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) |
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| PSU | Corsair AX860i Corsair AX1200i |
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| SSD | Crucial MX200 1TB | ||||
| OS | Windows 10 x64 RS3 1709 Spectre and Meltdown Patched |
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| *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 |
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| G.Skill RipjawsV, SniperX, FlareX |
Crucial Ballistix DDR4 |
Silverstone Coolers |
Silverstone Fans |
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kgardas - Friday, May 10, 2019 - link
Indeed, it's sad that it took ~8 years to have double performance kind of while in '90 we get that every 2-3 years. And look at the office tests, we're not there yet and we will probably never ever be as single-thread perf. increases are basically dead. Chromium compile suggests that it makes a sense to update at all -- for developers, but for office users it's nonsense if you consider just the CPU itself.chekk - Friday, May 10, 2019 - link
Thanks for the article, Ian. I like your summation: impressive and depressing.I'll be waiting to see what Zen 2 offers before upgrading my 2500K.
AshlayW - Friday, May 10, 2019 - link
Such great innovation and progress and cost-effectiveness advances from Intel between 2011 and 2017. /sYes AMD didn't do much here either, but it wasn't for lack of trying. Intel deliberately stagnated the market to bleed consumers from every single cent, and then Ryzen turns up and you get the 6 and now 8 core mainstream CPUs.
Would have liked to see 2600K versus Ryzen honestly. Ryzen 1st gen is around Ivy/Haswell performance per core in most games and second gen is haswell/broadwell. But as many games get more threaded, Ryzen's advantage will ever increase.
I owned a 2600K and it was the last product from Intel that I ever owned that I truly felt was worth its price. Even now I just can't justify spending £350-400 quid on a hexa core or octa with HT disabled when the competition has unlocked 16 threads for less money.
29a - Friday, May 10, 2019 - link
"Yes AMD didn't do much here either"I really don't understand that statement at all.
thesavvymage - Friday, May 10, 2019 - link
Theyre saying AMD didnt do much to push the price/performance envelope between 2011 and 2017. Which they didnt, since their architecture until Zen was terrible.eva02langley - Friday, May 10, 2019 - link
Yeah, you are right... it is AMD fault and not Intel who wanted to make a dime on your back selling you quadcore for life.wilsonkf - Friday, May 10, 2019 - link
Would be more interesting to add 8150/8350 to the benchmark. I run my 8350 at 4.7Ghz for five years. It's a great room heater.MDD1963 - Saturday, May 11, 2019 - link
I don't think AMD would have sold as many of the 8350s and 9590s as they did had people known that i3's and i5's outperformed them in pretty much all games, and, at lower clock speeds, no less. Many people probably bought the FX8350 because it 'sounded faster' at 4.7 GHz than did the 2600K at 'only' 3.8 GHz' , or so I speculate, anyway... (sort of like the Florida Broward county votes in 2000!)Targon - Tuesday, May 14, 2019 - link
Not everyone looks at games as the primary use of a computer. The AMD FX chips were not great when it came to IPC, in the same way that the Pentium 4 was terrible from an IPC basis. Still, the 8350 was a lot faster than the Phenom 2 processors, that's for sure.artk2219 - Wednesday, May 15, 2019 - link
I got my FX 8320 because I preferred threads over single core performance. I was much more likely to notice a lack of computing resources and multi tasking ability vs how long something took to open or run. The funny part is that even though people shit all over them, they were, and honestly still are valid chips for certain use cases. They'll still game, they can be small cheap vhosts, nas servers, you name it. The biggest problem recently is finding a decent AM3+ board to put them in.