If you bought 2600k over 2500k were your reasons?

[toyota]

To my surprise, I find that HT is being used with quite a few games. I dont think it is the games that are written to use more threads perhaps. Rather it seems windows 7 balances the load between the logical cores. The highest load between all logical cores I see in Mafia II.

look at reviews and you will see the 2600k is not doing anything more than the 2500k for games. take into account the overclocking headroom that will easily handle the next few gpu upgrades and the 2500k is certainly the better purchase for gaming. and as already mentioned, by the time the 2600k has an advantage in gaming we will have much better cpus anyway.

 

[slag]

yeah, I've been contemplating selling my 2500k that does 4.5 ghz at 1.3 volts and springing for a 2600k, just for the hyperthreading. I know it will just bother me knowing I don't have it, even though I probably will never notice it not there..

 

[Diogenes2]

Looking at the benches, don't see much difference in most applications..

http://www.anandtech.com/show/4083/...core-i7-2600k-i5-2500k-core-i3-2100-tested/14

 

[mclaren777]

both the 2500k and 2600k will be equally as irrelevant before then...

I guess that all depends how you define irrelevant.

 

[toyota]

I guess that all depends how you define irrelevant.

you are talking about 8 years from now so it should be pretty easy to figure out. is even a $1000 cpu from 7 or 8 years ago better any better now than a $200 cpu from the time period? NO, because neither one will provide any more usefulness than the other in modern applications.

 

[Twsmit]

you are talking about 8 years from now so it should be pretty easy to figure out. is even a $1000 cpu from 7 or 8 years ago better any better now than a $200 cpu from the time period? NO, because neither one will provide any more usefulness than the other in modern applications.

I whole heartedly agree for the most part. However in the case of early HT enabled P4s which were released in 2002/2003, I think there is a case to be made that they're far more useful than their single core contemporaries.

 

[toyota]

I whole heartedly agree for the most part. However in the case of early HT enabled P4s which were released in 2002/2003, I think there is a case to be made that they're far more useful than their single core contemporaries.

right but they both became super anemic at the same time. I guess I have more of a problem with him thinking that either cpu will be better than the other in any meaningful way in 2019.

 

[T101]

look at reviews and you will see the 2600k is not doing anything more than the 2500k for games. take into account the overclocking headroom that will easily handle the next few gpu upgrades and the 2500k is certainly the better purchase for gaming. and as already mentioned, by the time the 2600k has an advantage in gaming we will have much better cpus anyway.

I dont look at the reviews, I look at what is going on in my system actually running the games. And there is definetly often load on more than 4 logical cores. Dont ask me why, but that is what I am seeing. It varies wildly though, and the game that sees the highest load on all 8 logical cores are Mafia II.

 

[soccerballtux]

i haven't upgraded to Sandy yet, as I am pooling resources for it as we speak. yes, not everyone is made of gold!

my reason: for the first time ever. i won't be getting yesterdays technology today. and e-peen, too!

it's not worth it. You'll get it and realize "oh, what was I going to use this for again?" Take it from me.

 

[Hulk]

I whole heartedly agree for the most part. However in the case of early HT enabled P4s which were released in 2002/2003, I think there is a case to be made that they're far more useful than their single core contemporaries.

I'd say your are absolutely correct here. I had a P4 3.06HT and I definitely noticed that extra logical core made multitasking much smoother compared to the single cores processors I was used to. Encoding video or music while doing other things was actually doable and not painful.

 

[PlasmaBomb]

hyperthreading

By hyperthreading, you mean to say hyperthreading for folding...

You got some nice -smp 8's running?

 

[VirtualLarry]

you are talking about 8 years from now so it should be pretty easy to figure out. is even a $1000 cpu from 7 or 8 years ago better any better now than a $200 cpu from the time period? NO, because neither one will provide any more usefulness than the other in modern applications.

$1000 CPU from 7-8 years ago? Howabout my Athlon 64 S939 X2 4800+? Cost $1000+ when first introduced. I picked it up from a forum member here relatively cheap. It's not even good for gaming anymore, really. A 2.4Ghz dual-core is decent for web browsing, but not much else. Perhaps some HD playback, with a good video card.

 

[VirtualLarry]

I plan to keep this new computer until early 2019 so I bought a 2600K because it has longer legs.

That's going to be a pretty crappy computer in 2019. Software will probably be optimized for eleventy-billion cores by then. Or perhaps not.

 

[toyota]

$1000 CPU from 7-8 years ago? Howabout my Athlon 64 S939 X2 4800+? Cost $1000+ when first introduced. I picked it up from a forum member here relatively cheap. It's not even good for gaming anymore, really. A 2.4Ghz dual-core is decent for web browsing, but not much else. Perhaps some HD playback, with a good video card.

yeah I think people forget how fast hardware changes and what you can get for the same amount of money just a year later. 5 years ago we were debating whether we needed dual cores for games now a dual core with architecture twice as fast clock for clock cant even get the job done in some cases. its silly for him to think his system will be very useful in 7 or 8 years. within 4 years a $400 oem pc at Best Buy will be faster than what he builds now.

 

[Seven]

It was a simple decision IMO.

When I bought my C2D rig 4 years ago, I had to decide between the E6600 and the E6400. There was also a $100 price difference and I picked the E6600. I don't think I gained anything over the E6400 going with a little faster cpu.. So this time, went with the 2500K and no regrets whatsoever..

 

[Dark Shroud]

yeah I think people forget how fast hardware changes and what you can get for the same amount of money just a year later. 5 years ago we were debating whether we needed dual cores for games now a dual core with architecture twice as fast clock for clock cant even get the job done in some cases. its silly for him to think his system will be very useful in 7 or 8 years. within 4 years a $400 oem pc at Best Buy will be faster than what he builds now.

It was a simple decision IMO.

When I bought my C2D rig 4 years ago, I had to decide between the E6600 and the E6400. There was also a $100 price difference and I picked the E6600. I don't think I gained anything over the E6400 going with a little faster cpu.. So this time, went with the 2500K and no regrets whatsoever..

I can understand your point but there is a big difference between a faster clock and more L2 cache & Hyper threading.

I upgraded from a hyper threaded single core P4. That hyper threading was the only reason I was able to use the CPU for as long as I did. Especially when I upgraded to Win7, an OS that knows how to use multiple cores/threads as well as memory as opposed to XP.

I figure that a good CPU can be used for 5 years or so when paired with video card upgrades. Just last year I listed to a "tech person" explain that when buying the cheapest Intel CPUs to make sure you get a version with 2mb of L2 cache as they noticed from tests that 1mb wasn't enough anymore.

 

[Pohemi]

Cache, HT, and binning.

Edit: mostly for video encoding/conversion, and usable lifespan

 

[toyota]

Dark Shroud, I think you are giving HT too much credit especially on the P4. I turned HT on and off on my fathers 3.0 P4 pc and noticed no real difference in anything. and again, even with HT, a P4 is not much more useful for modern apps than it is without it.

the HT that is used on i7 is quite a bit different and much improved but even so the advantage over the 2500k is little to nothing in most cases. if gaming is your main concern then it is basically worthless. there is nothing wrong with going for a 2600k if you actually do things that utilize HT but other than that the 2500k is the better cpu for the money.

 

[RussianSensation]

By the time 2500k @ 4.4ghz+ will become too slow for games (i.e., performance per clock, games truly using more than 4 threads), chances are that every single component in your system from SSD to the videocard will be also magnitudes of times slower than what will be out at the time.

2500k @ 4.4ghz is faster than my i7 860 HT @ 3.9ghz. So one way to look at it is you buy 1 x $200 CPU today and save $100 now by foregoing the 2600k. Then in 2-3 years from now when the next generation consoles come out and games start to take advantage of more than 4 threads, you simply get another $200 CPU that's probably 6-8 cores (most likely with double the performance). Since you will have saved $100 by going with the 2500k today, that next $200 CPU upgrade is really ~ $100 for you.

For those using all 8 threads to full advantage, definitely get the 2600k.

 

[Dark Shroud]

Just to be clear on somthing, I am doing video encoding with my i7 2600k. I do agree that the 2500s are good enough for most gamers & average users for now.

 

[Cebu]

I bought a 2600K because I do a lot of video encoding. Before upgrading I used a AMD 955BE. Although it worked okay, my operating system (Windows 7) would always stall or hangup when I was encoding and performing other task at the same time. It was very aggravating. Since upgrading last week I have been performing the same task while encoding and the system has never stalled. I could not even tell that I was encoding until it I received a prompt that it was finished. The 2600K just burned through the task and finished faster than the 955BE. The difference was very noticeable. I debated on getting a 2500K but since I only upgrade every couple of years I decided to go ahead and spend the extra money to get a CPU that it a little more future proof. In the end the extra money is well spent. Even if the hyperthreading is not used now, it most likely will be in the future. Plus, for enthusiast what is a $100.00 when it comes to computer parts.