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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fangdahai - Friday, May 10, 2019 - link
Same here, 3770. It's still fast enough......at least no big difference with the last Intel CPU.Fallen Kell - Saturday, May 11, 2019 - link
Yeah. In many cases it is very sad when you look at this article. It has effectively taken a decade to finally get to the point that there is a worthwile upgrade in CPU performance. Prior to this, we were seeing CPU performance double every couple of years. A case in point is to look at an article from 2015 that did a comparison of CPUs over the last decade (i.e. ~2005 - 2015) and over that timeframe you saw a 6x performance increase in memory bandwidth and 8x - 10x CPU computational increase. But looking from 2011 to 2019 we barely see a doubling in performance (and then only on select use cases), while at the same time the price of said CPU is 25% more. It is no wonder why people have not been upgrading. Why spend $1000 for new CPU, motherboard, RAM to only gain 25-40% performance? We are just finally hitting that point now that people start to consider it worth that price.That all being said, it would have been nice to have included at least 1 AMD CPU in theses benchmarks for comparison. Sure, we can go to the review bench to get it, but having it here for some easy comparison would have been nice, especially given how Intel has seemed to have decided to innovating and purposely taking a dive (almost as if they feared regulatory actions from the USA/EU for effectively being a "monopoly" and to avoid such actions decided to simply stop releasing anything really competitive until AMD was able to get their act together again and have a competitive CPU...).
Zoomer - Thursday, June 13, 2019 - link
Funny thing is, last time it happened, Intel needed AMD to give it a kick in the nuts. Maybe this time too?mode_13h - Saturday, May 11, 2019 - link
I figured I'd wait for PCIe 4.0, to upgrade. With Zen2, I guess my chance is here.Wardrop - Saturday, May 11, 2019 - link
Yep, same. Hoping to replace my 3770k with Zen 2. Looking to down-size my chassis too with a Sliger case. Hopefully Zen 2 doesn't disappoint.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.
gambiting - Friday, May 10, 2019 - link
Still have a 2600(not even the K model) running in a living room PC, paired with a GTX1050Ti and an SSD - runs everything without any issues, been playing Sekiro and Division 2 on it without any problems, locked 1080p@60fps. Progress is all good and fine, but these "old" CPUs have loads of life in them still.Potatooo - Wednesday, May 15, 2019 - link
Me too. I haven't had much time for video games the last couple of years to justify $$$, but putting a 1050ti in an old i2600 office PC has kept me happy the last 18 month's or so (eg 55ish fps for Far Cry 5 ND medium/1080, 70 fps+ Forza 7/FH4 high/1080). I'm about to try a S/H RX580 which will probably be a bridge too far, but at least I'll get freesync.GNUminex_l_cowsay - Friday, May 10, 2019 - link
Dare I look at the CIV 6 benchmarks; knowing they are pointless? What sort of idiot tests cpu performance in CIV 6 using FPS rather than turn times? I don't know who specifically but they write for anandtech.RealBeast - Friday, May 10, 2019 - link
Certainly not a Civ 6 player. ;)