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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mr_tawan - Sunday, May 12, 2019 - link
Just upgraded to Core i7 4790 (from i5 4460) late last year. At first I was thinking about upgrading to the shiny Ryzen 7, but overall cost is pretty high considering I have my H97 mainboard with 16GB of memory. I don't want to shell out that much money and getting stuck at older platform, again.It does work ok, with the performance around the current gen Core i5 I guess (with less power efficiency). Consider what I paid, I think it's not too bad.
just4U - Sunday, May 12, 2019 - link
A interesting read there Ian. I started to notice a slow down on 2600K class systems a few years ago when I worked on them.. (I hadn't used one since 2014) For me.. If I can notice those slowdowns in real time then it's time to move away from that CPU. The 4790K appears to still be holding up ok but older 3000/2000 chips not so well.crotach - Sunday, May 12, 2019 - link
Still running 3930k Sandy Bridge.Maybe Ryzen 3000 will give me a reason to upgrade.
AndrewJacksonZA - Sunday, May 12, 2019 - link
Best quote out of the entire article:"In 2019, the landscape has changed: gamers gonna stream, designers gonna design, scientists gonna simulate, and emulators gonna emulate" :-)
But seriously though, for me, when I upgraded from a Core2Duo E6750 with 4GB of RAM to an i7-6700 (non-K) with 16GB of RAM, it was simply amazing. I was fully expecting that going from an i7-2600K to an i7-9700K would be similar - and it is for things like compiling but not for things like gaming.
Thanks for the aricle, Ian! Dig the LAN setup. :-)
Targon - Sunday, May 12, 2019 - link
Why would you test a CPU and use a framerate test from Civilization 6, rather than the turn length benchmark which is a true test of the CPU rather than the GPU? Turn based games SHOULD be there as CPU tests, and only caring about the framerates seems to be wrong.Oxford Guy - Sunday, May 12, 2019 - link
When your overclock fails in one test you're unstable.When it fails in four, as in this article, you're both unstable and laughable.
"Had issues". "For whatever reason". I will assume this is all intended to be humor.
DeltaIO - Monday, May 13, 2019 - link
Interesting article to read. I've only recently upgraded from my 2600k to the 9700k, even that was begrudgingly as the 2600k itself still works fine, however the motherboard simply decided to give up on me.I've got to say though, the difference in the subsystems (NVMe vs SSD makes for some great load times for pretty much everything) as well as other tangible benefits (gaming at higher frame rates) is quite apparent now I have upgraded.
I would have upgraded far sooner had Intel not chosen to keep changing the sockets, swapping out just a CPU is far simpler than rebuilding the entire system.
Tedaz - Monday, May 13, 2019 - link
Expecting i9-9900K joins the article.Badelhas - Monday, May 13, 2019 - link
I an still with a 2500K overclocked to 4.8Ghz, 8Gb of DDR3 1600Mhz RAM and, a 850 Evo SSD and a Nvidia 1070. I honestly see no reason to upgrade.IAN: All your testing basically demonstrated that there is no real reason that justifies spending 400 bucks for a new CPU, 200 bucks for a new Motherboard and 100 bucks for new DDR4 Ram - This totals 700 dollars. But your conclusion is that we should upgrade?! I dont get it.
tmanini - Monday, May 13, 2019 - link
Go ahead and re-read his "Bottom Line" concluding articles: gives a few specific recommendations where is may and may not be to your advantage. And if you aren't desiring/needing all of the other new bells/whistles that go along with newer boards and architecture, then you are set (he says).Seems pretty clear.