Article Upgrading from an Intel Core i7-2600K: Testing Sandy Bridge in 2019 / Anandtech throwback review

[UsandThem]

https://www.anandtech.com/show/1404...el-core-i7-2600k-testing-sandy-bridge-in-2019

A good retest review, and since I see quite a few people here still using a Sandy Bridge based PC, it might be good info for them.

I sure hope the next true Intel CPU is a pleasant surprise like these were back in the day.

From the end of the article:


Back in my day, we installed games from floppy discs / drives, and we didn't have cold cathode / RGB anything. We had all had ugly beige or gray cases and we liked it! Now get off of my lawn! 😎


P.S. Don't ban me 😛

 

[Markfw]

I still have a 2600k. Its been a long time since I powered it up. I have almost given up selling stuff, becuase of all the problems I have had with ebay customers I also have a 4790k and an intel 950 and a X5670 Xeon, all sitting in their boxes waiting for me to find a use for them.

Now get off of my lawn! 😛

 

[UsandThem]

I still have a 2600k. Its been a long time since I powered it up. I have almost given up selling stuff, becuase of all the problems I have had with ebay customers I also have a 4790k and an intel 950 and a X5670 Xeon, all sitting in their boxes waiting for me to find a use for them.

Yeah, selling tech items on Ebay is almost asking for problems because they always side with the buyer regardless of the facts. When it comes to used electronics like computer parts, I either sell them here to established traders or locally through Craigslist. I actually am willing to take less than I can sell it on Ebay for because I don't want to deal with the headaches / drama from dealing with people who: 1. Don't know what they are doing. 2. Are scammers.

Just look at some of the posts here where people can't figure out what they are doing, and return component after component to places like Amazon and Newegg, when it's clearly a PEBKAC problem. That's what I do not want to deal with. 😳

 

[Markfw]

Yeah, selling tech items on Ebay is almost asking for problems because they always side with the buyer regardless of the facts. When it comes to used electronics like computer parts, I either sell them here to established traders or locally through Craigslist. I actually am willing to take less than I can sell it on Ebay for because I don't want to deal with the headaches / drama from dealing with people who: 1. Don't know what they are doing. 2. Are scammers.

Just look at some of the posts here where people can't figure out what they are doing, and return component after component to places like Amazon and Newegg, when it's clearly a PEBKAC problem. That's what I do not want to deal with. 😳

Exactly The last 2 motherboards I had serious problems with stupid users. Buying it without checking their CPU for compatability, and all it needed was a bios flash that I could have done before I shipped it. And those 10 video cards I sold for over $7000 ? Cost me well, over $1000 in fees, then probably another $200 on shipping. They take out like 5% or so from the paypal deposit, then at the end of the month another 10% in ebay fees. I got a bill for $700, after all the money that came out at first, I thought I was done.

But is somebody reading this wants to buy one of those CPU/motherboard/memory setups, PM me, and maybe we can work something out,.

 

[TheGiant]

I miss at the end of the test the normalised difference

the 2600K runs at 4,7GHz while the 7700K at 4,3GHz and 9700 who knows, or make the 7700K oced to 4.7GHz

still I think the big difference is made byt the RAM settings (buying 2400MHz ddr3 in sandy release times-no way), run it at the times 1333MHz dd3 and....

reminds me of skylake launch, barely faster with ddr 2400, but give it a 3600 MHz good RAM and it shines, even in apps it makes a huge difference

make a test 8 years back...athlon 64(or p4 worse) in 2003 vs sandy... what a difference.....

 

[Gikaseixas]

Use my trusty i7 2600 on our HTPC paired with a GTX 1050TI. My 8 year old plays Fortnite on it and loves it. He brags to his friends that our XBOX was custom made by his dad.

The project started with an old Dell Optiplex mini desktop. I added a SSD, a low profile graphics card and swapped the old 500GB it came with for a 2TB spinner.

 

[Arkaign]

I miss at the end of the test the normalised difference

the 2600K runs at 4,7GHz while the 7700K at 4,3GHz and 9700 who knows, or make the 7700K oced to 4.7GHz

still I think the big difference is made byt the RAM settings (buying 2400MHz ddr3 in sandy release times-no way), run it at the times 1333MHz dd3 and....

reminds me of skylake launch, barely faster with ddr 2400, but give it a 3600 MHz good RAM and it shines, even in apps it makes a huge difference

make a test 8 years back...athlon 64(or p4 worse) in 2003 vs sandy... what a difference.....

?? I had G Skill DDR3 2400 when I built my 2600k not very long after launch (certainly before Ivy Bridge). I actually still have the RAM in my HTPC lol. I've always been a proponent of good RAM speeds, even back at PC150 SDRAM, or waaaay back in the 28pin 1980s days LOL.

 

[B-Riz]

Use my trusty i7 2600 on our HTPC paired with a GTX 1050TI. My 8 year old plays Fortnite on it and loves it. He brags to his friends that our XBOX was custom made by his dad.

The project started with an old Dell Optiplex mini desktop. I added a SSD, a low profile graphics card and swapped the old 500GB it came with for a 2TB spinner.

Very nice!

I put an eBay 2600K in the in-laws computer as an upgrade from an i5 2320.

H77 mATX, RX 480 4GB, 16GB 1333, 144 freesync panel and I can get 90 fps in BF V on it.

They are still a great chip if an 1155 board needs more power.

 

[Arkaign]

Very nice!

I put an eBay 2600K in the in-laws computer as an upgrade from an i5 2320.

H77 mATX, RX 480 4GB, 16GB 1333, 144 freesync panel and I can get 90 fps in BF V on it.

They are still a great chip if an 1155 board needs more power.

480 makes a great balanced match for that.

2600+SSD+8 to 16GB Ram+dGPU and you have something pretty solid

 

[B-Riz]

480 makes a great balanced match for that.

2600+SSD+8 to 16GB Ram+dGPU and you have something pretty solid

Heck yeah, it has a 240GB boot / a few games, and a 3TB for storage.

I put it together way before Ryzen launched with enough oomph to play games at 1080p on low now and then.

It started life as:

i5 2320
8GB 1066
GTX 660
128GB SSD
1TB HDD

RX 480 4GB was the first upgrade when they went on fire sale before the mining craziness.

I had to get a HSF repair kit because of the horrible push pin mounting.

https://www.coolerguys.com/products/evercool-lga115x-backplate-lga115x-es

 

[Arkaign]

Yeah, I always dump the stupid push pin Intel coolers. Because they're so incredibly cheap and competent, CM 212 Evo goes on anything I build (vertical space allowing of course).

2600k I think represents an interesting dividing line with CPUs where it reached 'good enough' performance for basically all common uses even to this day (provided you have adequate SSD/Ram/GPU for your needs).

Pure 4 cores I think have crossed over into 'ouch' territory for a number of things now, but the 4C/8T holds up. This makes for loads of stellar deals on putting together rocking systems for cheap 🙂 As much as I like the 8400/8700k/9700k and Ryzen 2xxx, if someone has say $600-$1000 and wants the best gaming experience they can, building from a used platform base is a tremendous advantage.

Eg; I just priced out a cheap Ryzen 2600 / B450 / 8GB 2666 / 250SSD / RX570 build on Amazon. Total $615, in a dirt cheap case with a PSU kind of cutting it close. If I did Intel on a new build it would have been way worse.

Same $615 gets :

E5-1660v2, 16GB Quad Chan, 250SSD+1TBHDD, 610W, with a 1660ti. 4Ghz 6C/12T, the QC 1600 ram runs like DDR4 3200 with low latency.

 

[DrMrLordX]

Back in my day, we installed games from floppy discs / drives, and we didn't have cold cathode / RGB anything. We had all had ugly beige or gray cases and we liked it! Now get off of my lawn! 😎

My first monitor was monochrome green. Hyuck.

I wish I had been into overclocking back then. Swapping oscillator crystals and such.

 

[mopardude87]

Interesting read but a follow up review perhaps showing where a bottleneck begins and ends at 4k would be interesting. I don't run ultra in GTA V on my 1070ti at 4k but i have had to drop quite a few of the demanding settings from when i ran at 1440p to get my minimums to stay closer to 60. Only way to sustain 60+ is running grass and all demanding settings on normal or off so i have adjusted my standards to minimums of 50 so i could run grass and reflections both on high at least.The other demanding stuff is on the lowest of settings or off.

Not surprised about bottlenecks at 1080p though, had them on a i5 4460 with my 1070 ti at 1080p . Surprised though about bottlenecks at 1440p with GTA V then again those are very high settings and not ultra. Ultra grass had me dropping into the 50s at even 1080p.

I wonder where a RTX 2080TI user would be if they sat at 4k with a i7 2600k. Any other resolution but 4k shows bottlenecks . I know such a pairing is very unlikely but would be a interesting benchmark. Would more people prefer to be gpu bottlenecked at 4k or be cpu bottlenecked at 1080p?

 

[Arkaign]

Ha, I don't think a heck of a lot of people are matching 2080ti with 2600k.

Just loose estimate, but 2600k @ 4.5-5Ghz top GPU for resolution before it no longer makes sense :

1080p : ~1070ti-RTX2060ish
1440p : 1080/RTX2070
1440UW/4K : 1080ti/RTX2080

In those situations, the CPU should be fairly well matched for the GPUs in terms of running typical AAA fare @ mostly ultra details. There is no such thing as zero bottleneck of course, whatever limit in FPS exists at any time will be down to either/or, even if the gap is very very small, and of course loads vary quickly and sometimes quite severely depending on where/what is happening.

For stock / i7-2600/3770/etc, perhaps drop the GPU ranges one notch entirely.

We've seen i5 4C/4T models already hit by a number of modern AAA games, where the 1% and 0.1% lows are just too erratic to be ideal. Not every game to be sure but when you do hit that stuttering/laggy feel it's no fun. The last pair of AC games have been like that, maybe even partially due to the awful multi-level DRM dragging things down.

With the new consoles hitting at least 8C Zen2 for CPU, I think it's probably likely that once multiplats developed for 9th gen consoles start hitting in earnest in 2021 that we finally see 4C/8T start to become borderline. As it is today of course, the old 2600k is still quite capable for matching with most GPUs under $800. Not AS good as the new CPUs and platforms, especially in terms of features, but shockingly decent. If ~2021 is hit, then that makes for a decade long run lol. Truly crazy.

 

[mopardude87]

Ha, I don't think a heck of a lot of people are matching 2080ti with 2600k.

I know that but as a general thought it crossed my mind. The 4k numbers in the article are way lower then most people would play at yet you drop a few settings or go to a 2080ti then things change. 23fps avg on ultra on a 1080 at 4k in GTAV is pretty pitiful and its a pattern followed with all the 4k benches as well.

I am sure if it was even possible to get double the frame rate with a 2080ti over the 1080 then the avg is still under 50 easily and i am guessing its closer to 40? Quite a bit lower then the very high 1440p numbers.

 

[Arkaign]

You know, I wonder if the very high end cards are suffering from PCIe 2.0 there. I think in situations where CPU limit isn't so low, the 2080ti has been ~35-40% faster than 1080ti/2080 in non-RTX-relevant output.

I think that was part of the big disappointment with RTX to begin with.

Good AIB 1080 (such as Strix 11Gbps) is basically RTX 2070 performance or even a shade better.

Good AIB 1080ti performance is analagous to 2080.

This especially hurt 1080ti owners, as by spending similar to their two year old investment would only give basically identical performance, 3GB less Ram, and some heretofore not very compelling RTX stuff.

2080ti was the only card to offer a significant uplift over 1080/1080ti, but it's priced up in Titanville.

 

[scannall]

Eg; I just priced out a cheap Ryzen 2600 / B450 / 8GB 2666 / 250SSD / RX570 build on Amazon. Total $615, in a dirt cheap case with a PSU kind of cutting it close. If I did Intel on a new build it would have been way worse.

Eh, you can do a lot better than that. 2600X System $574

 

[SPBHM]

You know, I wonder if the very high end cards are suffering from PCIe 2.0 there. I think in situations where CPU limit isn't so low, the 2080ti has been ~35-40% faster than 1080ti/2080 in non-RTX-relevant output.

I think that was part of the big disappointment with RTX to begin with.

Good AIB 1080 (such as Strix 11Gbps) is basically RTX 2070 performance or even a shade better.

Good AIB 1080ti performance is analagous to 2080.

This especially hurt 1080ti owners, as by spending similar to their two year old investment would only give basically identical performance, 3GB less Ram, and some heretofore not very compelling RTX stuff.

2080ti was the only card to offer a significant uplift over 1080/1080ti, but it's priced up in Titanville.

I think it's more likely that you will always hit other bottlenecks before 2.0 x16 becomes a significant problem,

 

[Arkaign]

I think it's more likely that you will always hit other bottlenecks before 2.0 x16 becomes a significant problem,

Well, I think overall it's probably not a major deal, but the difference is definitely there.

Per lane, 3.0 is basically double 2.0. Therefore, testing a 16X 3.0 card @ 8X lanes is approximately PCie 2.0 x16 for practical measurements.

Will have to add link in a sec

Ah, here ya go : interesting stuff. I don't think for less than ~2080ti in certain somewhat rare circumstances this really even comes into play, especially now that SLI/CF seems mostly dead.

PCIe bottlenecking