Time to upgrade your Core i5 2500K?

[Majcric]

The fps gained from the memory speed is interesting. I'm still a little skeptical but I suppose it is plausible.

I wonder if I could see any gain at 1440p with faster memory. i5 2500k is already @4.5.

 

[Hulk]

I upgraded the my 2500k about two years ago to a 4770k mainly because I got one for $199 from my local Microcenter. But honestly outside of transcoding video I could have stayed with the 2500k and not missed out on much performance-wise.

 

[ClockHound]

I'm planning to upgrade to a 2550k soon. Will replace my i5-750 rig. The closest it gets to gaming is reading the fanboy fights in the Video threads.

Computing life on the trailing edge. Cheaper, not faster. ;-)

 

[moonbogg]

I wonder if throwing faster ram in my 3930K rig would help. If its bandwidth that's needed then I think quad channel already has that handled, right?

 

[poofyhairguy]

 

[tortillasoup]

Digitalfoundry has an article about it now, and also includes new tests with an i7 3770k
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/d...it-finally-time-to-upgrade-your-core-i5-2500k


I've personally always paid extra for the better CPU due to the chance of it aging better and it's good to see it being true for the i7 CPUs as well now that we do get games using more than four cores/threads.
I've never agreed with the "skimp on CPU go big on GPU" mentality.

That implies that once you buy something, you can't upgrade it later. If you want to maximize the value of your money now, going big on the GPU and small on the CPU allows maximum value right now. If you want to upgrade down the road, you certainly can do so and at a lower price. If it takes 5 years for your Core i3 to become unusable, by then, purchasing an i7 for your system should be significantly less than the initial price delta back when you purchased the i3 over the i5.

 

[know of fence]

I don't really see what the new generation of gpus has to do with a CPU upgrade. One can do a system upgrade and keep the gpu until the new gpus come out. As far as how long Intel can "get away" with their pricing, I would say until a better alternative is available. If you insist on solder or more cores, there is the HEDT line up. Intel did make an attractively priced hex core available there. Granted, Intel needs a mainstream hex core, but constant complaining about TIM and lack of edram seems kind of pointless, especially since another poster has already "been there and done that" over and over again for basically an entire thread.

Edit: I also believe cpus are a *great* value, especially since each generation has shown slow improvements while in real dollars the price has come down. When one thinks of the huge number of transistors in a cpu, all the design, research, testing, validation and manufacturing required, and the processing available for 250.00 or even 350.00, it is an amazing value. Now of course, we as a consumer would like more, but all in all they are a fantastic value.

So you really thought this be thankful for what you get BS would fly? Is this the Sunday mass?

I used to start my rebuttals like this "I don't really get" or "I don't really see" until realizing that it's not an argument in my favor. Not seeing can mean that either I'm in denial of something obvious or that I'm just blind, but even if I not seeing something after looking repeatedly it really doesn't prove nonexistence.

The talking points are quite tired of course but they server perspective. one thing you don't hear often and something that DigitalFoundry glosses over, is that Intel is doesn't actually improve their lineup's features (outside of IPC), raising prices this way. You even suggested buying a Haswell-E for thermal conductivity and more cores™, basically proving my point. For the longest time the i5 has been the go-to gaming CPU, not any more.
The flip-side of barely improving is that some people slow down their upgrading, and purchase timing becomes even more important than ever, for others it means they increase their PC budget.

 

[frozentundra123456]

Would you have rather I had said "Your argument about gpus is a non-sequitor and makes no sense?" I guess being open to other's opinions and politeness are lost on you.

As far as TIM vs solder, it was an issue years ago, but is standard practice now, and is not going to change. So that would seem to be the definition of a "tired talking point" as you say.

 

[Spjut]

That implies that once you buy something, you can't upgrade it later. If you want to maximize the value of your money now, going big on the GPU and small on the CPU allows maximum value right now. If you want to upgrade down the road, you certainly can do so and at a lower price. If it takes 5 years for your Core i3 to become unusable, by then, purchasing an i7 for your system should be significantly less than the initial price delta back when you purchased the i3 over the i5.

Perhaps it varies by region, but the second hand market here where I live isn't favorable for CPUs, they tend to stay at a high price range. Here, Sandy Bridge i7 tend to still cost more than half of its retail price back when it was still sold.

The best CPU available for the socket in question today is very likely to still be one of the best for the socket once it's dead. I just don't see the point of getting the worse CPU today and then pay the extra to upgrade to the better one a few years from now. Or upgrade to a new platform for even more money.


GPUs however, are very easy to upgrade. New series are released each year, and the improvements tend to be significant. As long as the CPU is up to par, you can always just get the latest and greatest GPU whenever you want.

 

[Charlie98]

I'm not what you would call a serious gamer by any means, but my 2500K @ 4.3GHz still works well for me. Granted, the newest titles I have are BF4 and BF:BC2, played at 1080, so nothing super taxing. I've kept the rig viable by upgrading the GPU 560Ti>760>970 but the 970 is most likely the last upgrade I'll make before moving to a new CPU platform in a few years. The 2500K is a good chip, but it is getting a bit long in the tooth.

 

[Denithor]

I wonder how much impact DX12 will have on this subject? It seems to really shift the load from CPU back onto GPU, meaning that these older chips will last even longer.

 

[TheELF]

I wonder how much impact DX12 will have on this subject? It seems to really shift the load from CPU back onto GPU, meaning that these older chips will last even longer.

Very little,don't forget that everything we have seen until now are benchmarks that are specifically made to show off this improvement,in real life a game will still have to do very CPU heavy calculations to get you good FPS,Dx is only for graphics not for the game mechanics.

So CPU easy games that would run fine anyway are still going to run fine and CPU heavy games will MAYBE give you a bit better performance since you won't need to run the driver thread,nvidia's driver thread in well optimized games is like under 10% and you only gain that if the driver would run together with an other thread on the same core,otherwise you just have less CPU usage without gains.

 

[Spjut]

I wonder how much impact DX12 will have on this subject? It seems to really shift the load from CPU back onto GPU, meaning that these older chips will last even longer.

I'd say Battlefield 4 using Mantle is a good indicator of the impact DX12 can have.

The old Phenom II X4 955 went from 32 average FPS to almost 60 FPS
http://www.pcgameshardware.de/AMD-R...ecials/AMD-Mantle-Test-Battlefield-4-1107754/

 

[sxr7171]

This is tempting me to upgrade my RAM instead.

 

[Yuriman]

This is tempting me to upgrade my RAM instead.

The funny thing, to me, is that early benchmarking didn't seem to show improvements from faster RAM. I wonder what changed?

 

[TheELF]

I'd say Battlefield 4 using Mantle is a good indicator of the impact DX12 can have.

The old Phenom II X4 955 went from 32 average FPS to almost 60 FPS
http://www.pcgameshardware.de/AMD-R...ecials/AMD-Mantle-Test-Battlefield-4-1107754/

This is a good indicator of how badly Dx11 runs on AMD cards and how they need the parallelism at lower resolutions to get normal results.

 

[Ketchup]

This is a great video, from which I have learned two things:

1. More sites would do well to add or replace their pages of text with a video format.
2. Sites would do well to perform follow-up testing. Show enthusiasts how well their equipment is holding up, and how things have changes with software updates.

 

[poofyhairguy]

This is tempting me to upgrade my RAM instead.

Exactly. GTA 5 is the only game where Skylake could change 60hz playability, and then only if you OC.

 

[Charlie98]

The funny thing, to me, is that early benchmarking didn't seem to show improvements from faster RAM. I wonder what changed?

I'm wondering that myself. I never bothered with anything more exciting than 1600, even with my (supposedly) uber-OC'able Samsung RAM. I just recently upgraded all my machines to 16GB, maybe I should have gotten faster RAM instead...

 

[NTMBK]

The funny thing, to me, is that early benchmarking didn't seem to show improvements from faster RAM. I wonder what changed?

New consoles have way more memory, so assets all get way bigger. More data to shovel = more bandwidth required.

 

[Carfax83]

I wonder if throwing faster ram in my 3930K rig would help. If its bandwidth that's needed then I think quad channel already has that handled, right?

Not likely. 3930K has a quad channel interface and a larger L3 cache than mainstream CPUs, so faster RAM won't make much of a difference.

Termie did a nice review of whether memory speed impacts performance on Haswell-E and Skylake, and as expected, it had a minimal impact for the 5820K @ 4.4ghz.

 

[skipsneeky2]

Guess with these numbers,Pascals 970 replacement may be the last gpu i should consider for my i5 2500 non k and 1080p.I am assuming its going to be at least 10% faster then the Titan X.

Got a feeling when the cards after Pascal drop,4 threads simply may become a major limiting factor.A move to a i7 3770 and 1440p could keep this rig relevant still maybe but god this i5 would be at least 7 years old.

 

[Dribble]

Not bad not bad.
Stock i5 6500 runs at 3.3ghz with 4 cores in use and still manage beat 2500K 4.6ghz with 2133Mhz ram.
There is HUGE IPC increase with skylake.Holy shit.

You clearly have a different view of HUGE to lots of us. My P4C@3.2 to E6600@3.2 was huge, my Q6600@3.2 to i2500K@4.3 was huge. Skylake is just a little boost in comparison to them.

I have been ready to replace my i2500K for years, but I just can't justify it - it still does > 60fps in everything, and really skylake isn't that much faster.

 

[Sweepr]

You clearly have a different view of HUGE to lots of us. My P4C@3.2 to E6600@3.2 was huge, my Q6600@3.2 to i2500K@4.3 was huge. Skylake is just a little boost in comparison to them.

Back then you had higher core counts + higher clocks as well, but from a performance/clock perspective these tests actually show respectable gains from Sandy Bridge to Skylake.

 

[moonbogg]

Interesting thread. Long live Sandy! Rock it baby you sexy ROCKET!