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
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Danvelopment - Sunday, May 12, 2019 - link
This, they're dime a dozen because enterprise are dumping them and consumers are too scared to buy them. Mine is 8 core 16 thread with quad channel DDR3.StevoLincolnite - Friday, May 10, 2019 - link
Running a Sandy-Bridge-E setup... So even less of a need to rush out and upgrade... 6 Cores, PCI-E 3.0, Quad Channel DDR3... Overclocks to 5Ghz.Haven't found anything that I can't run yet. Been an amazing rig.
marc1000 - Sunday, May 12, 2019 - link
I'm trying to stay more focused on work and learning this year, so stopped using my i5-2500k@4ghz and re-activated an old laptop with i7-2620m (max 3.1ghz) with 12gb ram and an average SSD.As today world is heavily web-based for office-like productivity (basically reading emails, accessing online systems, and creating some documents), I'm actually amazed that this laptop is serving me so well. I use a newer i5-8350u at work, which obviously is faster, but the difference is not that much.
for users that want to stay at the top of the game, upgrading makes sense. for users that just want to use the device, it does not (unless your work actually depends of such performance increases).
soliloquist - Monday, May 13, 2019 - link
Still rockin' a 2500K!Over the years I have stuffed it full of RAM and SSDs and still works well for my needs.
AdhesiveTeflon - Monday, May 13, 2019 - link
I still have some CAD users rocking it on a 2600 (non-K) and and SSD just fine too.I left the PC world when the 2600K was king (and the glorious Q6600 before it) and came back when the i7-6xxx series was mid-life and man was I disappointed in the lack of performance jumps that we were so accustomed to from the athlon 64 -> Core 2 Duo/Quad -> i7-2600.
Alperian - Tuesday, May 14, 2019 - link
I'm still running one of these too and they were great like my Northwood before it.I am soon getting a 9900k R0 stepping if I hear good things and relegate this PC to a home Ubuntu server.
I do wish I could afford to upgrade more regularly though. 8 years is too many.
Marlin1975 - Friday, May 10, 2019 - link
Still running my 3770 as I have not seen that large a difference to upgrade. But Zen+ had me itching and Zen2 is what will finally replace my 3770/Z77 system.That and its not just about the CPU but also the upgrades in chipset/USB/etc... parts.
nathanddrews - Friday, May 10, 2019 - link
I originally wanted a 3770K, but missed the window to get a good deal when they were newer. My 3570K+1080Ti still scratches most of my itches, but it's the MMO-style games that really tank my CPU performance and starve my GPU.olde94 - Friday, May 10, 2019 - link
I had a 2500k and had to admit tha VR needed the 4 threads full so i found a brand new 3770k for 80$ which gave me 4 extra threads for the system. This was for me enough to pull most games with my gtx 970 as i rarely play MMO's....... but rendering have me keen eyed on a threadripper......
philehidiot - Friday, May 10, 2019 - link
Olde94.... I am desperately looking for an excuse to buy a Threadripper. I just can't find one.I suspect I'm just going to invest the money in a really sweet gun for target shooting instead but the nerd part of me still wants to cheap out on the gun and get a Threadripper....