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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Ranger90125 - Tuesday, May 14, 2019 - link
Using a 4790K for years and increasingly disillusioned with Intel's shady practices and lack of progress. Last AMD processor was an Athlon 64 3400 from the glory days of Intel decimated by the competition. Next processor will be 7nm Zen and I look forward to Intel being under the cosh for as long as AMD can manage it. Thanks for a great nostalgic read...I liked the lean and mean Cutress LAN machine :)akyp - Tuesday, May 14, 2019 - link
In less than 5 months my i7-860 will celebrate its 10th birthday. I've been keeping an eye on Ryzen 3 and Navi but never feel the need to upgrade (unless something goes wrong). It doesn't feel any slower than my work-issued i7-6700.curley60 - Tuesday, May 14, 2019 - link
About 5 years ago I went backwards and downgraded(?) my Core i7 2600K to a Gulftown Core i7 990x when they became affordable. The Core i7 990x on my Asus Rampage Formula is running @ 4.660 and is really quite faster in all benchmarks than the Core i7 2600K. Those gulftown processors were ahead of their time. Sure a core i7 7700k is 18% faster in single core work but the 990x destroys it in multi-threaded work. As long as it keeps running I'm going to keep using it with my current GTX 1080ti.Potatooo - Wednesday, May 15, 2019 - link
Would like to see comparisons with a more budget GPU (e.g. 1060/580) and 1080p gaming, probably a more realistic pairing.Bash99 - Wednesday, May 15, 2019 - link
It's wired Handbrake 1.1 hevc 1080p encoding can have 60 fps with x265, even in very fast setting, I can only got 1x fps.rexhab - Thursday, May 16, 2019 - link
I just upgrad from a 5 2500 to a i7 2600K ;) ^^ballsystemlord - Thursday, May 16, 2019 - link
Spelling and grammar corrections:"Sandy Bridge as a whole was a much more dynamic of a beast than anything that's come before it."
Excess "of a":
"Sandy Bridge as a whole was a much more dynamic beast than anything that's come before it."
"They also have AVX2, which draw a lot of power in our power test."
Missing "s":
"They also have AVX2, which draws a lot of power in our power test."
oktat - Sunday, May 19, 2019 - link
would you update the civilization vi ai turn time when technical issues fixed?bullshooter4040 - Wednesday, May 22, 2019 - link
This was a fun article to read through. A great look into the CPU that defined the decade and a wonderful send-off (or not!?!) to the greatest CPU processor since the Core 2 Duo.Up until last year, I had the younger cousin: i5 2500k, which with a lack of hyper-threading, made it much more difficult to keep up in much more CPU intensive tasks (even for a gamer) in 2018 and I made the switch to team orange.
Ryzen is here now, promising longevity, of not just its CPU, but more importantly - the AM4 platform - something that Intel did not accomplish with any of it's processors.
With the Ryzen 3000 series, It's time to jump on board.
PyroHoltz - Thursday, May 30, 2019 - link
NVMe is fully possible on the 2600k gen motherboards, just takes a bit of BIOS modifications to add the appropriate drivers.