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
Gaming: Grand Theft Auto V
The highly anticipated iteration of the Grand Theft Auto franchise hit the shelves on April 14th 2015, with both AMD and NVIDIA in tow to help optimize the title. GTA doesn’t provide graphical presets, but opens up the options to users and extends the boundaries by pushing even the hardest systems to the limit using Rockstar’s Advanced Game Engine under DirectX 11. Whether the user is flying high in the mountains with long draw distances or dealing with assorted trash in the city, when cranked up to maximum it creates stunning visuals but hard work for both the CPU and the GPU.
For our test we have scripted a version of the in-game benchmark. The in-game benchmark consists of five scenarios: four short panning shots with varying lighting and weather effects, and a fifth action sequence that lasts around 90 seconds. We use only the final part of the benchmark, which combines a flight scene in a jet followed by an inner city drive-by through several intersections followed by ramming a tanker that explodes, causing other cars to explode as well. This is a mix of distance rendering followed by a detailed near-rendering action sequence, and the title thankfully spits out frame time data.
There are no presets for the graphics options on GTA, allowing the user to adjust options such as population density and distance scaling on sliders, but others such as texture/shadow/shader/water quality from Low to Very High. Other options include MSAA, soft shadows, post effects, shadow resolution and extended draw distance options. There is a handy option at the top which shows how much video memory the options are expected to consume, with obvious repercussions if a user requests more video memory than is present on the card (although there’s no obvious indication if you have a low end GPU with lots of GPU memory, like an R7 240 4GB).
| AnandTech CPU Gaming 2019 Game List | ||||||||
| Game | Genre | Release Date | API | IGP | Low | Med | High | |
| Grand Theft Auto V | Open World | Apr 2015 |
DX11 | 720p Low |
1080p High |
1440p Very High |
4K Ultra |
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All of our benchmark results can also be found in our benchmark engine, Bench.
| AnandTech | IGP | Low | Medium | High |
| Average FPS |  |
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| 95th Percentile |  |
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We see performance parity between the chips at 4K, but for all other resolutions and settings, the OC chip again still can't make it to the level of the 7700K, often sitting midway between the 7700K at stock and the 2600K at stock.
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djayjp - Friday, May 10, 2019 - link
Hey, I know! Let's benchmark a CPU at 4K+ using a mid-range GPU! Brilliant....Ian Cutress - Friday, May 10, 2019 - link
Guess what, there are gaming benchmarks at a wide range of resolutions!eva02langley - Friday, May 10, 2019 - link
I am not sure what is the goal of this? Is it for saying that Sandy Bridge is still relevant, Intel IPC is bad or games developers are lazy?One thing for sure, it is time to move on from GTA V. You cannot get anything from those numbers.
Times to have games that are from 2018 and 2019 only. You cannot just bench old games so your database can be built upon. It doesn't represent the consumer reality.
BushLin - Saturday, May 11, 2019 - link
Yeah, why benchmark a game where the results can be compared against all GPUs and CPUs from the last decade. </s>StevoLincolnite - Sunday, May 12, 2019 - link
GTA 5 is still demanding.Millions of gamers still play GTA 5.
It is one of the most popular games of all time.
Ergo... It is entirely relevant having GTA 5 benchies.
djayjp - Friday, May 10, 2019 - link
Then the GPU is still totally relevant.MDD1963 - Saturday, May 11, 2019 - link
Of course it is....; no one plays at 720P anymore....PeachNCream - Sunday, May 12, 2019 - link
I'd argue that hardly anyone ever played PC games at that resolution. 720p is 1280x720. Computer screens went from 4:3 resolutions to 16:10 and when that was the case, most commonly the lower resolution panels were 1280x800. When 16:9 ended up taking over, the most common lower resolution was 1366x768. Very few PC monitors were ever actually hit 720p. Even most of the low res cheap TVs out there were 1366 or 1360x768.Zoomer - Friday, June 14, 2019 - link
Doesn't matter, the performance will be similar.fep_coder - Friday, May 10, 2019 - link
My threshold for a CPU upgrade has always been 2x performance increase. It's sad that it took this many generations of CPUs to get near that point. Almost all of the systems in my upgrade chain (friends and family) are Sandy Bridge based. I guess that it's finally time to start spending money again.