately (if that matters to you):
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Asus-P8Z77-...615565?hash=item2eebcd998d:g:qlkAAOSwuAVWvVdA

EDIT: Here's the I/O shield for $15:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/I-O-SHEILD-...597499?hash=item4d303a203b:g:CJQAAOSw34FVHroV

Drop in an i7 3770, set to 4.3GHz on all four cores and enjoy the new speedy system.

I may have to keep an eye on that first motherboard, that looks like a pretty solid bet. I'll look more into the board but at that price, hard to go wrong. Thanks for sharing.

As for size, I prefer standard ATX. Micro ATX, ITX, etc don't do much for me in my main rig. SLI I do not need, it'd be nice to have an M2 slot but that's still making its way into the market at a price I would want to spend.

I was going to post this as well. If you are going to go with a used CPU, might as well go with a used motherboard (and not just because you have to). You aren't going to find a new motherboard for that socket that will overclock very well.

Don't get too hung up on overclocking. Sure, it's fun. But the speed increases for overclocking aren't what they used to be (think in the form of percentage of base speed, not just numbers).

So what all are you wanting to buy (just CPU and mobo)? How much do you want to spend?

All I'm really wanting to buy at this point is a motherboard and CPU. It'd be nice to take advantage of my the SSD I have (my board only has SATA 3gbs at this point). My video card and rest of my stuff I can transplant. I could even borrow some memory from my current rig if the board I get is DDR3 until I save up a bit more to get a 16gb kit.

 

[jimbob200521]

What I'm kinda looking into doing is upgrading my main rig then moving it to server duty to replace the C2Q I'm currently running. The extra RAM (all 2gb of it) and CPU Cores and just plain speed wouldn't hurt for trans-codes when I'm streaming multiple HD streams to devices. Doesn't happen often but it'd be nice to have when it does. Then I have someone I could sell that C2Q system to to help recoup some money.

 

[Ketchup]

My opinion: if you are going to make a worthwhile upgrade to the i7 920, get a Skylake. If you aren't ready to do that, stick with what you have.

Is your Core2Quad suffering? I know it's old, but up until a year ago I had a much older CPU doing just fine in file/media server duties.

 

[jimbob200521]

My opinion: if you are going to make a worthwhile upgrade to the i7 920, get a Skylake. If you aren't ready to do that, stick with what you have.

Is your Core2Quad suffering? I know it's old, but up until a year ago I had a much older CPU doing just fine in file/media server duties.

My old C2Q is doing just fine most of the time, but if I can upgrade it and sell it I figure why not. I get an upgraded server, a buddy gets a PC he can actually use, and the money out of pocket should be minimal if I go the used route.

Let me ask this: is there anything coming down Intel's pipeline that would make waiting a month or six months worthwhile? Are we on a tick or a tock cycle? I don't mind waiting a few months for something new to come out so I can snag peoples used stuff cheap but if the performance is going to be another 5-10% increase I figure it's not worth waiting.

 

[Denithor]

Wait, so you're going to upgrade your i7 920 system to a Sandy/Ivy setup and then move that to server duty? What going to use for main system then? Why not just use the 920 as server? Really really too bad you couldn't get the x5650 to work on that board, would be IDEAL for use in transcoding server (lower load power than 920, more cores, awesome for video work!).

 

[jimbob200521]

Wait, so you're going to upgrade your i7 920 system to a Sandy/Ivy setup and then move that to server duty? What going to use for main system then? Why not just use the 920 as server? Really really too bad you couldn't get the x5650 to work on that board, would be IDEAL for use in transcoding server (lower load power than 920, more cores, awesome for video work!).

No no, I was looking at the potential cost of upgrading my main rig to something newer and then using my i7 920 as a server. Wouldn't make sense otherwise.