Getting Bored with 2600k - Need New Whipping Boy

[Elfear]

So I was all set to get Haswell when it came out but after seeing the poor overclocking results (compared to SB) I decided to hold off until something compelling came along. Well that time may be at least a year off (Haswell-E maybe) so I started thinking I should get something cheap to drop in my current board.

Right now I have a 2600k that does 4.8Ghz@1.48V HT off. I don't think it's P95 stable but it is game stable. What I'd like to do is buy a golden 2500k or 3570k to drop in. I'm thinking a 2500k@5.3Ghz or a 3570k@5.0Ghz would give a decent performance boost for little out of pocket cost especially if I can sell my 2600k for $150-170.

Thoughts? Good locations to locate a golden chip?

 

[AtenRa]

I would go Socket 2011 and IB-E. Going from Core i7 2600K @ 4.8 to 3570K @ 5GHz will get you nothing, you'll also miss 4 more threads

 

[Face2Face]

I would go Socket 2011 and IB-E. Going from Core i7 2600K @ 4.8 to 3570K @ 5GHz will get you nothing, you'll also miss 4 more threads

Agreed - Wait for IB-E. The extra lanes in the X79 chipset may help your 7970 Tri-Fire as well.

 

[wilds]

I wouldn't even bother selling your 2600k for any i5. And the fact that you have 3 7970's means you probably are CPU limited if you play at low resolution.
Upgrade elsewhere! Do you have an SSD yet? What resolution is your monitor?

Haswell would give you better single-threaded performance and would consume far less power than your 4.8 GHz SB.
Haswell-E is rumored to have an 8-core chip which would definitely be a nice upgrade.

 

[Elfear]

I thought about going IB-E but the X79 platform is only going to last another year until X99 shows up plus I'd be into a chip and board about $700-800 ($400-500 after selling my current chip/mobo). The extra cores would be nice for future games but it doesn't seem worth the money right now.

I'll have to see if I can find an article with PCI-E 3.0 vs PCI-E 2.0 w/ PLX. If I can get decent gains for trifire, it might be worth it.

I wouldn't even bother selling your 2600k for any i5. And the fact that you have 3 7970's means you probably are CPU limited if you play at low resolution.
Upgrade elsewhere! Do you have an SSD yet? What resolution is your monitor?

I game at 1080p (120hz Lightboost) or 1600p depending on the game. I'm thinking more CPU power would help at 1080p and with Crossfire overhead.

I've got 4 Vertex 3s in RAID which might benefit from the Z87 6GB/s ports. Not sure on that one though.

Haswell would give you better single-threaded performance and would consume far less power than your 4.8 GHz SB.
Haswell-E is rumored to have an 8-core chip which would definitely be a nice upgrade.

Haswell would give a decent IPC boost but most chips are hitting 4.4-4.5GHz which wouldn't make much difference compared to a 4.8Ghz SB. Efficiency is nice but not worth shelling out a bunch of money for.

Maybe I should just learn a little patience and wait for Haswell-E.

 

[Face2Face]

You could always make Balla an offer he can't refuse for his Golden 4670K....

 

[Elfear]

You could always make Balla an offer he can't refuse for his Golden 4670K....

Not a bad idea. If I could get 4.8-4.9Ghz out of a Haswell, I would probably jump ship.

 

[Slomo4shO]

I game at 1080p (120hz Lightboost) or 1600p depending on the game. I'm thinking more CPU power would help at 1080p and with Crossfire overhead.

You are running tri-fire 7970s for 1080P gaming?

 

[myocardia]

You are running tri-fire 7970s for 1080P gaming?

1080P @ 120 Hz is very different than 1080P @ 60 Hz. The first one requires exactly double the framerate of the latter one.

 

[Elfear]

You are running tri-fire 7970s for 1080P gaming?

Started with one, bought three more for bitcoin mining, and now I'm selling some off since mining is dead. I think I'll end up with two which will work well for 1080p since I need to maintain 120fps for the best Lightboost experience.

I'm hoping a faster CPU will help Crossfire scaling at 1080p.

 

[tynopik]

use a P4 for a month

then suddenly your 2600K will seem less boring

 

[crashtech]

I don't see a path to a significant and assured boost in CPU power aside from 4670K, 4770K, or to wait a month and a half for IB-E.

2600Ks sell for $200-$230 all day on ebay, so it's really not that costly to get into if you sell your old stuff.

 

[Pheesh]

Sounds like really no reason to upgrade anything in your system. You're already using 120hz/lightboost and CPU/GPU are near the top... got a mechanical keyboard yet?

 

[Slomo4shO]

Started with one, bought three more for bitcoin mining, and now I'm selling some off since mining is dead. I think I'll end up with two which will work well for 1080p since I need to maintain 120fps for the best Lightboost experience.

I'm hoping a faster CPU will help Crossfire scaling at 1080p.

My 7970s in Xfire perform well enough at 5760x1080 paired with the 3770K (granted that it is only 60Hz). I honestly don't see any real gains from upgrading to any of the current generation chips from the 2600K.

 

[T_Yamamoto]

use a P4 for a month

then suddenly your 2600K will seem less boring

Use a Pentium D 820 for 5 years with 1gb of ram. Then to a E4300 with 3.5gb ram. Then suddenly go to a i5 and 6gb of ram.

 

[skipsneeky2]

LOL,i used a pentium 4 for nearly 2 weeks less then a month ago,my h61+8gb ram as well as my 7850 went out due to electrical problems in my wall.

Bought a gtx650,sat on that pentium 4 for 2 weeks just having the most miserable time ever with it including my wife as well,facebook games run like a dog and youtube refuses to play hd and forget video gaming if the game was made after 2005....got a new board and memory for my core i5 and wow.:awe:

 

[BallaTheFeared]

You could always make Balla an offer he can't refuse for his Golden 4670K....

Honestly, outside of AVX2/FMA3 code (like Handbrake, holy sheet is it fast in handbrake for a true quad) it was a marginal upgrade over my water cooled i5-2500ks. Of course those were all 5GHz+ chips, but the only "WoW" factor for Haswell is in the new instructions and the power consumption once overclocked. Also the platform itself is quite nice, none of which is currently upgrade worthy for most. If AVX(2)/FMA3 pick up in any major APPs it could be a different story but that's neither here nor there right now, sleep uses AVX thou :ninja:

I wouldn't bet on the silicon lottery with Haswell.

 

[Elfear]

I don't see a path to a significant and assured boost in CPU power aside from 4670K, 4770K, or to wait a month and a half for IB-E.

2600Ks sell for $200-$230 all day on ebay, so it's really not that costly to get into if you sell your old stuff.

Not sure I want to go the IB-E route though with X99 around the corner and I'd be taking a big gamble with Haswell.

Sounds like really no reason to upgrade anything in your system. You're already using 120hz/lightboost and CPU/GPU are near the top... got a mechanical keyboard yet?

Haven't tried a mechanical keyboard yet. Are they worth it for gaming?

My 7970s in Xfire perform well enough at 5760x1080 paired with the 3770K (granted that it is only 60Hz). I honestly don't see any real gains from upgrading to any of the current generation chips from the 2600K.

I don't see much gain either. That's why I thought a cheap upgrade to a golden 2500k or 3570k would be provide more CPU power and be something new to tinker with.

Honestly, outside of AVX2/FMA3 code (like Handbrake, holy sheet is it fast in handbrake for a true quad) it was a marginal upgrade over my water cooled i5-2500ks. Of course those were all 5GHz+ chips, but the only "WoW" factor for Haswell is in the new instructions and the power consumption once overclocked. Also the platform itself is quite nice, none of which is currently upgrade worthy for most. If AVX(2)/FMA3 pick up in any major APPs it could be a different story but that's neither here nor there right now, sleep uses AVX thou :ninja:

I wouldn't bet on the silicon lottery with Haswell.

Ya Haswell doesn't seem worth it unless I bought a chip known to overclock well.

What is the power consumption difference between your 4670k and the 2500k chips you had?

 

[moonbogg]

Just do what everyone else did for the past year and a half. Wait for Haswell! We all know how big that paid off.

 

[BallaTheFeared]

Ya Haswell doesn't seem worth it unless I bought a chip known to overclock well.

What is the power consumption difference between your 4670k and the 2500k chips you had?

Probably not worth it to most everyone unless they're like us with multiple 79xx cards at 1080p

How many people are in our shoes and need that 20-25% IPC increase to push two good cards at what most would consider a low res even for one?


I didn't have a kill-a-watt when I had my SB chips, looking at reviews the i5-4560k seems to be about 10% faster than a 5GHz SB chip at 4.6GHz and draws roughly half the total system power.

 

[Elfear]

Probably not worth it to most everyone unless they're like us with multiple 79xx cards at 1080p

How many people are in our shoes and need that 20-25% IPC increase to push two good cards at what most would consider a low res even for one?

True. I wouldn't really be thinking of another CPU if it weren't for multi-GPU overhead. Well that and the need to tinker with something new.

I didn't have a kill-a-watt when I had my SB chips, looking at reviews the i5-4560k seems to be about 10% faster than a 5GHz SB chip at 4.6GHz and draws roughly half the total system power.

That is a lot more efficient! Microcenter is only 30 miles away...

Thanks for the info Balla.

 

[BallaTheFeared]

Oh no, please don't buy one based on what I say I'm insanely biased by a stupid good chip!

The chances you'll get a chip like mine that both clocks high, does so at relatively low voltage, and can do all of it with a $50 air cooler is roughly probably 1 in 100. Maybe even worse than that!

I suggest going through this thread on OCN http://www.overclock.net/t/1398975/official-haswell-owners-thread

After you get an idea of what other people are getting out of it then make a choice, but if you're by a MC it's probably not going to cost you much if anything if you sell your current setup.

 

[Arkaign]

Probably not worth it to most everyone unless they're like us with multiple 79xx cards at 1080p

How many people are in our shoes and need that 20-25% IPC increase to push two good cards at what most would consider a low res even for one?


I didn't have a kill-a-watt when I had my SB chips, looking at reviews the i5-4560k seems to be about 10% faster than a 5GHz SB chip at 4.6GHz and draws roughly half the total system power.

That HOCP review showed SB to HW in gaming to be about a 10% IPC bonus. Gaming seemed to be the absolute least boosted aspect of SB to IB to HW. Ditto Ivy, which sits almost directly in the middle on average.

Adobe apps, encoding, rendering, and anything AVX2 of course, all of that is better than 10%.

But I wouldn't want someone to get the idea that Haswell is dramatically better at gaming. As it is, unless you can get within a 10% clockspeed deficit range on Haswell (ie; 4.4Ghz HW vs. 4.8Ghz SB), someone can actually LOSE gaming performance. On balance, it's not a big deal considering the better SATA/USB/PCIe/power/encoding/etc pluses to HW, and gaming is not typically CPU limited anyway.

 

[BallaTheFeared]

That HOCP review showed SB to HW in gaming to be about a 10% IPC bonus. Gaming seemed to be the absolute least boosted aspect of SB to IB to HW. Ditto Ivy, which sits almost directly in the middle on average.

Adobe apps, encoding, rendering, and anything AVX2 of course, all of that is better than 10%.

But I wouldn't want someone to get the idea that Haswell is dramatically better at gaming. As it is, unless you can get within a 10% clockspeed deficit range on Haswell (ie; 4.4Ghz HW vs. 4.8Ghz SB), someone can actually LOSE gaming performance. On balance, it's not a big deal considering the better SATA/USB/PCIe/power/encoding/etc pluses to HW, and gaming is not typically CPU limited anyway.

Their review showed between a 11-25% IPC increase from Haswell to SB clock for clock in gaming.

 

[Arkaign]

Their review showed between a 18-25% IPC increase from Haswell to SB clock for clock in gaming.

Where do you see that?

http://www.hardocp.com/article/2013...74770k_ipc_overclocking_review/5#.UgHiL50o5aQ

Lost Planet Low ~12.46%
Lost Planet 1080 ~3.31%
Bioshock Low ~19.1%
Bioshock 1080 ~2%
Metro Last Light Low ~9.1%
Metro 1080 ~5.55%

And that's all they had for actual gaming benches. Discounting the 1080 tests and looking at low you get 12%, 19% (Bioshock really gained!), and 9%. How is that 18-25% on average?