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
Power Consumption
One of the risk factors in overclocking is driving the processor beyond its ideal point of power and performance. Processors are typically manufactured with a particular sweet spot in mind: the peak efficiency of a processor will be at a particular voltage and particular frequency combination, and any deviation from that mark will result in expending extra energy (usually for better performance).
When Intel first introduced the Skylake family, this efficiency point was a key element to its product portfolio. Some CPUs would test and detect the best efficiency point on POST, making sure that when the system was idle, the least power is drawn. When the CPU is actually running code however, the system raises the frequency and voltage in order to offer performance away from that peak efficiency point. If a user pushes that frequency a lot higher, voltage needs to increase and power consumption rises.
So when overclocking a processor, either one of the newer ones or even an old processor, the user ends up expending more energy for the same workload, albeit to get the workload performed faster as well. For our power testing, we took the peak power consumption values during an all-thread version of POV-Ray, using the CPU internal metrics to record full SoC power.
The Core i7-2600K was built on Intel’s 32nm process, while the i7-7700K and i7-9700K were built on variants of Intel’s 14nm process family. These latter two, as shown in the benchmarks in this review, have considerable performance advantages due to microarchitectural, platform, and frequency improvements that the more efficient process node offers. They also have AVX2, which draw a lot of power in our power test.
In our peak power results graph, we see the Core i7-2600K at stock (3.5 GHz all-core) hitting only 88W, while the Core i7-7700K at stock (4.3 GHz all-core) at 95 W. These results are both respectable, however adding the overclock to the 2600K, to hit 4.7 GHz all-core, shows how much extra power is needed. At 116W, the 34% overclock is consuming 31% more power (for 24% more performance) when comparing to the 2600K at stock.
The Core i7-9700K, with eight full cores, goes above and beyond this, drawing 124W at stock. While Intel’s power policy didn’t change between the generations, the way it ended up being interpreted did, as explained in our article here:
Why Intel Processors Draw More Power Than Expected: TDP and Turbo Explained
You can also learn about power control on Intel’s latest CPUs in our original Skylake review:
The Intel Skylake Mobile and Desktop Launch, with Architecture Analysis
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
213 Comments
View All Comments
XXxPro_bowler420xXx - Saturday, May 11, 2019 - link
I am running a 3570 as my computer here at school. With a $50 1050Ti and 16gb of ram.godrilla - Friday, May 10, 2019 - link
I would love to see a 6 core i7 980xe overclocked to 4.3 ghz with 2 ghz 12 gig ram triple channel memory vs all these quad cores. < my rig. Playing all games at max settings for example shadow of Tomb Raider max settings at 3440x1440p getting 60fps gsync helps with frame variance smoothness. Metro Exodus extreme settings plus tesselation, physx and hairworks getting average 60fps same resolution with 1080ti ftw3.Ratman6161 - Friday, May 10, 2019 - link
"there is only one or two reasons to stick to that old system, even when overclocked. The obvious reason is cost"I have to disagree with that statement. My reason for my trusty 2600K still running is that its a wonderful "hand-me-down" system. I was running my 2600K as my primary system right up until I went Ryzen. At that point, my old system became my wife's new system. I toned down the overclock to 4.2 Ghz so I could slap a cheap but quiet cooler on it and for her uses (MS Office, email, web browsing, etc) it is a great system and plenty fast enough. My old Samsung 850 EVO SDD went along with it since in my newer system I've got a 960 EVO, but other than gaining that SSD along the way, its had no significant upgrades since 2011.
For someone who could easily get by on something like an i3-8100 or i5-7xxx, the 2600K hand-me-down is a great option.
WJMazepas - Friday, May 10, 2019 - link
My main PC still have a i5-760 so i believe its time to upgradexrror - Friday, May 10, 2019 - link
lol indeed!HStewart - Friday, May 10, 2019 - link
Personally I have not owned or cared for a desktop since my Dual Xeon 5150, it 12 years old and for a while until later i7's came out it was fastest machine in around. Back then I was into 3D rendering and even built a render farm - also serious into games with latest NVidia Graphics cards.But since then I went mobile and less graphics and try to less games but still like get out Command & Conquer and Company of Hero's - never much a first person shooter. So for me a higher end laptop would do me fine - for a longest time Lenovo Y50 was good - but Lenovo for me had build issues... but when the Dell XPS 13 2in1 came out it was great for some things portability was great and still use it because it nice to travel with documents and such. But I wanted a faster machine so when the Dell XPS 15 2in1 was announce, I jump onto bandwagon almost fully loaded 4k screen is probably a waste on it because I am getting older - graphics is slightly better than the 3 year old Y50, but CPU is extremely faster than the Lenovo. Some older games have trouble with GPU, and professional graphics like Vue 2016 have trouble with GPU.
But I will be 60 in couple of years and need to grow up from games.
I think my next computer is going to be something different, I want a portable always online - cellular device - I thought about a iPad with cellular but I think I am going wait for Lakefield device, small device with long battery life and connected. My experience with iOS and Android over time is always the same thing - great when first started out - but later there battery drop and performance drops with OS upgrades - when if you think about it no different than with Windows. Even though I am a technical person, never a Linux person - just does not fit with me even when I try it.
eva02langley - Friday, May 10, 2019 - link
GTA V is 5 years old... your game suites is horrible. At this point, I would just do a 3Dmark benchmark.Qasar - Saturday, May 11, 2019 - link
eva02... the games they test.. i dont even play them.....eastcoast_pete - Friday, May 10, 2019 - link
Thanks Ian! The most disappointing aspect of the newer Intel i7s vs. Sandy Bridge is the underwhelming progress on performance/Wh. How much more efficiency did the multiple changes in manufacturing and design really gain? Judging by the numbers, not that much. The amazing thing about Sandy Bridge was that it did boost performance, and did so at significantly improved perf/Wh. At this moment, we seem to be back to Athlon vs. P4 days: the progress is most noticeable with the chips that say "AMD" on them.Qwertilot - Friday, May 10, 2019 - link
In general, I think they did gain a lot of perf/Wh. Just not at the very top end. They've been pushing the clocks on the recent i7's incredibly hard.