Upgrading from an Intel Core i7-2600K: Testing Sandy Bridge in 2019
by Ian Cutress on May 10, 2019 10:30 AM EST- Posted in
- CPUs
- Intel
- Sandy Bridge
- Overclocking
- 7700K
- Coffee Lake
- i7-2600K
- 9700K
Test Bed and Setup
As per our processor testing policy, we take a premium category motherboard suitable for the socket, and equip the system with a suitable amount of memory running at the manufacturer's maximum supported frequency. This is also typically run at JEDEC subtimings where possible. It is noted that some users are not keen on this policy, stating that sometimes the maximum supported frequency is quite low, or faster memory is available at a similar price, or that the JEDEC speeds can be prohibitive for performance. While these comments make sense, ultimately very few users apply memory profiles (either XMP or other) as they require interaction with the BIOS, and most users will fall back on JEDEC supported speeds - this includes home users as well as industry who might want to shave off a cent or two from the cost or stay within the margins set by the manufacturer. Where possible, we will extend out testing to include faster memory modules either at the same time as the review or a later date.
| Test Setup | |||||
| Intel | i7-9700K | ASRock Z370 Pro Gaming i7 |
P3.20 | TRUE Copper | Corsair Vengeance 4x8GB DDR4-2666 |
| Intel | i7-7700K | GIGABYTE X170 Extreme-ECC |
F21e | Silverstone AR10-115XS* |
G.Skill RipjawsV 2x16GB DDR4-2400 |
| Intel | i7-2600K (OC) | ASRock Z77 OC Formula |
P2.40 | TRUE Copper | GeIL Evo Veloce 2x8GB DDR3-2400 |
| Intel | i7-2600K | ASRock Z77 OC Formula |
P2.40 | TRUE Copper | G.Skill Ares 4x4 GB DDR3-1333 |
| GPU | Sapphire RX 460 2GB (CPU Tests) MSI GTX 1080 Gaming 8G (Gaming Tests) |
||||
| PSU | Corsair AX860i Corsair AX1200i |
||||
| SSD | Crucial MX200 1TB | ||||
| OS | Windows 10 x64 RS3 1709 Spectre and Meltdown Patched |
||||
| *VRM Supplimented with SST-FHP141-VF 173 CFM fans | |||||
Many thanks to...
We must thank the following companies for kindly providing hardware for our multiple test beds. Some of this hardware is not in this test bed specifically, but is used in other testing.
| Hardware Providers | |||
| Sapphire RX 460 Nitro | MSI GTX 1080 Gaming X OC | Crucial MX200 + MX500 SSDs |
Corsair AX860i + AX1200i PSUs |
 |
 |
 |
 |
| G.Skill RipjawsV, SniperX, FlareX |
Crucial Ballistix DDR4 |
Silverstone Coolers |
Silverstone Fans |
 |
 |
 |
 |
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
213 Comments
View All Comments
MDD1963 - Saturday, May 11, 2019 - link
my 7700K (turbos to 4.7 GHz all core in Balanced mode) will likely stand pat for quite a while...!Targon - Tuesday, May 14, 2019 - link
Quad-core will seem weak in another two years or so.zodiacfml - Saturday, May 11, 2019 - link
Higher core counts are long overdue. I thought my i3-8100 I bought at end of 2017 is decent. Turns out, it is entry level for doing something creative on a PC. A few months after, AMD arrived with the highr core count Ryzens.I hope to get an 8 core this yaear or next.
yankeeDDL - Saturday, May 11, 2019 - link
Great article. Would love to see more of this kind. I commented along this line on some previous articles. Not everybody upgrades from one gen to the next (in fact, who does?), so incremental review are useful only from a technical perspective (which is already quite a bit), but somebody with a 4-5 years old PC would struggle to find a reference.Personally, I would have loved to see Ryzen 2*** added to the picture (not sure if there's something that costs as much as the i7-9700K, but a 2800 seems relevant).
Thanks again.
trentbg - Saturday, May 11, 2019 - link
Still running i7-2700k on my main pc and looking to replace it any time soon, at 4.7ghz most games run over 100fps. My other machine is still on Xeon W3690, OCd to comfortable 4ghz on all 6 cores and again is crashing every game, why upgrade?teamet - Saturday, May 11, 2019 - link
For anyone still using a Core i7-2600K for CPU testing, even when overclocked, it’s time to feel the benefits of an upgradeRSAUser - Saturday, May 11, 2019 - link
For most the benefits are minimal, so my reply is, "why"?Icehawk - Saturday, May 11, 2019 - link
My OC’d 3770k is still going strong, moved it to my wife and I run a 8700k now but I only upgraded because her 3rd gen i5 died not because I felt a strong performance need. I’m primarily a gamer. Where I did see an uplift (and needed it desperately) is in my HEVC transcoding.Sahrin - Saturday, May 11, 2019 - link
Why on Earth would you post an upgrade comparison of only Intel CPU's?BushLin - Saturday, May 11, 2019 - link
Because during that period AMD's products were trash?